Royal Chapel at Buckingham Palace. It belonged formerly to the collection of the Prince Ludwig von Oettingen-Wallerstein, and was purchased by the Prince Consort.

It is an oil painting on cedar wood with dimensions of 1 foot 3 inches by 1 foot I inches. Like the Genoese picture there is a centrepiece (8 inches by 6 inches) showing the Head of Christ, and around this a series of ten little square pictures (1 inches by 2 inches each) representing the same ten scenes of the legend. Remarkable as is the similarity of the whole arrangement, yet the details show marked individuality of treatment, both in regard to the centre picture and the little square paintings.

W N

In the centre there is a Head of Christ imprinted on a white kerchief in marvellously draped folds with two knots in the two upper corners, embroidered with gold ornaments and the letters TON ATION MANAHAIO (sic: the first N should be at the end, cf. above). A halo surrounds the head bearing the letters (I am) in cruciform. The face, in brilliant colouring, is of long oval shape, with locks hanging from each side, the pointed beard being parted under the chin. The impression produced by these large eyes, the long very small nose, the closed mouth, is similar to that of the Genoese picture, and yet it is somewhat different. It is the refined western art of a later period instead of the old Byzantine type, but used to reproduce a Byzantine original.

This is still more perceptible when we turn to the little square pictures. Comparing the two reproductions we find that though the contents are the same yet the dress (especially that of the bishop and his acolyte), the postures, and the architectural background show exactly the difference between old Byzantine art and the manner of Italian art of the seventeenth century. This is proved also by the inscriptions which are here given in large artificial characters filling the whole space

between the pictures and closely resembling, as Waagen remarks, those found on paintings of Emmanuel Tzane, a Greek priest who lived at Venice about 1640 A.D. As I am informed by Dr. Ludwig, who had the opportunity of comparing paintings of this artist at Venice, it is highly probable that he was, in fact, the artist who painted this Mandilion. Many mistakes in the Greek spelling seem to prove that the artist was not versed in this language. The beginning of the seventeenth century is suggested further by the ornaments which surround the upper and the lower inscriptions.

From this comparison we must conclude that the picture at Buckingham Palace is a western copy of an old Byzantine Mandilion, of the type of the Genoese picture, if not of this very painting itself. The differences, however apparent, do not disprove this conclusion. It is not a copy in the true sense of the word, but a reproduction of what in the copyist's mind was to be represented. The seventeenth-century men had not the historical sense of our time, which aims at exactness; they were always inclined to embellish according to their own taste.

Of special importance is the conception of the centre picture as a draped cloth. The Likeness transferred in 944 A.D. to Constantinople was-as proved distinctly by the sermon-a tablet picture. It is said that Abgarus had it stretched on a wooden tablet and covered with gold. But the artists who had the task of reproducing it did not copy the original itself, which was inaccessible in the relic treasury, but adopted the idea of a cloth with the imOn the walls of printed face thereon.

many eastern churches one may see the Holy Mandilion represented as a draped kerchief, at times held by two angels, like the Veronica of western art.5

If anyone hesitates to admit this conclusion that the picture in the Buckingham 5 The author is indebted to Professor Gelzer of Jena for kind information on the churches of Mount Athos; cf. also H. Brockhaus, 'Die Kunst in den Athos Klostern,' pp. 76–78.

Palace chapel is derived from the Genoese picture, or a closely related one, let him compare the following series of Byzantine miniatures, which I owe to Professor Redin of Charkow. They are taken from a manuscript at Moscow written in the eleventh century, which contains a collection of sermons for the month of August, made by the famous Symeon Metaphrastes, and among these is the sermon of the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogennetos on the legend of Abgarus mentioned above. At the beginning there are four little square pictures to illustrate the following narrative, three thereof filling the end of the first column, the fourth standing at the top of the second: (1) Abgarus, in royal dress, lying on his bed of sickness, sends a messenger to Christ to come and heal him. (2) Christ, seated, dressed in violet, with golden halo, writes a letter to Abgarus, whose messenger stands before Him, his hands crossed reverently over his breast. (3) Christ, dressed as before, sitting on a folding chair, the disciples standing behind Him, sends back the messenger after giving him the Likeness; this is represented as a Face on a golden ground. By the sight of the Likeness brought by his messenger, Abgarus (dressed as above) is healed and starts to his feet to adore it and to be baptized. The Mandilion is here represented as a white kerchief with red band below, showing the Face of Christ in a golden halo. From the man's way of handling it we may conclude that it was fixed loosely on a framework.

