DOI issue:
August 31, 1867
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16880#0101
August 31, 1867.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
89
BOOBIES AT BOSTON (U.S.)
Boston is a pretty place,”
the Yankee song says,
“ And so is Philadelphy.”
Particularly Boston, how-
ever, one would infer from
the subjoined item of in-
telligence :—
“ Evil Effects of Boat-
Racing.—A Boston religious
paper proposes to abolish the
Annual Boat Races between
Yale and Harvard, for the reason
that they destroy good feeling
between colleges, interfere with
studies and foster dissipation.”
Boston, indeed, must be
a pretty considerable place
to contain a number of
sanctimonious spoonies
large enough to support
a paper capable of propos-
ing to put down the manly
sport of boat-racing. These
miserable creatures pro-
bably belong to the tee-
total section of fanatical nincompoops. Are there any such in England ?
The United Kingdom Alliance may be with too much reason suspected ot
containing members who would like, if they were able, to do away with
the Oxford and Cambridge annual boat-race on the Thames on the ridicu-
lous plea that it destroys good feeling between the two Universities,
and interferes with the studies of the undergraduates, but for the real
reason that it occasions large quantities of beer to be consumed at
Putney, Barnes, and Hammersmith.
RUBENS AND REMBRANDT
VERSUS
ELCHO AND AUCTIONEER.
Lord Elcho is Mr. Punch’s good friend at Wimbledon, and a plea-
sant, courteous, kindly gentleman anywhere. He is an enthusiastic
and excellent Yolunteer officer, and has a reputation for connoisseurship
in Art. He had better take care how he airs that reputation in the
House of Commons. There is no place where connoisseurship habitually
talks more nonsense, and where Art has sorer reason to cry “ Save me
from my friends ! ” And if ever that cry should have been heard, it was
when Lord Elcho was attacking the authorities of the National
Gallery for cleaning: the Beaumont Rubens, and for buying the
Suermondt Rembrandt. Nobody knows better than Mr. Punch the
danger of trusting fine pictures to common cleaners, or the ruin that
is usually involved in so-called “ restoration.” But nobody knows
better, also, the conceited ignorance of the connoisseurship that talks ot
the dimness of dirt and the brown-incrustation of old varnish or
liquorice water, as “the mellowing hand of time,” or the “exquisite
tone of the painter’s final glazing.”
Mr. Boxall and Mr. Wornum have had the courage to brave this
talk, and the power to persuade the Trustees of the National Gallery
that it may and ought to be braved in the interests of the great painters
and the great public. They have had most carefully removed, under
their own watchful superintendence, the darkened linseed oil with
which Sir George Beaumont (who relished “a bit of the brown” in
a picture, as Dr. Johnson did in a roast fillet of veal) had bedaubed
the magnificent Rubens landscape, which he bequeathed to the
National Gallery. Not a touch of colour, nor an inch of restora-
tion has been allowed. The foul oil has been removed, nothing
else; and the picture has been restored to its original splendour
of green trees, and glowing grass, and evening sky of azure and
gold, and tender distance or etherial blue. And this blessed trans-
formation from Sir George Beaumont’s “ mellowness ” to the great,
Antwerp painter’s pristine splendour of nature, Lord Elcho was ill-
advised enough to talk of in the House of Commons, as “ a reduction
from a glowing Rubens to a cold blue picture.” Why the operation is
the very reverse. It is the resurrection of a glowing Rubens out of
Sir George Beaumont’s brown mud-bath. Lord Elcho will not
dispute the authority of the late C. L. Leslie, as profound and capable
a lover of his art, and as unimpeachable a witness to fact in connection
with it, as ever lived or wrote. Mr. Coleridge quoted the passage
in the House for Lord Elcho’s benefit; but it was not printed, and its
purport is incorrectly rendered by the reporters. Mr. Punch supplies it
‘‘Much has been said,” writes Leslie in his Handbook for Young
Painters (p. 218), “about what has been taken from the pictures in
the National Gallery, but nothing about what has been put on them.
