Jameson, Anna: Companion to the most celebrated private galleries of art in London: containing accurate catalogues, arranged alphabetically, for immediate reference, each preceded by an historical & critical introduction, with a prefactory essay on art, artists, collectors & connoisseurs (London: Saunders and Otley, 1844)

INTRODUCTION.

The collection of Sir Robert Peel has been formed entirely
by himself, and is distinguished, in some respects, from all
other private collections with which I am acquainted. It
is as if the owner had intended to comprise within the
smallest space the largest possible amount of excellence and
beauty and invested wealth. With the exception of about
twenty portraits of the English school, and two chefs
d’ceuvre by Rubens, all the pictures are of one school and
one age—the Dutch school, properly so called, and by
painters of the seventeenth century;—all are cabinet pic-
tures; each is a chef d’cezcvre of its class and style. Not
only there is not one mediocre picture in the collection,
but there is not one which is not of celebrity and first rate.
It is in this respect the most remarkable and valuable col-
lection with which I am acquainted. Where every picture
has been selected for its known reputation and rarity, as
well as its intrinsic beauty—where every picture is, in its
way, a miracle—it were idle to point out any particular
work to particular notice. Individual taste will, of course,
determine the preference, where the most consummate
critic would not venture to pronounce a superiority. Cer-
tain subjects harmonize most with our own minds, and
possess the kind of merit we can best appreciate; to these
the attention is involuntarily directed—these unconsciously
fix themselves in the memory, though the true connoisseur
would assuredly reject such a predilection as a criterion of
excellence or value. This being premised and understood,