(4)

Although at the first glance this series seems to be but a shortened form of the two former, a diligent inquirer will soon find out that there is a great difference. Only the first and the last pictures have some correspondence with the first and the fifth of the former series: even here there is some difference, for it is not by touching the

• Plate III, page 526.

Likeness but by seeing it that Abgarus is healed. Of Christ writing the letter to Abgarus, a remarkable feature, represented in our second picture, there is no mention. at all in the greater series which, instead of it, introduces two scenes of the miraculous origin of the Likeness. Also the third differs from the corresponding fourth of the former series by laying stress, not so much on the respectful reception of the Likeness by the messenger, as on Christ sending him back. All the rest which deals with the miraculous story of the Mandilion is wanting. Thus we may say that this smaller series is conceived by an artist independently of the former on quite other principles; at the same time we will allow, without reserve, the dependence of the Buckingham Palace series on the Genoese.

Last of all there is one miniature in a Paris manuscript containing the same collection of sermons, but written about a century later than the Moscow manuscript. Here we have represented only Abgarus baptized by the apostle Thaddeus. It is curious enough that there is no representation from the legend of the Holy Likeness, although the following sermon deals entirely with the miraculous subjects, the painter in other cases following the same method of illustrating a legend by a series of little square pictures as his earlier colleague. But he makes up for this loss by the way in which he executes this single painting. It is one of the finest works of Byzantine art, much more resembling classical models than all the others we have considered. While the Genoese enamels show the typical style of the stiff Byzantinism, and the Moscow miniatures show its inclination for splendour and richness, this Paris picture is a noble example of Byzantine renaissance with its fine simple and expressive mode of repreE. VON DOBSCHÜTZ.

sentation.

7 Plate III, page 526.

25

HE main strength of the
Constantine Ionides col-
lection, as we have seen,
lies in its representation
of the French school of
the nineteenth century.
The
average Anglo-

Saxon is wont to associate that school almost entirely with landscape, because its landscape painters, Rousseau, Corot, and their followers, have produced more largely and appealed more directly to British and American taste than its figure painters, with the single exception of Millet, have hitherto done. Yet in viewing the achievement of the school as a whole, the landscape painters do not preserve this prominence, but appear as pleasant, fresh, and wholesome tributaries of a river whose main current is made strong by the genius of a few painters of the figure. Amongst these Ingres and Delacroix take precedence. To represent the wonderful gifts of Ingres can never be an easy matter, for his unflinching zeal for perfection was apt to entice him too often over the line which separates beauty and accuracy from immobility. It is thus possible to excuse the unsatisfactory piece of genre which would make him seem to rank hardly higher than Isabey, and to be thankful for the charming Odalisque1 in which his talent really appears to better advantage than in some more famous compositions, where the severity of the modelling has resulted in the waxen smoothness of surface. Except in portraits, Ingres is rarely quite successful and satisfying as a painter, and it is in studies such as this, and in his masterly drawings, that his genius is best seen by modern eyes.

