Muerto,' a picture from the Pourtalès Gallery, representing a dead warrior in armour clad, stretched flat upon his back in a place of skulls, a lamp just extinguished hanging from a tree above. The work is vigorous in hand, brilliant in the painting of the steel armour, sombre in colour, altogether grand and ominous of mysterious story. The other picture is a portrait of that proud, scornful, and stupid face, the well-known head of Philip IV. of Spain. Velasquez immortalised his master with realistic vengeance. For the sake of history and of art it is a great thing to be in possession even of this minor work, known as the Demidoff Velasquez. We are also glad to notice among recent acquisitions a characteristic head by Moroni, purchased at the Pourtalès sale. This portrait of a lawyer may be turned to good account by native artists who addict themselves to portraiture. Indeed, it is not too much to assert that all which can be said in praise or done in honour of the noble art of portrait-painting may now find illustration within the walls of the National Gallery. Such heads as those of Ariosto by Titian, of a gentleman commonly called Gevartius, by Vandyck, and of the Doge Leonardo Loredano, by Bellini-works almost unsurpassed in the history of the portrait art might, if turned to due account, redeem our school from besetting failings. It remains that we should mention the highest prize which for many a year has fallen to the goodluck of the Director and the Trustees of the Gallery. While we write, 'The Garvagh Raphael' has been hung side by side with "The Vision of a Knight' and the figure of 'St Catherine;' so that now the greatest master of the Roman School is not without choice elucidation in our national collection. The Knight belongs to Raphael's first manner, while yet the style of his master Perugino remained intact. 'St Catherine' pertains to the second period, while Raphael was still in

VOL. XCVIII.—NO. DXCVIII.

Florence; and the small 'Holy Family,' now acquired, coming down five years later, falls under the third, last, or Roman division of the painter's career. The 'St Catherine' bears date about the year 1507. In the following year Raphael was invited to Rome by Pope Julius II., and about 1512, one year before the death of Julius and the accession of Leo, Raphael found leisure to paint the little gem now come into our possession. Already the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican was decorated with the fresco paintings of Theology,' Philosophy,' ' Poetry,' and 'Jurisprudence,' works which mark the master's culminating powers. "The Garvagh Raphael,' therefore, belongs to the period when the

St Cecilia,' the San Sisto,' and the 'Spasimo' were executed, and consequently immediately precedes the time and the style pronounced by the artist's last easel-painting, The Transfiguration.' The little picture before us, in the type of the heads, and especially in the rich harmony of colour for which Raphael, during his residence in Rome, began to seek, contains internal evidence of its reputed date and style. This Holy Family,' like the 'St Catherine,' was formerly part of the Aldobrandini collection in the Borghese Palace, and both were purchased from that gallery by Mr Day, towards the close of last or the beginning of the present century. Mr Day long endeavoured to sell for 1500 guineas the picture which Lord Garvagh subsequently purchased in Paris for a still smaller sum-a work which we now deem ourselves fortunate in obtaining at the startling price of £9000! Such is the astounding rise in the value of pictures, which in the nature of things cannot be multiplied to meet the exigencies of a growing demand. The purchase-money which the son and the widow of Lord Garvagh now realise is at the rate of nearly fifty pounds to the square inch of panel sold; or, in other words, reaches to

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ten times the ratio at which the works of Turner are valued. On examination we are glad to find that the picture is in a comparatively good state of preservationlittle more than a slight rubbing here and there can be detected on an otherwise intact surface. From the love we are known to bear to art in general, and to Italian works in particular, it will be readily believed that we do not deem the price paid exorbitant. As on the completion of the bargain for the Paul Veronese at the cost of £13,000, so now on the purchase of the Raphael for £9000, we say that to a nation of wealth all but boundless, a thousand pounds or two, more or less, can matter little, while the possession of master-works of genius is for us of an import which cannot be measured by money. A great desideratum has been now attained; the untravelled Englishman can in the capital of the empire measure the extent and estimate the exquisite quality of the mind and the works of the artist whom all the world combined to worship. The Cartoons at Kensington display the genius of Raphael in its magnitude; the Garvagh 'Holy Family' in Trafalgar Square gives of his talent an epitome in finished miniature.

