Part 8 (2/2)
I have not yet, I believe, spoken of more than one or two of the pictures that uncle bought while in Europe the first time. He then spent ten thousand dollars on paintings, a piece or two of sculpture, and a few little curiosities of art in the way of mosaics and antiquities from different ruins of Italy, which, for a man who was by no means a Stewart or an Astor, showed great liberality. Uncle could not afford, like ostentatious millionnaires, to dazzle the public with paintings bought by the yard; but for a man of his means he displayed, I think, a true love for art and a strong desire to encourage it. His purchases, too, were very different from the second-rate pictures so often purchased abroad by uncultivated eyes, for instead of depending merely upon his own judgment, he asked the a.s.sistance of the sculptor Story in choosing his souvenirs; and his collection, though small, is admirable, containing two or three _bona-fide_ old masters, purchased at the sales of private galleries in Florence and Rome.
The pictures, like the books, have been kept hitherto in the house in the woods, but this spring Ida moved them all to the roadside house that we might constantly enjoy them, and the parlor now presents quite the appearance of a museum. It is over the music-room, and its long French windows open upon a balcony, from which we daily admire our tender, Italian-like sunsets. To the right it is overhung by the branches of our favorite apple-tree, from whose cl.u.s.ters of tiny fruit we each chose an apple some days since. Gabrielle then marked them with the owner's initial cut out of paper, the form of which we will find in the autumn indelibly impressed in the apple's rosy cheek.
But to return to our museum. Upon ascending the stairs one's eyes first rest upon the ”very saddest face ever painted or conceived,” as Hawthorne describes the beautiful Cenci. While in Rome I resided upon the Piazza Barberini, opposite the palace containing this exquisite painting, and I visited it with a devotion almost equalling Hilda's.
Much excitement prevailed that winter in art circles concerning the authenticity of this picture, and hot discussions took place wherever the believers and unbelievers chanced to meet. No possible proof existed, one party would declare, that Guido had ever painted Beatrice Cenci; and no one had thought of it as other than a fancy head until Sh.e.l.ley had aroused the interest of the public in the half-forgotten tragedy of poor Beatrice's sad life by the sombre drama, ”The Cenci.”
From that time, they say, caprice has christened this picture Beatrice Cenci, and Hawthorne has added much to its interest by the prominence he gives it in the ”Marble Faun.” They, however, are unable to find the traces of sorrow, the ”tear-stained cheeks” and ”eyes that have wept till they can weep no more,” so eloquently described by all writers and art-critics of the present day; and so far I agree with them--the face does not impress me with such depths of woe.
Their opponents, however, hold the time-honored tradition that Guido painted Beatrice in her cell upon the morning of her execution, or as she stood upon the scaffold--for there are two versions of the story--and that the gown and turban which she wears were made by her own hands on the night preceding the fatal day. But no words of mine can give a fair idea of this celebrated painting: I will transcribe Hawthorne's description of it.
”The picture represented simply a female head; a very youthful, girlish, perfectly beautiful face, enveloped in white drapery, from beneath which strayed a lock or two of what seemed a rich though hidden luxuriance of auburn hair. The eyes were large and brown, and met those of the spectator, but evidently with a strange, ineffectual effort to escape. There was a little redness about the eyes, very slightly indicated, so that you would question whether or no the girl had been weeping. The whole face was quiet; there was no distortion or disturbance of any single feature, nor was it easy to see why the expression was not cheerful, or why a single touch of the artist's pencil should not brighten it into joyousness. But in fact it was the very saddest picture ever painted or conceived; it involved an unfathomable depth of sorrow, the sense of which came to the observer by a sort of intuition. It was a sorrow that removed this beautiful girl out of the sphere of humanity, and set her in a far-off region, the remoteness of which--while yet her face is so close before us--makes us s.h.i.+ver as at a spectre.”
Next to the Cenci a St. Francis hangs, his hands devoutly folded and his head bowed in pious meditation upon the sufferings of his Redeemer, whose figure bound upon the Cross lies before him. The skull at his feet and the dreary landscape surrounding him indicate his hermit-life of isolation and penance. The Saint is dressed in the coa.r.s.e brown habit of a mendicant friar, and his face is luminous with that gentleness that distinguished his character after his conversion; for it is recorded of him that he would step aside rather than harm the smallest insect.
Above St. Francis is one of the most precious gems, historically and intrinsically considered, of the collection. The picture is small--only cabinet size; but it is none the less valuable on that account, when we reflect that it dates from the sixteenth or early in the seventeenth century. It is a portrait of Galileo painted from life by Andrea Bartone, and was bought at a sale of the Santi Gallery. Only the head and bust are represented--the latter clothed in a dark-brown open vest, with a scarlet mantle thrown over the shoulders; but the face is one that would not easily be forgotten--a rugged, powerful face, with great, earnest eyes, scant hair well sprinkled with gray, and deep furrows lining the dark brow.
