Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/533

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

Painting in Antweep. 503 the highest number by any single master to be found in the whole catalogue. The greater part of this number, and certainly the most important, forms a series, and may be considered as a single work. This is called the History of Marie de Medicis. It was intended merely as the decoration of a palace ; it is now in the Louvre, and will be henceforth the chief ornament of that museum, as it is one of the finest works of the master. There are two Landscapes, one of which is lighted up by a rainbow; a large Kermesse or Fair, which is no less gay and animated than if it were by Jan Steen. In the Hermitage at S. Petersburg is the Feast in the House of Simon the Pharisee, and many other works. At Blenheim, the seat of the Duke of Marlborough, are, among other of his works, the Rape of Proserpine; a portrait of his second wife, Helena Fourment ; and portraits of Himself, his wife Helena, and a Child, in one picture. In the National Gallery there are fourteen works by Rubens. Of these we must notice the Peace and War ; the Abduction of the Sabine Women ; the Horrors of War ; the famous Chapeau de Poil (Het Spaansch Hoedje) ; the Triumph of Julius Ccesar (after a part of that of Man- tegna in the gallery at Hampton Court) ; and two fine Landscapes. At Grosvenor House, the Duke of West- minster possesses a fine work, the History of Lxion and the Cloud, and at Hampton Court is a fine work of Diana and her Nymphs. Good examples of Rubens are also to be found at Buckingham Palace, Leigh Court, Longford and Warwick Castle. We have now to mention of a few Flemish painters who were cotemporary with Rubens.