The British Museum, in shame be it spoken, exerts scarcely an appreciable influence on our modern English art. Yet the relation we have pointed out as subsisting between the old masters and modern painters, ought to hold equally good between classic marbles and the works of our contemporary sculptors. The Elgin Marbles, which are perhaps the most perfect known examples of that high art which reconciles individual nature with ideal treatment, ought certainly to have saved our country from the melancholy display of modern sculpture made year by year in the cellar of the Academy. The treasures long possessed by the British Museum have received during the past year valuable additions.

Adverse fortune, fallen upon the Neapolitan branch of the house of Bourbon, has led to the final dispersion of the Farnese statues. The large and imposing Farnese Palace in Rome, designed by Sangallo, crowned by Michael Angelo with a noble cornice, and decorated by Annibale Caracci with frescoes, once contained classic works of rare merit. The chief ornaments of the collection—the Flora, the Hercules, and the Farnese Bull, for example -were years ago carried away to Naples, where they remain to this day in the museum. The figures, nine in number, left behind in the Roman palace of the Bourbons, and which it must be admitted were of secondary merit, are those that have been acquired by the British Museum at the inconsiderable cost of £4000. Of these the equestrian statue, probably of Caligula, the figures of Apollo, of Mercury, and of a young athlete, though far from rising to a firstrate standard, at any rate serve to fill up gaps in a museum which still remains small and fragmentary. These marbles belong to the time of the Roman decadence, and are marked by a corresponding mannerism, often far removed from nature. It may be some comfort to the student to know that these defects receive exposure and correction by the earlier and purer works in the Museum itself. The consecutive series now brought together reaches towards completeness: the rise and the fall of the sculpture art are made manifest, and the shortcomings or the offences of any one epoch find supplement and remedy in its antecedents or sequence. The Lycian remains, the Elgin Marbles, the spoils from the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, and the now added Farnese statues, compose into one broad sweeping panorama which traverses diverse kingdoms, connects two quarters of the world, and covers half a millennium of years. But the gem of the recent purchases, and gem of

first water and cutting indeed it is, remains to be named. At the Pourtalès sale was bought, at the rather alarming cost of £2000, a head of Apollo, a work almost matchless for its ideal beauty, and rare for its finished elaboration. On close examination of these various works, the student is met on the threshold by that ever-recurring stumbling-block, delusive restoration. Travellers given to inquiries, even the most cursory, are well aware that many a showy figure in the galleries of Europe owes its display to telling adjuncts supplied by the ready ingenuity of modern Italian sculptors. The importations into this country from the Farnese Palace offer some rather glaring proofs of a practice which is often little short of nefarious. For example, the Farnese Apollo, which by the non-critical crowd will be admired for its apparently perfect preservation, is said to owe its present attractions to restorations of members no less vital than the head, two arms, the thigh and left leg, the right foot, together with accessories, including the plinth! The Trustees of the Museum are perhaps scarcely to be blamed for retaining what they found already in existence. It is indeed too much to expect that any body of men should for the sake of antiquarian truth reduce an attractive figure into an uninviting and unintelligible fragment. In visiting foreign galleries, however, we have always been glad when it has so happened that some means, either on the face of the statue itself, or by an inscription or catalogue, has been afforded whereby to distinguish between the classic original and the medieval or modern restoration. We trust, as a matter of conscience, and in the cause of popular education, which is worse than useless if not truthful, that the trustees will boldly set forth the simple facts of the case just as they are. Several reasons might be adduced why existing restorations should be

