PAINTING AND ENGRAVING LEONARDO DA VINCI. By Edward McCurdy, M.A. (Great Masters Series.) London: George Bell & Sons. 1904.

THIS is a far more creditable performance than the majority of the volumes which have hitherto appeared in this series. Mr. McCurdy not only knows his authorities, but he has read them with intelligence. So long as he confines himself to recounting the known facts of Leonardo's life, he is concise and accurate. Yet his book fails to give the general reader such a vivid and comprehensive view of Leonardo's genius as a good translation of Vasari's life would have done; and when he comes to discuss the paintings and drawings he shows little or nothing of the admirable insight which distinguished Dr. Gronau's little volume on Leonardo. This is how Mr. McCurdy writes on the two versions of the Madonna of the Rocks.' 'The picture has not been carried to the same degree of finish as that in the Louvre. There is designedly less elaboration of detail. . On the other hand the picture seems to possess a greater unity. The air passes through the grotto more freely. The light falls less fitfully, and the effect of its incidence on the kneeling figures is more harmonious and sustained.' And again: 'I believe the picture in the National Gallery to have been the original picture executed and placed in the church, where it remained and where Lomazzo saw it. sufficiently the work of Leonardo to be described as such in the petition made by the two artists, the description not however precluding what the association of the two names would suggest and internal evidence confirms, viz., that Ambrogio de Predis assisted Leonardo in the later stages of its composition. Neither the side panels of the angels, nor the signed portrait by him in the National Gallery, nor his portraits in Milan, at all favour the supposition of his share in the picture having been other than purely subsidiary.' Such a passage gives us the measure of its writer as a connoisseur. The portrait known as 'La belle Ferronnière,' in the Louvre, is, I may add, dismissed in a couple of lines as a work by Boltraffio; and the two unfinished paintings by Leonardo in the Uffizi and the Vatican Gallery are commonly referred to as 'cartoons.'

It was

A. L.

MEZZOTINTS. By Cyril Davenport. (The Connoisseur's Library.) London: Methuen & Co. 1903. 255. net.

As a catalogue, imperfect though it be, or as a text-book, this volume will prove useful to the commencing collector. To the connoisseur, for whom it appears to be intended, it must be disappointing.

The illustrations are mostly good, though the selection might have been improved upon. For instance, the portrait of Mrs. Davenport by Jones after Romney is out of place. Beauty it has none, and its only claim to preference rests upon its personal interest to the author. On the other hand we have nothing but admiration for the head of James, Duke of Monmouth, by Blooteling, in which the unequalled bloom of his engraving is happily reproduced, as also for the examples of the work of Place, Frye, MacArdell, and William Ward.

The volume opens with an introductory note in which the author advocates that every mezzotint engraver should, like Rembrandt, have his own press in his own house and make his own prints. Further, he would like to see the printer's name added to the copper, since the author thinks him worthy of more honour than he receives. A later page contains the suggestion that the word Excudit,' or its abbreviations, may mean the inker or printer,' who in such case did actually receive some acknowledgement of his own importance. But no evidence is adduced in support of the suggestion.

The first chapter is devoted to a description of the process of engraving in mezzotint, while the remainder of the book embraces a chronological history of the art and of its principal masters. Some of the author's opinions will not meet with universal acceptation. We cannot agree that the most pleasing mezzotints are to be found among 'the first few properly lettered prints' taken from the copper, for by the time the plate is lettered many impressions have probably been taken and the first richness and delicacy have been lost. Neither do we hold with him that uncut edges and broad margins add in no way to the beauty of a print. Such a condition, from its very completeness, and apart from its relative scarcity, must have its attractions. His idea of what constitutes pleasing effect and charm differs from our own, judging from his attribution of these qualities to the portrait of Queen Charlotte by Frye, the merit of which consists solely in the excellence of the engraving.

The book is well got up, the binding, paper, and print are good, and inaccuracies appear to be few and unimportant.

Mr. Davenport's 'apology' for his publication (p. 48) appears to rest upon the fact that Chaloner Smith's monumental work does not include the nineteenth century, to which twenty-eight pages of the present volume are devoted.

G. C. P.

WHISTLER AS I KNEW HIM. By Mortimer Menpes. (A. & C. Black.) 40s. net. FROM the point of view of illustrations this is the most sumptuous volume of Messrs. Black's illustrated series. The reproductions in colour

are unequal, some of the slight pastels reproducing better than more elaborate oil-sketches, where the loss of quality of pigment is fatal. The excellent renderings of some rare states of Whistler's etchings give the book a certain value to collectors, which is largely discounted by the triviality and bad form' of the letterpress.

