A MINIATURE BY HOLBEIN BY RICHARD R. HOLMES, C.V.O., F.S.A. N THE BURLINGTON MAG- lished a note on a miniature by Holbein which it was my good fortune to discover in the private collection of the Queen of Holland and by her gracious permission I was enabled to give a photogravure of it.1 Miniatures by Holbein, and of this quality, are of the utmost rarity; perhaps a dozen are known to exist which can be rightly attributed to him, and bear on their face the marked individuality of the artist. Others which may have been originally painted by him have suffered grievous injuries from neglect and, worse still, from restoration and repainting. So that the occurrence of another portrait of the highest excellence long hidden away is an event of importance in the artistic world. In the catalogue of Mr. C. Heywood Hawkins's collection, lately dispersed at Christie's, Lot 907 is described as Frances Howard, Duchess of Norfolk, by Hans Holbein: A Circular Miniature,in gouache.'2 She is viewed three-quarter face turned to the left, wearing a simple black velvet close-fitting bodice, over which is drawn a small white linen cape; at her neck and sleeves appear the fine lawn collar and cuffs of her chemisette, embroidered with geometrical design in black; at her bosom is a red carnation, whilst around her neck hangs a thin black cord with gold filigree ends; her left hand is visible in front, crossing her right; she holds a single green leaf; her hair is simply parted in the centre of her forehead, almost concealed beneath the white linen cap of the period; the background is ultramarine, across which, in gold, runs the inscription 'ANNO ETATIS 1 BURLINGTON MAGAZINE, Vol. I, page 219. SUE 23.' The miniature is painted on the back of a playing card. There seems to be no authority for the name of the subject of the picture which is given in the catalogue. There was no duchess of Norfolk of the name of Frances in Holbein's time, and there is another circumstance which points in another direction. The miniature was exhibited by its late owner in 1865 at the important collection brought together at the South Kensington Museum, and in the catalogue of that exhibition (in which it is numbered 2627) it is thus described :-Portrait of a Lady, Anno Ætatis Sua 23. Her coat-of-arms is affixed to the case.' My predecessor, Mr. B. B. Woodward, made at the time, in his copy of this catalogue, a note of the arms on the cover of the case. Since then I have had the opportunity of examining this coat. It is dated MDLVI, and may be described as quarterly, 1 and 4 arg. on a chevron between. three water-buckets or pails, sable, hooped or, an estoile of the second; 2 and 3 arg. three wyverns' heads erect, langued and couped gules, dimidiated and impaling, arg. three talbots, langued gules, collared or, courant in pale. Crest: a wyvern's head, sable, langued and couped gules. The style and painting of this coat-ofarms are a century later than the date. The arms are those of Pemberton, and it would be interesting to follow up the pedigree of this ancient and respectable family, and attempt to discover who the lady was who is so faithfully and beautifully represented here. NOTE. At the sale of Mr. Hawkins's collection on May 15 this miniature was purchased for £2,750 by Messrs. Duveen Bros., by whose courtesy we are enabled to reproduce it.-Eds. IN GALLERY AT VIENNA BY CHARLES RICKETTS O proper estimate of of child life, and as a painter of children he outside the gallery of the The reputation of the gallery at Madrid has been made by artists (Mengs, Wilkie, Manet, Regnault). Their admiration of the great Spaniard precedes all adequate writing on the art of Velazquez. Vienna has remained outside the beaten track and enjoys even less celebrity than less fortunate centres. There are many reasons for this. The picture of the Queen Mariana was brought to light only twenty-three years ago, the careful copy in the same gallery by Mazo having passed till then as the original. The collection was always so well hung as it is now-the Infanta in Red being originally skied1-and until recently the Imperial Gallery was not adequately represented by photography. not Two of the children's portraits are the master-works of Velazquez in the rendering 1 This picture is also recorded by Professor Justi (to whom we still owe the most exhaustive study on Velazquez) in a tangle of historical questions turning, in part, on the importance of the eagle-shaped brooch, among which the authenticity of this ravishing work shares with the finished masterpiece at Madrid in a certain measure of doubt. The first painting in point of date in this gallery is the portrait of Baltasar Carlos (No. 616); it stands midway between the Baltasar with the Gun at the Prado and the Prince in Armour at Buckingham Palace. The technique of this picture belongs to a phase of the master's career when the contours are still too clean or continuous, and the pigment smooth-more controlled and reticent than brilliant. face is the most delightful portion of the painting, with its liquid ivory tints, whilst the greenish tones of the hair are continued in an undertone in the shadow and contour of the cheek. The We turn to a different manner and order of accomplishment in the superb portrait of the Queen Mariana in white,2 painted after the master's return from his second visit to Italy, when he was in full possession of his method at its ripest, such as we find it in the Pope Innocent and The Lady with the Fan. Yet the Vienna pictures are different from these. In the Mariana, the touch has less nobility, but reveals a more spontaneous delicacy; it is less subtle and sustained, but not less delicious to the lover of beautiful pigment. In this masterpiece, painted with supreme gusto and brio, she is still a girl radiant with happiness and health; she does not look intelligent, 2 Reproduced on page 341. Masterpieces by Velazquez at Vienna but vivacious; this is the tomboy princess who connived at the escape of some mice among the skirts of her court ladies-we quail in picturing the event, the agitation of the huge crinolines called 'guardainfantes,' the tremor of hoops and the palpitation of flounces. At the Prado we shall find other portraits later in date, where the queen stands robed in black and silver with a haughty and inanimate face. Velazquez has done almost the impossible, he has charmed us with the representation of a not particularly charming woman rendered in a formal pose. The scheme of composition is one of which he has even made a too constant, an almost unthinking use. The pose of the figures in the four pictures here reproduced is identical, it is that of a person at ease, yet posing for the painter. In the case of this picture