I do not believe that anything injurious has been added to them since
the establishment of the gallery, unless it may be oil varnish, which
has become more yellow ; but about, the beginning of the present cen-
tury it was not unfrequent for the possessors of old pictures to have
them toned, as it was called. The noble landscape by Rubens, then the
property of Sir George Beaumont, was saturated with linseed oil to pre-
vent its scaling from its panel, and this was suffered to d/ry on the surface.
There is, therefore, under the deep yellow coating which novo covers it, a
fresh and natural picture, the picture Rubens left, and which the world
may never be permitted to see again’’
Happily, since Leslie wrote, the direction of the National Gallery
has fallen into the hands of one who adds courage to his reverence for
old Art, and thanks to that courage, we have been permitted once
more to see Rubens’s chateau as Rubens painted it, and not through
Sir George Beaumont’s mask of linseed oil. Eor this good work
Mr. Boxall is now hauled over the coals by Lord Elcho, who
has allowed himself to echo the charges of some persistent assailants
of the National Gallery direction, into whatever hands it falls. It is a
case of eyes against prejudice, of nature versus convention, of Rubens
against Beaumont, of the summer’s green and blue and gold against
the varnish-maker’s brown. Let all who remember what the picture
was go and see what it is ; and let them do homage to the courage that
has prompted and sanctioned this work of rightly called restoration.
Lord Elcho was not happier, we venture to think, in his attack on
the picture of Christ Blessing Little Children, bought for a Rembrandt,
from the Suermondt collection at Aix-la-Chapelle. Even if an emi-
nent auctioneer have assured Lord Elcho that the picture would
fetch nothing at Christie and Manson’s, that may prove a good deal
as to the judgment of bidders at Christie and Manson’s, but it
proves nothing as to the merits of the picture. Here, again, we
appeal from Lord Elcho and his auctioneer to eyes that can recog-
nise, still more to hearts that can feel, expression. Let them go, and
study the face of that Christ, who tenderly lays his hand on the head
of the child, the mother who checks the child’s wandering attention,
the group of men and women who press curiously round the Master.
The Master’s face may be homely, the hand may be ill-shaped, the
child may be an ugly little Dutch toddler, the mother a common, un-
lovely Amsterdam house wife, the surrounding gazers the veriest Holland
homespuns ever painted; but look at the depths of sorrowing tender-
ness, infinite love, ineffable yearning, in the expression of that face, and
the action of that hand! Look at the perfect mastery of childish
character in the central little one, the mingled awe, veneration, and
faith in the mother, the play of emotion, variously shaded curiosity,
impatience, doubt, belief—in the crowd. And when you have looked,
long and well, do not consult Lord Elcho’s auctioneer about the value
of the picture; ask your own hearts, is not this the work of one of the
greatest geniuses that ever recorded humanity and divinity upon
canvas, and what genius of this calibre is to be found in the school
from which this picture comes, except Rembrandt ?
CITY INTELLIGENCE.
For persons like ourselves who know nothing about business, the
money market news is often full of mysteries. Here, for instance, is a
puzzling morsel of intelligence :—
“ The general rate for the best bills out of doors is If per cent.”
We know less about arithmetic than even about business: else
perhaps we might be tempted to propound a rule of three sum to the
following effect:—If the rate for the best bills out of doors is If per
cent., what per-centage would be given for a bad bill rated indoors ?
In our ignorance we wonder what is meant by bills being rated out of
doors. Are bills affected by the open air, and have they a different
value when paid somewhere within doors, or somewhere else alfresco?
A Hint to Publishers.
Advertisements ought to be more explicit. A musical friend of
ours, an enthusiast about the Opera and Opera singers, seeing the
announcement of the contents of a weekly periodical headed. “ Indus-
trious Lucca,” instantly sent out for the number, in the belief that it
would give him some gossip about the famous Pauline, and perhaps
state the sum total of her earnings during the past Season. His disap-
pointment may be imagined when he found that the article was all
about an Italian city and its works and buildings, and had no more to
do with Pauline Lucca than it had with Pauline Deschapelles !
Malmesbury’s English again.
His Lordship says to The Times, “ Having more than once described
it as mine proprio motu, I shall feel obliged to you to publish this
statement.” Your Latin is unexceptionable, my Lord, but your English
is less convincing. Do you mean that you repeatedly stated what you
object to ? Then why say that you did ?