COLOUR-PRINTS OF JAPAN. By Edward F. Strange. THE ILLUSTRATORS OF MONTMARTRE. By Frank L. Emanuel. AUGUSTE RODIN. By Rudolph Dircks. The Langham Series of Art Monographs. (H. Siegle.) Is. 6d. per volume, net.

THREE little volumes tastefully printed, bound, and illustrated. Mr. Strange's book can be thoroughly recommended as a cheap and sound guide to Japanese prints. In some ways indeed it is sounder in fact and more discriminating in judgement than his larger book, where he seemed cramped by the mass of material with which he had to deal. In the case of Mr. Emanuel, natural allowance must be made for the difficulty of writing a connected and readable study of a number of men whose work was widely diverse in character and often unsuited to the taste of the English public. The illustrations, too, in this case seem to have been infected by the scrappiness of the letterpress. As a piece of literature Mr. Dircks's volume is by far the best of the three. It is thoughtful, well written, and well composed, taking a singularly broad view of the development of Rodin's art, and omitting needless details with commendable tact. The illustrations are well chosen, though the pretty La Pensée might perhaps have been omitted in favour of some more serious composition. Altogether this little book is one that can be recommended to all who are interested in the art of sculpture, or in its greatest modern exponent.

ODOARDO H. GIGLIOLI. Pistoia nelle sue opere

d'arte, con prefazione di Alessandro Chiappelli. Firenze. 1904.

THIS little volume is one which every student of early Italian art will be glad to possess. It opens with an admirable series of lists of all works of art, which remain at Pistoia, whether in public buildings or in private hands; of works of which only documentary evidence exists, and of those, which are no longer preserved at Pistoia itself. These lists are followed by a complete bibliography of all books, articles, etc., which relate to the arts of the city. The rest of the volume is taken up by a careful account of its architecture, sculpture, painting, and minor arts; and the whole is amply and well illustrated. There are but few points on which we should be inclined to differ from Signor Giglioli. We cannot agree with him that the famous group of the Visitation in the church of San Giovanni

Fuoricivitas is to be ascribed to Luca della Robbia : and we cannot help thinking that had he troubled to consult the original documents in the Florentine archives, relating to the altarpiece of the 'Trinity,' now in the National Gallery, he would scarcely have repeated, as he has done, the statement of a certain German critic as to its authorship. These faults, however, go but a little way to detract from the value and usefulness of his book, which, we hope, may prove the precursor of other such handbooks to the more important towns of Italy. H. P. H.

SCULPTURE

DER

W. BODE. FLORENTINER BILDHAUER RENAISSANCE. Berlin: B. Cassirer. 1902. THIS Volume of Dr. Bode's latest essays opens with a paper on Donatello's merits as an architect. Donatello was associated with Brunelleschi in the first projects for the construction of the cupola. Early they are supposed to have gone together on a first journey to Rome. Yet it must be left to conjecture what may have been Donatello's pursuits in the sheer builder's calling, as a constructing engineer. His collaboration with Michelozzo on many important monuments is otherwise confirmed. Now, while there can be no difficulty in distinguishing between the sculpture of these two, we are on more insecure ground in our attempt to fix Donatello's share in the architecture of such monuments as the Brancacci and the Coscia tombs, the niche on Orsanmichele, the pulpit at Prato.

There has been a tendency hitherto to disparage Donatello's architecture and to give to Michelozzo, Cosimo's great builder, all the praise. Dr. Bode turns the tables. All that he likes in their joint works he apportions to the first; while that which he does not like, be it sculpture or architecture, he leaves to the latter. His severe strictures on the Brancacci tomb will be a surprise to most students; nor can we allow that the Coscia tomb is so much the finer work. Indeed, we fail to make out by what criterion Dr. Bode is led to judge Michelozzo so disparagingly, who, if not so great an innovator as Brunelleschi, holds fast with profit, even more than his master, to all that has proved best in the great mediaeval traditions of Tuscan building.

Discoursing on the 'Representations of the Madonna' and 'Portraiture in early Florentine Sculpture,' Dr. Bode leads us along certain byways where again Donatello's name is writ highest -and Luca della Robbia's not below it. It was only yesterday that works in gesso and terra-cotta of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries might be had in Italy almost for the trouble of their transportation. The wide domain of their varied occurrence Dr. Bode has made peculiarly his own. Here his records of a pioneer are an invaluable

contribution to art-historical studies. They possess furthermore an autobiographical interest, seeing that, if works in these humbler materials have risen so much in the esteem of collectors and now command such high prices, the fact is greatly due to the example of Dr. Bode's extensive purchases for the Berlin museum.

