made up with a rose in her hair and a nosegay in her corsage, is not quite convincing. While the picture has some fine qualitics, the motive lacks sincerity and spontaneity, and I for one would give a good deal more for the wistful child with the apple in the London Gallery. Associated in our thoughts with the name of Greuze is that of Madame Le Brun, who began her art career by copying Greuze’s heads. She was, however, more sincere, if less gifted, than he, and she added something to the treasures of child portraiture in the charming pictures of her little daughter. The Mother and Daughter in the Louvre is a fine and deservedly popular work.
The child portraiture of Van Dyck is always sincere and serious, but the posing and grouping are not uniformly natural. The oft-repeated children of Charles I stand in rather stiff and uncompromising rows, but any such faults are forgotten for the splendid artistic qualities of the work. The heads are beautifully done and make complete separate pictures, particularly Prince Charles, and the inimitable “Baby James,” the Duke of York, in his little bonnet. Princess Mary is a bit too prim to be really childlike. My own favorites among Van Dyck’s child figures belong to the earlier periods when his inspiration had not lost its freshness, like the White Boy of the Durazzo Palace in Genoa, souvenir of his youthful Italian journey, and Richardot and his son,[1] from the Flemish groups. The child portraits of Cornelis de Vos should
- ↑ An illustration in the volume on Van Dyck in the Riverside Art Series.