the charm is one of fresh visual impression and freshness of rendering. This conceals a superior knowledge and resourcefulness in the rendering of each part, and a deep knowledge of the laws of contrast in tone, texture, and in the body of his pigment. The cold blue-green of the curtain gives the utmost value to the quality of the reds, notably in the flesh. The coolness of the shadows sustains the warm quality of the whites. Let us examine the consummate quality of the last, the cold white of the cambric napkin upon the warm white of the dress, enlivened also by the rich white imNotice the rosy pasto upon the watch. white of the ruff against the skin, note the mere sharp glimmers and pats of paint which punctuate' the diction of the picture; all this is consummate in planning, and exquisite in rendering. Let us examine one technical point alone, the grey white of the napkin which has the aerial softness of its texture perfectly contrasted against the more solid dress; there is not the slightest evidence of laboriously matched pigments, it is of practically the same stratum' as the rest. Velazquez has merely carried a thin warm glaze over the skirt, we can see where it has trickled in part, and with a rag he has wiped it away from the napkin. Among all the existing works of the master there is not one showing greater or perhaps quite the same unhesitating ease. Facing the Queen Mariana hangs the first portrait, in point of date, of the silkenhaired little Princess Margarita.3 She is here in her third year, a tiny toddle surrounded by a Liliputian pomp, in a quaint and exquisitely designed portrait of parade. By her side is a crystal vase full of flowerscamomile, marigold, iris, and rose, some of which are as large as the hand in which she clutches a diminutive fan. The curtain which fills the background and covers the stool is a rich deep turquoise blue. Note the glass jar, the flowers with their fresh whites, pinks, orange, and lilac— this is a thing unique in painting, unique in the sense of freshness and ambiance in which the 'blare' of the flowers is rendered. There is something floral in the pale tones of the flesh, which is framed in by hair pale to the point where yellow and pink meet in a variation of white. The coral pink dress is decorated with black and silver lace and enlivened by diamonds and pale yellow spangles. The general scheme of the picture is contrasted and supported by the dull red brown of the turkey carpet on which the white and black pattern is rendered in a warm pale yellow and a dark dull blue. The portrait of the Infant Prosper 4 is not so brilliant in effect but even more delicate and consummate in the rendering of child life. We know that this pale frail little man showed in his short stay in the world that timid vitality and perception which mark sickly children, and there is an effect of infinite pathos in his wondering expression which would seem to precede a wan 3 Reproduced on page 343. • Reproduced on page 345. smile or a wish to cry. About the face and eye-sockets are the grey shadows of the frail skull beneath. We think before the pale hair of the curls of some dead Tudor or Stuart child which have faded in a locket. Delicate are the shadows and the greenish light of the room about which the baby prince seems to be wandering, wrapped in his own little world of grey tremulous thought. Velazquez would seem to have remembered in the treatment of the furniture and floor that period in his own childhood when the legs of chairs and tables were almost personalities, like the skirts and trousers of parents and friends. The dark crimsons and greys of the walls and curtains frame in the whites of the flesh, beneath the apron glimmers the pale scarlet of the dress. There are a few flakes of dull gold and silver in the baubles and trimmings of the dress, but the picture is cool and grey in the varied texture of its pigment and in the use of glazes. What a contrast is presented to the picture of Prosper by that of his sister The Infanta in Red 5 which hangs opposite ! The age of the princess has been the subject of some discussion, but if we admit that it is difficult to guess the age of people in old portraits, or even in early daguerreotypes, owing to influence of obsolete fashions in dress and deportment, we may imagine that the huge costume de parade' is for something in the ageing of this child, robed like a miraculous idol. This picture is above all things vivid and vivacious, less reticent and noble in the general quality and harmony of the pigment than the masterpiece at the Prado, brighter in pitch, and in the rendering of the face more luminous and more physiognomic. At Madrid we admire all the magic of the work as an invention and piece of decoration, as a superb harmony in reds, clothing the radiant apparition beneath the • Reproduced on page 347. curtain which has been raised for a moment. At Vienna the prevailing quality is different and in the nature of a fortunate sketch; if the contour of the face and head against the background is more exquisite, the hands remain mere rough indications made with the pigment employed in the cambric napkin. At Madrid the brooch is a cluster of diamonds in a nest of silver lace; here it is an Austrian eagle. At Madrid the flowers are an abstract of pink, brown, and blue touches; at Vienna they are actual roses and deep blue dwarf convolvuli. The workmanship in the dress is rapid, suggestive, impatient, a tangle in fact of sharp pats and streaks of paint pink, crimson, and scarlet, and like the portrait of Mariana and the Margarita this painting comes as a surprise to the student of Velazquez. The Family of Mazoor Velazquez' (No. 603) is damaged and patched. Let us, however, examine its pictorial scheme. The arrangement of the figures is not in depth but on one plane: this is a habit of Velazquez. Let us note the touches of insight and a certain quaintness in the treatment of the children which remind one of the Master of the Meninas. Again, the pose of the hand of the lady who toys with a jewel is gracious and allied in motif to that of The Lady with the Fan. Let us realize at once that there is not a single instance of a painting by Mazo which shows that he had the faculty to design a picture which would necessitate the grouping of two or more large figures. The brown pigments employed in the indications of the figures to the left, the lady with the jewel, perhaps the nurse's skirt, are of a delicate quality, in marked contrast to the crude colour and heavy pigment of the more finished portions. The present writer considers this an unfinished work by Velazquez, completed in its essentials by Mazo, whose coat-of-arms is painted in the top corner by some heraldic painter. |