The paper on Luca della Robbia was obviously penned in an hour of righteous indignation at the offences of Marcel Reymond, who has rushed along with an easy tongue and light heart where others have laboured so long and cautiously. Yet even so we cannot allow certain of Dr. Bode's views to pass unchallenged. The gesso reliefs, for instance, shown in the illustrations 78 and 79, and other related compositions occurring in frequent examples, seem to us to possess nothing of Luca's spirit, nor aught indeed that is at all Robbiesque. Two heads here reproduced, Nos. 81 and 82, are to us more suggestive of Andrea and his school. For the famous Visitation in S. Giovanni Fuoricivitas at Lucca we favour the ancient view which puts this work so late as the sixteenth century; and while we possess no positive information to the effect that Fra Paolino da Pistoia ever worked in terra-cotta, yet the general design of this group certainly calls to mind drawings by Fra Bartolomeo and his followers. Far from being conceived in the manner of the earlier sculptors, where the figures of a group are conjoined in a single block, these answer to a pictorial vision in which the design is held together in outline and surface only, not fused into one mass.

Dr. Bode next discusses the authorship of a group of portrait busts of women of which rare examples are to be found, and only singly, in the famous collections. As works of art these may not be classed with what is greatest in Italian sculpture. Yet their quite distinctive character lends them a singular charm. The head rests well erect on stiffened neck and shoulders. There is weight to the mass and a rare refinement of simplest outline recalling archaic work. Ancient again, yet intensely modern, are the drooping lids that shut out every betrayal of the eye, the fastidious carriage, a reserve in the facial expression, and, in general, an air of preciosity and distance that is strangely engaging in its evasive suggestion. Dr. Bode was the first and has ever been an eloquent advocate in demanding for Laurana the authorship of these busts. Together with his former argument in support of this view we are now given much new evidence resting on the authenticated medals, the Madonne and the sepulchral effigies. It is regrettable that Professor Salinas's most recent discoveries in Sicily touching Laurana should not have been made known in time for inclusion in this essay. These furthermore confirm its teaching. Yet even as it here stands Dr. Bode's presentation of the subject marks the end of an historic debate.

Bibliography

If Dr. Bode must occasionally go out of his way in search of one with whom to break a futile lance he is again, and as often, held down to the strict matter of his subject with a scholar's more serious concern. Only then does he write dispassionately when this higher passion shows intensest. The paper on Bertoldo is imprint with this calm fervour. Bertoldo di Giovanni was the most distinguished of the fifteenth-century Florentine artificers of minor works in bronze: Donatello's immediate heir, Michelangelo's first master, Piero and Lorenzo dei Medici's counsellor in matters of art, custodian of their household collections, director of their art schools. From Dr. Bode, who has shown such extraordinary zeal in collecting bronze statuettes, medals, and plaquettes, we may well expect a perfect account of a master with whom he has lived on these terms of intimacy. We cannot here recount his many new attributions to Bertoldo. These have all deserved the approval of his fellow students. The medals and certain of the more famous bronzes are reproduced in the text. Indeed alone the extraordinary importance of the illustrations renders the book an indispensable work of reference.

The concluding essay, in which certain additions to the list of Michelangelo's early works are suggested, is of a more tentative kind. These, we choose to believe, need not be taken for the Doctor's last thoughts on so great a subject.

FURNITURE

C. L.

THE THIRTY-FIVE STYLES OF FURNITURE. (Numerous plates from pen-and-ink drawings.) London: Timms and Webb. 1904. 25s.net.

Why

My first objection to this book is its title. the definite article, when 'the man in the street could mention several more styles? The provoking thing is, however, that while it might have 'supplied a long-felt want,' it is untrustworthy in the extreme. A Spanish chair, showing the connexion between Spain and the Netherlands by its almost pure Dutch feeling, is surely out of place under the title of Renaissance, and if Jacobean chairs had claw-and-ball feet I must amend my reading. Why should a sketch-and a very bad one-of the Soane Museum chair be called ' Georgian' and not 'Chippendale'? Names seem to have been supplied by the fancy of the moment, and designs are attributed to both Chippendale and Hepplewhite which have nothing to do with either of them. The authors also have some curious views of R. and J. Adam. The book, we are told in the preface, has been arranged ' in chronological order,' but the Adams are inserted after Sheraton's 'Empire' period.

