DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63299#0088
78
THE PICTURE GALLERT OF CHARLES I.
original, is in the South Kensington Museum). There is in the Dresden
Gallery (No. 124) an interesting adaptation of the exquisite little
piece, on a much enlarged scale, and with many variations, by Dosso
Dossi. The splendid, erratic genius of the Ferrarese master has been
infused into the design, of which with his exuberance, he contrives to
make a new thing. This picture was long ascribed to Gianfrancesco
Penni, Il Fattore, but was by Giovanni Morelli restored to the rightful
author.
King Charles’s contemporaries looked upon the Madonna and Child
with St. John and St. Anne, now known as La Perla, as the gem of the
royal gallery, and on its dispersion by the Commonwealth it was estimated
at and actually brought ^2,000, or double the price commanded by
anything else in the collection. Now—how fallen from its high estate !
—it is rightly looked upon as a Raphaelesque composition, designed in
the main by the master, but as to its execution, as a production which
the divine Sanzio left entirely to Giulio Romano and other pupils.
Now, No 369 in the Prado Gallery of Madrid, it hangs with its shadows
intensified to the point of blackness, but otherwise in fair repair, next
broken, and his sword in his hand”—a description applying well to the Louvre picture
and ill to that of the Hermitage. Miss Cartwright goes on to assert that the “ little
St. George” in Charles’s collection was the Louvre picture, and that it was from thence
purchased by Cardinal Mazarin, out of whose collection it passed to that of Louis XIV.
She overlooks, however, an important piece of evidence, demonstrating, beyond the
possibility of a doubt, the exact contrary. This is afforded by the engraving of the St.
Petersburg picture (in reverse) done by Lucas Vorsterman in 1627 for the Earl of
Pembroke and dedicated to him, with an elaborate inscription recording the fact that it
was one of his rarities. In 1628 or thereabouts the Lord Chamberlain, as has been
seen, passed the picture on to Charles I. It may be argued that this does not abso-
lutely negative Miss Cartwright’s main contention, but it certainly very much weakens
it. It must be borne in mind that there is nothing, save the description above given,
to connect the entry in Henry VIII.’s Inventory in any way with Raphael. The
manner of representing St. George which it indicates, though rare, was not unique,
as we see from the great Henry HII. and his family, with St. George slaying the Dragon,
just now referred to (Windsor Castle). Here, in a distant plain, is represented a
colossal St. George mounted on a brown charger, encountering with his falchion the
dragon, while on the ground lies the broken tilting-spear. It has just been shown
that this last picture afterwards found its way, like the famous Christina, Duchess of
Milan, by Holbein, from the Royal collection into that of the Earl of Arundel. In
some such fashion, no doubt, the St. Petersburg St. George passed from the collection
left behind by Henry VIII. into that of the Earl of Pembroke.
THE PICTURE GALLERT OF CHARLES I.
original, is in the South Kensington Museum). There is in the Dresden
Gallery (No. 124) an interesting adaptation of the exquisite little
piece, on a much enlarged scale, and with many variations, by Dosso
Dossi. The splendid, erratic genius of the Ferrarese master has been
infused into the design, of which with his exuberance, he contrives to
make a new thing. This picture was long ascribed to Gianfrancesco
Penni, Il Fattore, but was by Giovanni Morelli restored to the rightful
author.
King Charles’s contemporaries looked upon the Madonna and Child
with St. John and St. Anne, now known as La Perla, as the gem of the
royal gallery, and on its dispersion by the Commonwealth it was estimated
at and actually brought ^2,000, or double the price commanded by
anything else in the collection. Now—how fallen from its high estate !
—it is rightly looked upon as a Raphaelesque composition, designed in
the main by the master, but as to its execution, as a production which
the divine Sanzio left entirely to Giulio Romano and other pupils.
Now, No 369 in the Prado Gallery of Madrid, it hangs with its shadows
intensified to the point of blackness, but otherwise in fair repair, next
broken, and his sword in his hand”—a description applying well to the Louvre picture
and ill to that of the Hermitage. Miss Cartwright goes on to assert that the “ little
St. George” in Charles’s collection was the Louvre picture, and that it was from thence
purchased by Cardinal Mazarin, out of whose collection it passed to that of Louis XIV.
She overlooks, however, an important piece of evidence, demonstrating, beyond the
possibility of a doubt, the exact contrary. This is afforded by the engraving of the St.
Petersburg picture (in reverse) done by Lucas Vorsterman in 1627 for the Earl of
Pembroke and dedicated to him, with an elaborate inscription recording the fact that it
was one of his rarities. In 1628 or thereabouts the Lord Chamberlain, as has been
seen, passed the picture on to Charles I. It may be argued that this does not abso-
lutely negative Miss Cartwright’s main contention, but it certainly very much weakens
it. It must be borne in mind that there is nothing, save the description above given,
to connect the entry in Henry VIII.’s Inventory in any way with Raphael. The
manner of representing St. George which it indicates, though rare, was not unique,
as we see from the great Henry HII. and his family, with St. George slaying the Dragon,
just now referred to (Windsor Castle). Here, in a distant plain, is represented a
colossal St. George mounted on a brown charger, encountering with his falchion the
dragon, while on the ground lies the broken tilting-spear. It has just been shown
that this last picture afterwards found its way, like the famous Christina, Duchess of
Milan, by Holbein, from the Royal collection into that of the Earl of Arundel. In
some such fashion, no doubt, the St. Petersburg St. George passed from the collection
left behind by Henry VIII. into that of the Earl of Pembroke.