DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61252#0033
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
xxix
the Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin; those of the Dues de
Grammont, de Noailles, de Hautefeuille; those of Colbert,
Marquis de Seignelai, son of the great minister; of Tam-
bonceau, de Launay, the Abbe Descamps, and M. de Chan-
telou. The old catalogue of the Palais Royal, published in
1724, includes four hundred and ninety-one pictures, of
which the descriptions and measurements are sufficiently
exact to enable us to identify them. The genuineness of
about twenty has been disputed; ten out of the sixteen
Raphaels, seven out of thirteen Correggios, and four out of
twenty-nine Titians, have been in these more critical times
pronounced doubtful or spurious.
The Regent died in 1723—before the pictures he had
coveted were all hung up—before he could have seen some
of them—before the catalogue, which was to make his
gallery famous and envied through all Europe, was printed.
The son of this accomplished, but most abandoned and
vicious prince, was a weak, but a conscientious bigot.
He has been consigned to the detestation and ridicule
of all lovers of pictures, for wreaking his pious fury
on the Correggios—the Leda, the Io, and the Danae. To
confess the truth, (though the confession will savour of
prudery to those who lay down the principle that beauty
is in itself a consecration, and that to the pure all things
are pure,) I have not made up my mind to condemn him
absolutely. We must remember that the bulk of those who
visit a public gallery are not critics in art; in what is vicious
and sensual as well as beautiful, they will see the vice as well
as the beauty, perhaps only the vice. I am not sure that
the loss to the world would have been very great, if those
mutilated Correggios had never been restored; and the
memory of Correggio had surely been fairer had he never
painted them. But enough of this. The next Duke of
Orleans, the Regent’s grandson, was a common-place man :
he did not cut up his pictures, certainly; he scrupled to
xxix
the Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin; those of the Dues de
Grammont, de Noailles, de Hautefeuille; those of Colbert,
Marquis de Seignelai, son of the great minister; of Tam-
bonceau, de Launay, the Abbe Descamps, and M. de Chan-
telou. The old catalogue of the Palais Royal, published in
1724, includes four hundred and ninety-one pictures, of
which the descriptions and measurements are sufficiently
exact to enable us to identify them. The genuineness of
about twenty has been disputed; ten out of the sixteen
Raphaels, seven out of thirteen Correggios, and four out of
twenty-nine Titians, have been in these more critical times
pronounced doubtful or spurious.
The Regent died in 1723—before the pictures he had
coveted were all hung up—before he could have seen some
of them—before the catalogue, which was to make his
gallery famous and envied through all Europe, was printed.
The son of this accomplished, but most abandoned and
vicious prince, was a weak, but a conscientious bigot.
He has been consigned to the detestation and ridicule
of all lovers of pictures, for wreaking his pious fury
on the Correggios—the Leda, the Io, and the Danae. To
confess the truth, (though the confession will savour of
prudery to those who lay down the principle that beauty
is in itself a consecration, and that to the pure all things
are pure,) I have not made up my mind to condemn him
absolutely. We must remember that the bulk of those who
visit a public gallery are not critics in art; in what is vicious
and sensual as well as beautiful, they will see the vice as well
as the beauty, perhaps only the vice. I am not sure that
the loss to the world would have been very great, if those
mutilated Correggios had never been restored; and the
memory of Correggio had surely been fairer had he never
painted them. But enough of this. The next Duke of
Orleans, the Regent’s grandson, was a common-place man :
he did not cut up his pictures, certainly; he scrupled to