All these things might be merely mistakes to which we are all liable; in fact, I even make them myself. I wish, therefore, that this were a case where I could follow the golden rule with regard to my fellow man. But while mistakes are permissible, or at least excusable, a wilful mistake is—well, it is something quite different.

Page 79 of 'The Thirty-five Styles' is, I admit, not a fair sample of the book, for on most of the others a considerable number of the articles are correctly described, and sometimes even all of them. On this particular page there are eighteen designs which are called Sheraton,' but which are really taken from the published designs of Shearer and Hepplewhite, most of them having been executed before Sheraton became a power in English furniture. Twelve of these are by Shearer and six by Hepplewhite, though, for what purpose I cannot say, some of them have been slightly disguised. Ornaments have been reversed-not to advantage-and in one case a drawing has been made up from two originals.

This is what pretends to be a book of reference, 'interesting and useful' to connoisseurs, and affording 'a wealth of information' to the student. If by any chance it should drift into a second edition with these (and many more) faults eradicated, I trust it may be my pleasant duty to be the first to welcome it. At present all that a conscientious reviewer can do is to nail it to the wall as an example to evil-doers.

R. S. C.

BOOKS AND MANUSCRIPTS THE BREVIARIUM GRIMANI, from the Library of San Marco in Venice. Edited by Dr. S. G. De Vries. London: Ellis and Elvey. Part I., 25 coloured and 120 collotype plates. £10 10s.

net.

Ir was with great pleasure that we learned some months ago that a Dutch publisher had undertaken to issue a complete facsimile reproduction of 'The Grimani Breviary,' the most important of all illuminated service books executed by Netherlandish artists in the early years of the sixteenth century. Although many series of miniatures and a few illuminated books have been reproduced, nothing so considerable as this volume of 1,568 pages, with 300 miniatures, has been attempted, and M. Sijthoff deserves great credit for having undertaken it. We sincerely trust that his venture may meet with the success it deserves. The disastrous fire at the University library of Turin warns us that manuscripts preserved in public institutions are not exempt from danger of destruction even in times of peace, and that all important works of art should be at least photographed.

The first part of 'The Grimani Breviary,' now before us, contains coloured facsimiles of the

kalendar and of the miniature representing the saints of the Old Testament praying for the coming of the Redeemer, and collotypes of 120 pages of the text with their beautifully-designed floral borders. The reproduction of the miniatures surpasses our expectation, and we congratulate the publisher and all those who have co-operated with him on the result of their labours, and trust that they may be spared to complete the work. The price being beyond the means of most art students and craftsmen should decide the managers of public libraries and art institutions to subscribe for the work and thus secure for them the possibility of consulting and studying it.

W. H. J. W.

The Golden TRADE. By Richard Jobson, 1623. Edited by C. G. Kingsley, The Saracen's Head Library. E. E. Speight and R. H. Walpole, Teignmouth. 21s. net.

A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE VALE PRESS. C. Ricketts. 15s. net.

THE preface to the interesting 'Bibliography of the Vale Press' explains the revival of fine printing as merely due to a wish to give a permanent and beautiful form to that portion of our literature which is secure of permanence. By a permanent form I do not mean merely sound as to paper and ink, etc.; I mean permanent in the sense that the work reflects that conscious aim towards beauty and order which are ever interesting elements in themselves.' The explanation is a reasonable one, and the Kelmscott and Vale presses, when viewed as a whole, after making every deduction for the defects inseparable from experiment and novelty, come so much more nearly to that ideal of beauty and order than any other modern printed books, that they may rightly expect the permanence which sooner or later is the reward of all good work. Whether The Golden Trade' will gain that permanence is a more doubtful matter. The printing is handsome and careful, but the typography and decoration have not that very definite or personal note which is the mark of all really fine designing. Again, it is appropriate that such a record of nautical enterprise should come from Devon, and the book itself is entertaining. But we fear that it appeals to a limited audience, and must do so always.

