4-4 The Carlton-House Pictures. 



hand which he united in so admirable a manner with his high finishing. 

 By Da Hooge, however, we have perhaps at least as fine a work as the 

 artist ever painted. It represents the Interior of a Room, with persons 

 playing at cards ; and through the door, at the extremity of it, is seen 

 another building, and figures across a court-yard, into which the sun is 

 shining brilliantly. Nothing can be more perfect than the illusion of this 

 scene. The effect of it on the spectator is magical. There is also another 

 belonging to the same class, which is full of merit : it is by Maaes, and 

 represents a woman descending a staircase with a light, and listening to 

 the conversation of some other figures that are in an obscure corner 

 behind the staircase. But of oil the attempts at creating scenic illusion, 

 by means of the arrangement of light and shade, without exception the 

 most successful we have ever witnessed, is one in this collection, by 

 Granet, representing the Inside of a Convent, with Monks at their Devo- 

 tions. There is but little general merit in the picture ; but the effect pro- 

 duced by the arrangement of the light and shade is managed with extreme 

 cleverness. The scene includes merely the aisle of a chapel, lighted by a 

 single square window at the farther extremity ; with the inferior monks 

 ranged in a row on either side, while the officiating ones are standing in the ; 

 centre, beside a pulpit, and performing the service of the hour. The light 

 of a bright sun pours in at the small window opposite to, but raised some- 

 what above, the black pulpit; and the effect is produced by this light fall- 

 ing on the extreme edges only of the pulpit, the profiles of the monks, the 

 religious vessels which they are using, the books, &c., and also by the 

 manner in which it spreads and diffuses itself, and at length blends with the 

 darkness, on the side-walls of the apartment. As a mere single effect of 

 skill in the management of light and shade, this picture is very curious and 

 striking : but in other respects it has little or no merit or interest, and is con- 

 sequently to be looked upon as of small value and importance as a work of art. 



We must now take leave of the Flemish school by stating, that the pre- 

 sent collection is by no means rich in the admirable sea-pieces of that only 

 school of real, unaltered nature especially in the class of works just 

 named. Here are three pieces by Vandevelde, and one by Backhuysen ; 

 all of them excellent, as far as they go, but none of them of a sufficiently 

 striking character to claim or bear a particular description. 



The only masters, not of the Flemish school, whose works form a noticeable, 

 feature in this collection, are Sir Joshua Reynolds and Zoffani. Indeed it is 

 confined exclusively to the above masters, with the exception of a Landscape 

 by Titian ; and a little gem, said to be by M. Angelo and Venusti. The 

 works of Sir Joshua Reynolds are seven In number three belonging to the 

 historical class, and four portraits. The defective reputation of Sir Joshua, 

 in regard to his treatment of poetical or historical subjects, will have led most 

 persons to suppose him incapable of producing such a picture as the Cymon 

 and Iphigenia, in this collection. It is a very fine work. The female is 

 designed with infinite ease and grace, coloured with great richness and 

 truth, and expressed with that mixture of purity and voluptuousness which 

 is among the highest and rarest attainments of art in subjects of this 

 nature. She is lying asleep in a secluded nook of a landscape, to the brink 

 of which her lover is led by Love himself, arid suffered to gaze for a 

 moment on the rich treasures of her beauty. There is a peeping, prying 

 look about the Cymon, which is the fault of the picture. In other 

 respects, the figure is well designed and expressed. The Cupid, too, is 

 charmingly given. The landscape part is also very vigorously, as well as 

 poetically executed ; and the 'whole is kept in due subservience to the prin- 

 cipal object of fascination the .sleeping nymph. 



