Part 19 (2/2)

_Reynolds_]

It has been alleged that Reynolds never, or rarely painted the landscape backgrounds to his pictures, and that they were the work of Peter Toms, RA, one of his ablest assistants, or of others ere more potent with that branch of Art than the President himself It is hard to deny to theidea of such pictures that honour which is assuredly due to some one, and to whoner of the attitudes, which are in such perfect harmony with the subordinate elements about them as to be completed only when the alliance is made Without this alliance, this harnificance of many of Reynolds's pictures is obscured When we have noted this the result is at least instructive, if not convincing, that one ned, if one hand did not invariably execute, the whole of any important portrait by our subject

Our own belief is, that whenever the landscapes or other accessories of his productions are essential to the idea expressed by the work as a whole, then undoubtedly Reynolds wrought these minor parts almost wholly, if not entirely, with his own brushes

Few, if any, of Reynolds's faroups equals in beauty, variety, and spirit, the famous _Cornelia and her Children_, or rather _Lady cockburn and her three Infants_,--a work so chars of the Royal Acadeht to be hung in the Exhibition, and received with clapping of hands, as men applaud a successfulof a poem Every Royal Academician then present--the scene must have been a very curious one--stepped forward, and in this manner saluted the work of the President; they did so, not because it was his, but on account of its char qualities Conceive the painters, each in his s-tailed coat, his ruffles and broad cuffs, his knee-breeches, buckles, long waistcoat, and the rest of his gar in one acclaie whether or not such applause was deserved by the picture, which tells its own story The parrot in the background was occasionally used by Reynolds; see the portrait of Elizabeth, Countess of Derby, and the engraving from it by W dickinson[29] It has been said that the only exa pictures on the border of the robes of his sitters appears in _Mrs Siddons as the Tragic Muse_; nevertheless, this picture of _Cornelia_ shows at least one exception to that asserted rule The border of Lady cockburn's dress in the original is inscribed in a similar un in 1773, and is now in the possession of Sir Jahter of General Sir James cockburn, one of the boys in the picture It is noteworthy that all these children successively inherited the baronetcy; one of them--the boy who looks over his e cockburn, Bart, on board whose shi+p, the _Northumberland_, Napoleon was conveyed to St

Helena Sir James, the eldest brother, was afterwards seventh baronet; Sir Williahth baronet of the nahter of Sir R Peel The lady was Augusta Anne, daughter of the Rev Frances Ascough, DD, Dean of Bristol, married in 1769, the second wife of Sir Jaton, in the county of Berwick, MP She was niece of Lord Lyttleton

For this picture in March, 1774, Reynolds received 183 15s This was probably the whole price, and for a work of no great size, but wealthy in matter, the amount was small indeed It includes four portraits

After cos, by CW Wilkin, in stipple, and by SW Reynolds, mezzotint, are dated, on the robe as aforesaid, ”1775,” and its exhibition in 1774, the year in which it was paid for, we nature and date were added by the painter after exhibiting it, and probably while he worked on it, with the advantage of having co with others in the Royal Acadeliht in _The Infant Acade sky, are equally adaptable to both subjects The picture was exhibited at the British Institution in 1843, and was then the property of Sir Jalish Children as painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds_ (London, 1867)

FOOTNOTES:

[29] Rather we should say, see the engraving only The picture is one of the very few prime works by Reynolds which has disappeared without records of its loss

ST CECILIA

(_RAPHAEL_)

PERCY BYSSHE ShellEY

I have seen a quantity of things here--churches, palaces, statues, fountains, and pictures; and my brain is at this moment like a portfolio of an architect, or a print-shop, or a co of what I have seen; for indeed it requires, if it will obey, an act of volition First, ent to the Cathedral, which contains nothing remarkable, except a kind of shrine, or rather a marble canopy, loaded with sculptures, and supported on four et the naallery of pictures Of course, in a picture gallery you see three hundred pictures you forget, for one you re picture by Guido, of the Rape of Proserpine, in which Proserpine casts back her languid and half-unwilling eyes, as it were, to the flowers she had left ungathered in the fields of Enna

We saw besides one picture of Raphael--St Cecilia; this is in another and higher style; you forget that it is a picture as you look at it; and yet it is s which we call reality It is of the inspired and ideal kind, and seems to have been conceived and executed in a si the ancients those perfect speci enerations There is a unity and a perfection in it of an incoure, St

Cecilia, seee in the painter's mind; her deep, dark, eloquent eyes lifted up; her chestnut hair flung back froan in her hands--her countenance, as it were, calmed by the depth of its passion and rapture, and penetrated throughout with the war to the , for the four figures that surround her evidently point, by their attitudes, towards her; particularly St John, ith a tender yet iuid with the depth of his emotion At her feet lie various instru I do not speak; it eclipses nature, yet has all her truth and softness

_Letters from Italy The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley_, edited by Harry Buxton Forman (London, 1880)

[Illustration: ST CECILIA

_Raphael_]

THE LAST SUPPER

(_LEONARDO DA VINCI_)

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE