ART
MUSEUMS —ART
statuary, have fine examples of painting, chiefly of the Private Italian school; the most famous easel picture and semi- is Rafiaelle’s “Transfiguration,” but the Stanze, private apartments entirely decorated by painting, are galleries. even more famous. In England three royal palaces are open to the public—Hampton Court (Mantegna), Windsor (Van Dyck, Zuccarelli), and Kensington (portraits). At Buckingham Palace the Dutch pictures are admirable, and Queen Victoria lent the celebrated KafFaelle cartoons to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Semi-private collections belong to Dulwich College (Velasquez and Watteau), Oxford University (Italian drawings), the Soane Museum (Hogarth and English school), and the Royal Academy (Leonardo). Among private collections the most important are the Harrach, and Prince Liechtenstein (Vienna), the Six Gallery (Amsterdam), Mrs T. Gardner, of Boston (Italian), Prince Corsini (Florence). In Great Britain there are immense riches in private houses, though many collections have been dispersed. The most noteworthy belong to the dukes of Devonshire and Westminster, Lord Ellesmere, Captain Holford (including the masterpiece of Cuyp), Mr L. Mond, Lord Lansdowne, Miss Rothschild. The finest private collection belongs to Lord Cowper, his gallery of Van Dyck’s work being quite the best in the world. Many galleries are devoted to periodical exhibitions in London ; the Royal Academy is the leading agency of this Periodical character, having held exhibitions since 1769. and com- Its loan exhibitions of Old Masters are most mercial. important. Similar enterprises, heralded by the Grosvenor Gallery, are the Hew Gallery, opened in 1888, the Grafton Gallery, and others. There are also oldestablished societies of etchers, water-colourists, &c. A feature common to these exhibitions is that the public always pays for admission, though they differ from the commercial exhibitions, becoming more common every year, in which the work of a single school or painter is shown for profit. But the annual exhibitions at the Guildhall, under the auspices of the Corporation, are free. The great periodical exhibition of French art is known as the Salon, and for some years it has had a rival in the Champ de Mars exhibition. These two societies are now respectively housed in the Grand Palais and Petit Palais, in the Champs Elysees, which were erected in connexion with the Paris Exhibition of 1900, but with the ultimate object of being devoted to the service of the two Salons. Berlin, Rome, Vienna, and other Continental towns have regular exhibitions of original work. The best history of art galleries is found in their official and other catalogues, see article Museums. See also L. Viabdot, Les musees d’ltalie, &e., 3 vols. Paris, 1842, 1843, 1844.—Annual Reports, official, of National Portrait Gallery, National Galleries of England, Ireland, and Scotland ; Civil Service Estimates, class iv. official. See also the series edited by Lafenestre and E. Richtenberger : Le Louvre, La Belgique, Le Hollande, Florence, Belgique.—A. Lavice. Revue des musees de France, .. . d’Allemagne, . . . d’Angleterre, . . . d'Espagne, . . . d’Ltalie, . . . de Belgique, de Hollande et deRussie. Paris, 1862-72.—E. Michel. Les musdes d’Allemagne. Paris, 1886.—Kate Thompson. Public Picture Galleries of Europe, 1880.—C. L. Eastlake. Notes on Foreign Picture Galleries.—Lord Ronald Gower. Pocket Guide to Art Galleries {public and private) of Belgium and Holland, 1875 ; and many works, albums, and so forth, issued mainly for the sake of the illustrations. (b,) Art Museums. See Museums. Art Sales.—The practice of selling objects of art by auction in England dates from the latter part of the 17th century, when in most cases the names of the auctioneers were suppressed. Evelyn (under date 21st June 1693) mentions a “great auction of pictures {Lord Melford’s) in the Banquetting House, Whitehall,” and the practice is frequently referred to by other contemporary and later
SALES
683
writers. Before the introduction of regular auctions the practice was, as in the case of the famous collection formed by Charles to price each object and invite purchasers, just as in other departments of commerce. But this was a slow process, especially in the case of pictures, and lacked the incentive of excitement. The first really important art collection to come under the hammer was that of Edward, Earl of Oxford, dispersed by Cock, under the Piazza, Covent Garden, on 8th March 1741-42 and the five following days, six more days being required by the coins. Nearly all the leading men of the day, including Horace Walpole, attended or were represented at this sale, and the prices varied from five shillings for an anonymous bishop’s “head” to 165 guineas for Vandyck’s group of “ Sir Kenelm Digby, lady, and son.” The next great dispersal was Dr Richard Mead's extensive collection, of which the pictures, coins, and gems, &c., were sold by Langford in February and March 1754, the sale realizing the total, unprecedented up to that time, of <£16,069. The thirty-eight days’ sale (1786) of the Duchess of Portland's collection is very noteworthy, from the fact that it included the celebrated Portland vase, now in the British Museum. Many other interesting and important 18th-century sales might be mentioned. High prices did not become general until the Calonne, Trumbull (both 1795) and Bryan (1798) sales. As to the quality of the pictures which had been sold by auction up to the latter part of the 18th century, it may be assumed that this was not high. The importation of pictures and other objects of art had assumed extensive proportions by the end of the 18th century, but the genuine examples of the Old Masters probably fell far short of 1 per cent. England was felt to be the only safe asylum for valuable articles, but the home which was intended to be temporary often became permanent. Had it not been for the political convulsions on the Continent, I England, instead of being one of the richest countries [ in the world in art treasures, would have been one of | the poorest. This fortuitous circumstance had, moreover, another effect, in that it greatly raised the critical knowledge of pictures. Genuine works realized high prices as, for example, at Sir William Hamilton's sale (1801) when Beckford paid 1300 guineas for the little picture of “A Laughing Boy” by Leonardo da Vinci; and when at the Lafontaine sales (1807 and 1811) two Rembrandts each realized 5000 guineas, “The Woman taken in Adultery,” now in the National Gallery, and “ The Master Shipbuilder,” now at Buckingham Palace. The Beckford sale of 1823 (41 days, £43,869) was the forerunner of the great art dispersal of the 19th century; Horace Walpole's accumulation at Strawberry Hill, 1842 (24 days, £33,450), and the Stowe collection, 1848 (41 days, £75,562) were also celebrated. They comprised every phase of art work, and in all the quality was of a very high order. They acted as a most healthy stimulus to art collecting, a stimulus which was further nourished by the sales of the superb collection of Ralph Bernal in 1853 (32 days, £62,690), and of the almost equally fine but not so comprehensive collection of Samuel Rogers, 1856 (18 days, £42,367). Three years later came the dispersal of the 1500 pictures which formed Lord Northwick's gallery at Cheltenham (pictures and works of art, 18 days, £94,722). Towards the latter part of the first half of the 19th century an entirely new race of collectors gradually came into existence; they were for the most part men who had made, or were making, large fortunes in the various industries of the midlands and north of England and other centres. They were untrammelled by “ collecting ” traditions, and their patronage was almost exclusively
