The Best Portraits in Engraving | Page 9

famous Pompone. Here is the beauty of years and of serene intelligence. Looking at that tranquil countenance, it is easy to imagine the large and various capacities which made him not only painter, but sculptor, architect, musician, poet, discoverer, philosopher, even predecessor of Galileo and Bacon. Such a character deserves the immortality of art. Happily an old Venetian engraving reproduced in our day,[8] enables us to see this same countenance at an earlier period of life, with sparkle in the eye.
[Illustration: GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO
Firenze presso Luigi Bardi e C'Borgo degli Albizzi N^o 460]
Raffaelle Morghen left no scholars who have followed him in portraits; but his own works are still regarded, and a monument in Santa Croce, the Westminster Abbey of Florence, places him among the mighty dead of Italy.
[Sidenote: Houbraken]
Thus far nothing has been said of English engravers. Here, as in art generally, England seems removed from the rest of the world; Et penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos. But though beyond the sphere of Continental art, the island of Shakespeare was not inhospitable to some of its representatives. Vandyck, Rubens, Sir Peter Lely, and Sir Godfrey Kneller, all Dutch artists, painted the portraits of Englishmen, and engraving was first illustrated by foreigners. Jacob Houbraken, another Dutch artist, born in 1698, was employed to execute portraits for Birch's "Heads of Illustrious Persons of Great Britain," published at London in 1743, and in these works may be seen the ?sthetic taste inherited from his father, author of the biography of Dutch artists, and improved by study of the French masters. Although without great force or originality of manner, many of these have positive beauty. I would name especially the SIR WALTER RALEIGH and JOHN DRYDEN.
[Illustration: MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.
(Painted by Federigo Zuccaro, and Engraved by Francesco Bartolozzi.)]
[Sidenote: Bartolozzi.]
Different in style was Bartolozzi, the Italian, who made his home in England for forty years, ending in 1807, when he removed to Lisbon. The considerable genius which he possessed was spoilt by haste in execution, superseding that care which is an essential condition of art. Hence sameness in his work and indifference to the picture he copied. Longhi speaks of him as "most unfaithful to his archetypes," and, "whatever the originals, being always Bartolozzi." Among his portraits of especial interest are several old "wigs," as MANSFIELD and THURLOW; also the DEATH OF CHATHAM, after the picture of Copley in the Vernon Gallery. But his prettiest piece undoubtedly is MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS, with her little son James I., after what Mrs. Jameson calls "the lovely picture of Zuccaro at Chiswick." In the same style are his vignettes, which are of acknowledged beauty.
[Sidenote: Strange.]
Meanwhile a Scotchman honorable in art comes upon the scene--Sir Robert Strange, born in the distant Orkneys in 1721, who abandoned the law for engraving. As a youthful Jacobite he joined the Pretender in 1745, sharing the disaster of Culloden, and owing his safety from pursuers to a young lady dressed in the ample costume of the period, whom he afterwards married in gratitude, and they were both happy. He has a style of his own, rich, soft, and especially charming in the tints of flesh, making him a natural translator of Titian. His most celebrated engravings are doubtless the VENUS and the DANA? after the great Venetian colorist, but the CLEOPATRA, though less famous, is not inferior in merit. His acknowledged masterpiece is the MADONNA OF ST. JEROME called THE DAY, after the picture by Correggio, in the gallery of Parma, but his portraits after Vandyck are not less fine, while they are more interesting--as CHARLES FIRST, with a large hat, by the side of his horse, which the Marquis of Hamilton is holding, and that of the same Monarch standing in his ermine robes; also the THREE ROYAL CHILDREN with two King Charles spaniels at their feet, also HENRIETTA MARIA, the Queen of Charles. That with the ermine robes is supposed to have been studied by Raffaelle Morghen, called sometimes an imitator of Strange.[9] To these I would add the rare autograph PORTRAIT OF THE ENGRAVER, being a small head after Greuze, which is simple and beautiful.
[Illustration: JOHN HUNTER
(Painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Engraved by William Sharp.)]
[Sidenote: Sharp.]
One other name will close this catalogue. It is that of William Sharp, who was born at London in 1746, and died there in 1824. Though last in order, this engraver may claim kindred with the best. His first essays were the embellishment of pewter pots, from which he ascended to the heights of art, showing a power rarely equalled. Without any instance of peculiar beauty, his works are constant in character and expression, with every possible excellence of execution; face, form, drapery--all are as in nature. His splendid qualities appear in the DOCTORS OF THE CHURCH, which has taken its place as