NOTES FROM PARIS1

THE EXHIBITIONS

THE exhibition of French primitives is far from decreasing in interest. Thanks to the zeal of the organizers and the willing assistance of M. Henry Marcel, Director of Fine-Arts, every month sees one or more important additions. The Museum of Lille has just been persuaded to send two remarkable works of art,a fifteenth-century altar-frontal with an Angelic Salutation, and a triptych, The Fountain of Life, which is held to be by Jean Bellegambe. The exhibition, moreover, continues to give rise to a number of discussions and expressions of opinion. The Society of Antiquaries of France has received several interesting communications. M. Durand-Gréville deals with the attribution of certain things to Bourdichon. M. F. de Mély gives his views on the signature of Jehan Perréal which is supposed to appear at the bottom of the picture of the Virgin belonging to the Louvre. M. de Mély believes himself to have discovered it in the decoration of the pavement, the signature being in this form: I. P. I I 1490. We will go so far as to say that the authenticity of this picture is extremely uncertain. It may be a late sixteenthcentury, or even a seventeenth-century copy. The colouring and the brushwork are exceedingly unsatisfactory. The picture, moreover, is incontestably of very inferior artistic interest. Jehan Perréal, in any case, has no claim to be included among the great French primitives. When the exhibition is over, it is to be hoped that the Louvre will consent to relegate this inferior and questionable work to the position it deserves. M. de Mély also throws doubt on the authenticity of Fouquet's portrait of himself on enamel, on the grounds that the process of glazing in the furnace was not discovered before 1484 (whereas Fouquet died in 1483), and that the method of working on the enamel with the needle employed in this portrait is characteristic of the middle of the sixteenth century. M. de Mély's assertions are directly attacked by M. Leprieur, and M. Marquet de Vasselot has joined in the discussion.

In the Constantin Guys exhibition we have the exact opposite of the French primitives, and the sudden, almost violent contrast is not altogether unpleasant. Constantin Guys-some three hundred of whose water-colours, sepias, wash-drawings, and drawings are on view in the Barbazanges galleries

-seems now like a strange memory of a past at once very near and very far off. Grisettes and lorettes, Mabille and Musard, decorative guardsmen and elegant ladies fenced in crinolines-the whole of the Second Empire that made Paris a strange and flamboyant house of pleasure-may be found in the spirited, affecting, and vivid drawing so admired by Beaudelaire. The name 1 Translated by Harold Child.

of Goya has been mentioned in connexion with Constantin Guys, and the two artists show a certain, though not a very marked, resemblance. Be that as it may, the Barbazanges galleries are to hold during the coming season an exhibition of the great Spanish painter which will be a real event in the world of art, and to some people, no doubt, a revelation. And here I should like to say a word on the exhibition of a young Spanish artist, M. Carlos de Battle. His scenes of French and Spanish life chiefly represent such subjects as poor Toulouse-Lautrec liked to paint. M. de Battle is not to blame. Side by side with a certain violence and deliberate exaggeration, his broadly sympathetic work has a profoundly sentimental and melancholy character. His Spanish scenes are equally good; the light is amazing and the colour sincere. I am convinced that M. de Battle's ability will continue to advance, but it will develop in proportion as he throws off all influences inimical to his originality.

A permanent exhibition of painting, sculpture, and engraving has just been opened under the title of New Tendencies.' The name is unpleasantly pretentious, but there are some good things exhibited, among others two portraits by Madame Boznanska, which combine delicacy of tone with great intensity of expression; Flowers, by Slavona, very simple, true, and intimate flowers which have nothing in common with the hideous bouquets of Madame Lemaire; Clouds, by the Norwegian painter Diriks, my admiration for whose work is well known to my readers; a fine Dufrénoy, A Cathedral Door; and some very interesting work by that accomplished artist, Ch. Milcendeau. At one time M. Milcendeau showed more promise than any of our modern artists; is he deliberately trying to 'sell' us by doing his best not to realize it? His drawing is losing its vigour, his sincerity is supplanted by melodramatic effects,' and his once warm colour is growing dull and sad. But I am convinced that he is too good an artist not to recover himself finally, and that soon.

I must add a word on the troubles that have arisen in the Société Nationale (Salon du Champ de Mars). One result of the success last year of the young Salon d'Automne has been that the high priests of the Société Nationale are up in arms. and crying out for protection. They have just resolved that the Champ de Mars shall be closed to anyone taking part in any other exhibition. It is stated that a number of exhibitors at the Salon d'Automne, among them MM. Blanche and Besnard, have taken fright and sent in their submission to the tyranny of M. Carolus Duran and his friends. The schism is not unlike that which resulted in the foundation of the Champ de Mars. I cannot think that it will be the death-blow of the Salon d'Automne and the Salon des Indépendants, but it may be the beginning of the end of the pompous artistic nullities which in France, as in England,