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
89
BOOBIES AT BOSTON (U.S.)
Boston is a pretty place,”
the Yankee song says,
“ And so is Philadelphy.”
Particularly Boston, how-
ever, one would infer from
the subjoined item of in-
telligence :—
“ Evil Effects of Boat-
Racing.—A Boston religious
paper proposes to abolish the
Annual Boat Races between
Yale and Harvard, for the reason
that they destroy good feeling
between colleges, interfere with
studies and foster dissipation.”
Boston, indeed, must be
a pretty considerable place
to contain a number of
sanctimonious spoonies
large enough to support
a paper capable of propos-
ing to put down the manly
sport of boat-racing. These
miserable creatures pro-
bably belong to the tee-
total section of fanatical nincompoops. Are there any such in England ?
The United Kingdom Alliance may be with too much reason suspected ot
containing members who would like, if they were able, to do away with
the Oxford and Cambridge annual boat-race on the Thames on the ridicu-
lous plea that it destroys good feeling between the two Universities,
and interferes with the studies of the undergraduates, but for the real
reason that it occasions large quantities of beer to be consumed at
Putney, Barnes, and Hammersmith.
RUBENS AND REMBRANDT
VERSUS
ELCHO AND AUCTIONEER.
Lord Elcho is Mr. Punch’s good friend at Wimbledon, and a plea-
sant, courteous, kindly gentleman anywhere. He is an enthusiastic
and excellent Yolunteer officer, and has a reputation for connoisseurship
in Art. He had better take care how he airs that reputation in the
House of Commons. There is no place where connoisseurship habitually
talks more nonsense, and where Art has sorer reason to cry “ Save me
from my friends ! ” And if ever that cry should have been heard, it was
when Lord Elcho was attacking the authorities of the National
Gallery for cleaning: the Beaumont Rubens, and for buying the
Suermondt Rembrandt. Nobody knows better than Mr. Punch the
danger of trusting fine pictures to common cleaners, or the ruin that
is usually involved in so-called “ restoration.” But nobody knows
better, also, the conceited ignorance of the connoisseurship that talks ot
the dimness of dirt and the brown-incrustation of old varnish or
liquorice water, as “the mellowing hand of time,” or the “exquisite
tone of the painter’s final glazing.”
Mr. Boxall and Mr. Wornum have had the courage to brave this
talk, and the power to persuade the Trustees of the National Gallery
that it may and ought to be braved in the interests of the great painters
and the great public. They have had most carefully removed, under
their own watchful superintendence, the darkened linseed oil with
which Sir George Beaumont (who relished “a bit of the brown” in
a picture, as Dr. Johnson did in a roast fillet of veal) had bedaubed
the magnificent Rubens landscape, which he bequeathed to the
National Gallery. Not a touch of colour, nor an inch of restora-
tion has been allowed. The foul oil has been removed, nothing
else; and the picture has been restored to its original splendour
of green trees, and glowing grass, and evening sky of azure and
gold, and tender distance or etherial blue. And this blessed trans-
formation from Sir George Beaumont’s “ mellowness ” to the great,
Antwerp painter’s pristine splendour of nature, Lord Elcho was ill-
advised enough to talk of in the House of Commons, as “ a reduction
from a glowing Rubens to a cold blue picture.” Why the operation is
the very reverse. It is the resurrection of a glowing Rubens out of
Sir George Beaumont’s brown mud-bath. Lord Elcho will not
dispute the authority of the late C. L. Leslie, as profound and capable
a lover of his art, and as unimpeachable a witness to fact in connection
with it, as ever lived or wrote. Mr. Coleridge quoted the passage
in the House for Lord Elcho’s benefit; but it was not printed, and its
purport is incorrectly rendered by the reporters. Mr. Punch supplies it
‘‘Much has been said,” writes Leslie in his Handbook for Young
Painters (p. 218), “about what has been taken from the pictures in
the National Gallery, but nothing about what has been put on them.