retained; among others, that such additions, when confessed to, may in themselves teach lessons which we should all regret to lose. One cause why the British Museum has not been by artists and students of all sorts turned to better account is, that the knowledge locked up in the brains of its learned staff is not put before the public in any intelligible popular or available form. The suggestion that the superintendents and keepers of Departments should be created professors, and accordingly deliver lectures, to which the natural-history collections, the marbles, vases, and coins in the Museum might serve as illustrations, is certainly worthy of further consideration. In default of some such thorough scheme, it were at least desirable that cheap popular catalogues or handbooks should be prepared and placed on sale at the Museum door, similar to the catalogue raisoné of the pictures in the National Gallery, written by Mr Wornum, and to the handbook compiled by the late Mrs Jameson, in elucidation of the Sculpture Courts of the Crystal Palace. When the learned staff of the Museum confer on the public this boon, they will create in their favour an additional claim to the augmentation of salaries confessedly inadequate.

The Royal Academy, the National Gallery, the British Museum, the South Kensington Museum, and other institutions which have yielded materials for our present review, are on the verge of reconstructions and revolutions which must change the aspect of the art-seasons in future years. Our various institutions of science and art have grown up something as our political constitution, in rather a fortuitous hap-hazard manner, which in the end may be found to result in freedom of action, and to bring about practical conclusions which seldom materially deviate from the line of the main chance. Still it must be admitted that a point has now been reached, when disconnected bodies called

into being without relation the one to the other, and museums of art and of science scattered widely over the metropolis, require concentration, or at any rate systematic distribution. We are at present doing at two or more places what at less cost and with redoubled force could be better accomplished on one spot. We have for instance a Medieval department at the British Museum, and a second Middle Age museum at Kensington. That some change is imperative there can be little doubt. It would, for example, be wise to place all such works as bear directly on the arteducation and the art-manufactures of the country, under the care and control of the Department of Science and Art. The British Museum then might remain the undisturbed centre for the concentration of classic works, and of those antiquarian remains which, having no practical application on art-products, are yet invaluable for the elucidation of history and for the illustration of the great epochs of civilisation. Again we incline to think that the original drawings in the British Museum would be better placed in immediate connection with the paintings for which these drawings were often preliminary studies, an arrangement whereby, as in the Louvre, artists' designs form adjuncts to galleries of pictures. Again, the natural-history collections, together with the vast assembly of stuffed whales on which Professor Owen has set his heart, some people would transfer from Russell Street to South Kensington, others to the region already set apart for living species of the animal kingdom in Regent's Park. We believe that the Government are prepared with some scheme which we trust may serve to reconcile conflicting claims.

But of all impending changes, the most radical are those which lie over the future of the National Gallery and the Royal Academy-two cognate institutions which unfortu

nately are assumed to be hostile in interest, and are consequently usually pitted in warfare the one against the other. We have reason to know that the scheme advocated in these pages for the erection of a truly noble National Gallery at Burlington House, whereby the Academy and the Academy schools would retain the existing building in Trafalgar Square on condition of assenting to a thorough reform, obtained the approval of the art-leaders in the country. But the House of Commons having expressed a strong opinion that the National Gallery should remain in Trafalgar Square, it is understood that opposing parties, wisely acquiescing in that decision, are willing to surrender preconcerted plans, and for the sake of the union which gives strength, and with a view to obviate further delay, are now prepared to direct their forces towards one common and concerted end. This prearranged conclusion is drawing to a determinate issue. It is proposed that the present National Gallery shall receive additions in the rear; and furthermore, that the half of the existing building hitherto held by the Academy shall be surrendered to the uses of the united collections of the Foreign and the English Schools. Thus space will be obtained for displaying under one roof the ancient works already in Trafalgar Square, the modern pictures temporarily housed at Kensington, the portraits at Westminster, and the artists' drawings in the British Museum. The Academy, thus driven out of doors, will need to seek a house and a home elsewhere. The Government, in order to meet the impending exigency, and with the desire to foster an institution which deserves well of the country, have offered to give to the Academy an adequate site at Burlington House under certain conditions still subject to negotiation. These conditions fortunately accord with the general line of policy toward which the Academy inclines.