Delacroix, on the other hand, can at last be understood, without going to Paris. The finished study for the Shipwreck of Don Juan is an excellent example of the synthetic power by which

1 Plate I, page 531.

he could sum up the intensity of a tragic subject in terms of passionate and emphatic colour. The darker and at first sight less attractive Good Samaritan2 is at least equally impressive, the awkward naturalness of the attitude of the wounded man bringing a Rembrandt-like touch of fact, of real human suffering, into that gloomy atmosphere, enriched here and there by flashes of gem-like beauty. This little picture is in itself an epitome of the movement in which Delacroix played so great a part, in which the desire for direct intense expression of feeling was given free play at the expense of all those conventions of modelling and arrangement which had accumulated for the help of generations, if not actually less inventive, at least far less painfully in earnest.

The classical convention, originally a mere household god, helpful to the young artist, and valued at his real modest worth by older ones, had in the course of some two centuries become a despot, and the work done by Delacroix in denying his supremacy found effective support in the art of Daumier. While Delacroix shocked and astonished artists, Daumier amused their patrons, and educated them at the same time. To the public of his time he must have seemed little more than a caricaturist, with an unusual grip of the tragic and terrible side of his trade. Yet the grimness of his humour was in reality less wonderfully rare than the force and conciseness of his means of expression. It would be hard to mention any art in the world, not even that of the great orientals, in which things are viewed with so little surplusage.

As a creative designer Daumier stands alone in the simplicity of his terms. Gifted with the exuberant fluency of a Rowlandson, he keeps a constant restraint upon himself, lest the obtrusion of any detail,

2 Plate I, page 531.

however amusing in itself, should distract the eye from the one salient fact. He thus veils his amazing force and knowledge in the shadow of broad silhouettes, lively and emphatic at their edges, deep and mysterious within. The Ionides collection unfortunately contains none of the magnificent oil studies of the travels of Don Quixote, in which his talent finds, perhaps, its most imposing expression. The drawing of a Railway Station 3 is, however, a fit example of his gifts, and several of the pen and ink studies, notably those of French advocates, show how naturally profound was his genius. Millet alone

of Daumier's contemporaries would appear to have appreciated him at his true value, and that value is so great and rare that it would hardly be extravagant to claim that Daumier's work was perhaps the most important object-lesson which the nineteenth century gave to the overcomplex art of Europe. The example of this male, passionate, and scientific art should be of inestimable use to any English student who wishes to do something better than the pretty petty trifles which his seniors exhibit.4

This fine sequence of figure pictures is continued by the admirable early work of Degas,5 well known, at least by reproduction, to all careful students of modern

3 Plate II, page 533.

Since the above was written, Mr. D. S. MacColl, in the Saturday Review, has pointed out the desirability of acquiring for the nation one of the fine oil-paintings by Daumier, recently exhibited at the Dutch Gallery in Brook Street. As Daumier's prices are still comparatively moderate, it may be hoped that means will be found to carry this excellent suggestion into effect. One picture has just been bought for Dublin by Mr. H. P. Lane. France and Holland have already secured specimens, and the Berlin gallery is reported to be following their example. time therefore should be lost in making our position safe.

5 Plate III, page 535.

No

painting. Though the colour is more sober than that which we have come to regard as characteristic of the painter's maturity, the work contains in embryo the qualities which we admire in the more brilliant work of Degas's later years-the striking unconventionality of design, the directness of expression, and the unfailing grip of character and reality in the drawing, which make a great art out of material which in other hands may be fit only for the poster of a café chantant. The quality

and vividness of the heads in the foreground recall Goya almost as much as does the weird lighting of the dancers behind them, but the actual craftsmanship has in it elements of firmness to which Goya attained but rarely. Goya was content to be a brilliant improvisateur. Degas seems to improvise, and yet works all the time with a consummate science that makes one think of Terborch's dainty sureness in using white and black as a foil for the human face.

In England, where the later developments of French art still appeal only to a limited audience, it is fortunate that Degas should be represented thus, because here it is still the custom to talk as if the so-called Impressionists were at least imperfectly trained if not also imperfectly gifted. This single picture is enough to show that, in the case of one important master at least, such an idea is an utter mistake. It has also the advantage of being a starting point from which further additions to our national collections can easily be made, so that they may some day be brought up to date without any serious lack of sequence.