Over the doorway, opening into the room that was formerly Aunt Mary's, is an antique marble medallion of Juno, the haughty Mother of the G.o.ds; this was dug up near Tusculum.
Next comes an exquisite Madonna and Child by Carlo Dolce (a copy). The mother's face is youthful and radiant with divine beauty: the Infant Jesus stands upon her knee, and extends a plump little hand in benediction.
Next, a portrait of uncle painted in 1839--two years earlier than the one that hangs in the dining-room. This picture, mamma says, was an excellent likeness of him when he was twenty-eight years old; and the biographers who are so p.r.o.ne to describe him in his younger days as having been ”uncouth” and ”awkward,” would be, I think, much startled if they could see it. His coat is black, with a black tie, like other gentlemen, and his air, instead of being ”rustic” or ”gawky,” is expressive of gentle dignity, while his face, so often described as plain, is to me beautiful enough to have represented a young saint.
Next these pictures is another medallion--the ”Mother of the Gracchi,”
and under them a small table upon which stand several marble curiosities: a model of the tomb of Scipio, Minerva issuing from the head of Jupiter, and two busts of Roman soldiers in the time of t.i.tus--antiques, and quite yellow and valuable.
In the centre of the parlor is a round table bought in Rome, and made of variegated marble taken from the ruins of the palace of the Caesars.
In a corner, upon a handsome pedestal, stands Powers' bust of Proserpine, of which uncle was especially proud. He speaks of it in his ”Glances at Europe,” in these words:
”I defy Antiquity to surpa.s.s--I doubt its ability to rival--Powers'
Proserpine and his Psyche with any models of the female head that have come down to us; and while I do not see how they could be excelled in their own sphere, I feel that Powers, unlike Alexander, has still realms to conquer, and will fulfil his destiny.”
A very prominent picture, and one that was a great favorite with uncle, is an original portrait of Luther, by Lucas Cranach, one of the great lights of the Flemish school of painting. I have seen in the Dresden Gallery the counterpart to this picture, painted by the same artist, but representing Luther after death. I much prefer the animated expression of the _living_ picture, for it is hard to think of the fiery reformer as dead, even at this late day.
Over the sofa is a large Holy Family, a painting in the school of Raphael, and underneath it hangs one of our most valuable pictures--a veritable Guercino, painted in 1648. The subject is St. Mary Magdalen.
I wish that I had time to write in detail of all the beautiful things in the parlor--a card-table made like the centre-table of cla.s.sic marble from the ruins of Rome, an exquisite moonlight view of a Benedictine Convent upon the Bay of Naples, with a young girl kneeling before the shrine of the Madonna; a Venetian scene--the Doge's palace with its graceful, Moorish architecture; St. Peter and St. Paul; the c.u.maean Sybil, a beautiful female figure whose partly veiled face seemed full of mystery; St. Agatha, and an Ecce h.o.m.o. There are still some more marble medallions that I have not mentioned; several valuable antiques, portraits of Alexander the Great and Tacitus, and a bas-relief representing the flight of Aeneas--the former found near the Appian Way--and two others that are comparatively modern--likenesses of Pope Clement XI., and Vittoria Colonna, the gifted Italian poetess of the fifteenth century.
But I have not yet spoken of the pearl of our museum. This piece of sculpture was not one of uncle's Italian purchases, nor does it date back for centuries, but it is priceless to us, especially as it is, we believe, the only copy now existing. I allude to the bust made of uncle in 1846 by Hart, the Kentucky sculptor. This bust was the first work of importance that Mr. Hart had ever executed, for he was then in the first flush of manhood, and the early vigor of that genius that has since wrought out so many beautiful creations. Then, however, he had not modelled his fine statue of Henry Clay, ordered by the ladies of Virginia, nor had he even dreamed of his lovely ”Triumph of Woman” that when finished will send his name down to posterity, as our greatest _creative_ American sculptor.
Mamma was living with uncle when Mr. Hart arrived in New York with a commission from Ca.s.sius M. Clay to make this bust, and she has often told me all the circ.u.mstances of the sittings. Uncle was then, as ever, extremely busy, and it was very difficult for him to give Mr.
Hart an occasional half hour for a sitting. As ordinary means failed, Mr. Hart brought his clay and instruments to _The Tribune_ office, and there he worked whilst uncle rested from his daily editorial labors; but even while ”resting,” his lap was full of newspapers, and he could not afford the time to ”pose,” for his eyes were rapidly scanning their columns.
”I never,” said mamma, ”knew an artist to make such a study of another's face as Mr. Hart did of brother's. He was not content with a mere sitting from him now and then; he visited him at the house; he watched his face in company, and attended every occasion when he spoke in public, that he might model him, he said, in his best mood.
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