I do not believe that anything injurious has been added to them since
the establishment of the gallery, unless it may be oil varnish, which
has become more yellow ; but about, the beginning of the present cen-
tury it was not unfrequent for the possessors of old pictures to have
them toned, as it was called. The noble landscape by Rubens, then the
property of Sir George Beaumont, was saturated with linseed oil to pre-
vent its scaling from its panel, and this was suffered to d/ry on the surface.
There is, therefore, under the deep yellow coating which novo covers it, a
fresh and natural picture, the picture Rubens left, and which the world
may never be permitted to see again’’
Happily, since Leslie wrote, the direction of the National Gallery
has fallen into the hands of one who adds courage to his reverence for
old Art, and thanks to that courage, we have been permitted once
more to see Rubens’s chateau as Rubens painted it, and not through
Sir George Beaumont’s mask of linseed oil. Eor this good work
Mr. Boxall is now hauled over the coals by Lord Elcho, who
has allowed himself to echo the charges of some persistent assailants
of the National Gallery direction, into whatever hands it falls. It is a
case of eyes against prejudice, of nature versus convention, of Rubens
against Beaumont, of the summer’s green and blue and gold against
the varnish-maker’s brown. Let all who remember what the picture
was go and see what it is ; and let them do homage to the courage that
has prompted and sanctioned this work of rightly called restoration.
Lord Elcho was not happier, we venture to think, in his attack on
the picture of Christ Blessing Little Children, bought for a Rembrandt,
from the Suermondt collection at Aix-la-Chapelle. Even if an emi-
nent auctioneer have assured Lord Elcho that the picture would
fetch nothing at Christie and Manson’s, that may prove a good deal
as to the judgment of bidders at Christie and Manson’s, but it
proves nothing as to the merits of the picture. Here, again, we
appeal from Lord Elcho and his auctioneer to eyes that can recog-
nise, still more to hearts that can feel, expression. Let them go, and
study the face of that Christ, who tenderly lays his hand on the head
of the child, the mother who checks the child’s wandering attention,
the group of men and women who press curiously round the Master.
The Master’s face may be homely, the hand may be ill-shaped, the
child may be an ugly little Dutch toddler, the mother a common, un-
lovely Amsterdam house wife, the surrounding gazers the veriest Holland
homespuns ever painted; but look at the depths of sorrowing tender-
ness, infinite love, ineffable yearning, in the expression of that face, and
the action of that hand! Look at the perfect mastery of childish
character in the central little one, the mingled awe, veneration, and
faith in the mother, the play of emotion, variously shaded curiosity,
impatience, doubt, belief—in the crowd. And when you have looked,
long and well, do not consult Lord Elcho’s auctioneer about the value
of the picture; ask your own hearts, is not this the work of one of the
greatest geniuses that ever recorded humanity and divinity upon
canvas, and what genius of this calibre is to be found in the school
from which this picture comes, except Rembrandt ?
CITY INTELLIGENCE.
For persons like ourselves who know nothing about business, the
money market news is often full of mysteries. Here, for instance, is a
puzzling morsel of intelligence :—
“ The general rate for the best bills out of doors is If per cent.”
We know less about arithmetic than even about business: else
perhaps we might be tempted to propound a rule of three sum to the
following effect:—If the rate for the best bills out of doors is If per
cent., what per-centage would be given for a bad bill rated indoors ?
In our ignorance we wonder what is meant by bills being rated out of
doors. Are bills affected by the open air, and have they a different
value when paid somewhere within doors, or somewhere else alfresco?
A Hint to Publishers.
Advertisements ought to be more explicit. A musical friend of
ours, an enthusiast about the Opera and Opera singers, seeing the
announcement of the contents of a weekly periodical headed. “ Indus-
trious Lucca,” instantly sent out for the number, in the belief that it
would give him some gossip about the famous Pauline, and perhaps
state the sum total of her earnings during the past Season. His disap-
pointment may be imagined when he found that the article was all
about an Italian city and its works and buildings, and had no more to
do with Pauline Lucca than it had with Pauline Deschapelles !
Malmesbury’s English again.
His Lordship says to The Times, “ Having more than once described
it as mine proprio motu, I shall feel obliged to you to publish this
statement.” Your Latin is unexceptionable, my Lord, but your English
is less convincing. Do you mean that you repeatedly stated what you
object to ? Then why say that you did ?