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ART
GALLERIES
imperfectly realized owing to the paucity of examples, the philosophic influence of art galleries is becoming more widely extended; and in its further development will be found an ever-growing source of interest, instruction, and scholarship to the community. The most suitable method of describing art galleries is to classify them by their types and contents, rather than by the various countries to which they belong. Thus the great representative galleries of the world which possess works of every school are grouped together, followed by State galleries which are not remarkable for more than one school of national art. Municipal galleries are divided into those which have general collections, and those which are notable for special collections. Churches which have good paintings, together with those which are now secularized, are treated separately ; while the collections in the Vatican and private houses are described together. The remaining galleries, such as the Salon or the Royal Academy, are periodical or commercial in character, and are important in the development of modern art.
The collections most worthy of attention are the State galleries representative of international schools. Their number is restricted, not more than a state dozen being in the very first rank. Among ganeries of these the British National Gallery holds a high iaterplace. Though the collection is small and national modern, having been founded in 1824 by the schoolsacquisition of the Angerstein pictures, it is among the most representative of State galleries. Its accessions are governed by the parliamentary grant of £5000 to £10,000 a year, a sum which has occasionally been enlarged to permit special purchases. Thus, in 1871, the Peel collection of seventy-seven pictures was bought for £75,000, and in 1885 the Ansidei Madonna (Raffaelle) and Van Dyck’s portrait of Charles I. were bought, the one for £70,000 and the other for £17,500. In 1890 the Government gave £25,000 to meet a gift of £30,000 made by three gentlemen to acquire three portraits by Moroni, Velasquez, and Holbein. The most important gifts were the Vernon gift in 1847, the Turner bequest in 1856, and
North Vestibule, Early Italian Schools ; I, Tuscan School (15th and 16th centuries); II, Sienese School, &c. ; III, Tuscan School; IV, Early Flemish School; V, Ferrarese and Bolognese Schools ; VI, Umbrian School, &c.; VII, Venetian and Brescian Schools ; VIII, Paduan and Early Venetian Schools ; IX, Schools of Lombardy and Parma ; X, Dutch and Flemish Schools ; XI, Dutch and Flemish Schools; XII, Dutch and Flemish Schools (including the Peel Collection); XIII, Late Italian Schools ; XIV, Spanish School; XV, German Schools; XVI, French School; XVII, French School; XVIII, Old British School; XIX, Old British School; XX, British School; XXI, Modern British School; XXII, Turner Collection; Octagonal Hall, Miscellaneous; East Vestibule, Old British School; West Vestibule, Old British School.
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H L •• •• Fig. 1.—Plan of the National Gallery, London. the Wynne-Ellis legacy in 1876. The gallery contains and the methods of exhibition make this one of the most very few poor works, and all schools are well represented pleasant galleries on the Continent. Vienna has the with the sole exception of the French school. This, how- Imperial Gallery, a collection which in point of number ever, can be amply studied at Hertford House, which, cannot be considered large, as there are not more than besides Dutch, Spanish, and British pictures of the highest 1700 pictures. This, however, is in itself a safeguard, value, contains twenty examples of Greuze, fifteen by Pater, like the wise provision enabling the English authorities to nineteen by Boucher, eleven by Watteau, and fifteen by dispose of pictures “unfit for the collection, or not Meissonier. The Royal Gallery at Berlin (Old Museum), required” (19 and 20 Viet. c. 29). It avoids the undue like the British National Gallery, is remarkable for its multiplication of canvases, and the overcrowding so noticevariety of schools and painters, and for the select type of able in many Italian galleries where first-rate pictures hang pictures shown. During the last twenty-five years of the too high to be examined. Thus the Viennese gallery, 19th century, the development of this collection was even besides the intrinsic value of its pictures (Albert Diirer’s more striking than that of the English gallery. Italian chief work is there), is admirably adapted for study. The and Dutch examples are specially numerous, though every best gallery in Russia (St. Petersburg, Hermitage) was school but the British (here as elsewhere) is really well made entirely by royal efforts, having been founded by seen. The purchase grant is considerable, and is well Peter the Great, and much enlarged by the Empress applied. Two other German capitals have collections of Catharine. It contains the collections of Crozat, Briihl, international importance — Dresden and Munich. The and Walpole. There are about 1800 works, the schools former is famous for the Sistine Madonna by Raffaelle, a of Flanders and Italy being of signal merit; and there work of such supreme excellence that there is a tendency are at least thirty-five genuine examples by Rembrandt. to overlook other Italian pictures of celebrity by Titian. The French collection (Louvre Palace, Paris) is one of the Giorgione, and Correggio. Munich (Old Pinakothek) has most important of all. In 1880 it was undoubtedly the examples of all the best masters, the South German school first gallery in Europe, but its supremacy has since been being particularly noticeable. The arrangement is good, menaced by other establishments where acquisitions are
