Fine Arts' Exhibitions. 



[JUNE, 



like this must not be confined to an indi- 

 vidual possessor. We understand that it 

 has been purchased by Mr. Beckford for 

 500 guineas ; but that this is meant to 

 imply no monopoly of the possession. The 

 picture must indeed remain to decorate 

 the walls of some new Fonthill ; but an 

 engraving is to be made of it, for the right 

 to which, a large sum has been given ; and 

 which, if executed on a commensurate scale 

 of size and excellence, must be at once 

 highly productive to the proprietors of the 

 engraving, and gratifying to the lovers of 

 the arts. 



Jackson has, among half a dozen por- 

 traits, all exhibiting his force of colour and 

 graphic fidelity of likeness, a more than 

 usually able one of the Countess of Shef- 

 field.* This artist's style is formed upon 

 a school in which, as there was little female 

 beauty to be fouud for the painter's eye, 

 the vigour of the pencil was exerted rather 

 on seizing the strong traits of countenance 

 and costume, however rude ; but in this 

 portrait he has shown that no delicacy of 

 the female face or figure is too delicate for 

 his pencil ; and on this single portrait he 

 might establish his fame. 



Pickersgill has his full number of eight 

 pictures. This able artist, who has so 

 rapidly risen into public estimation, displays 

 his usual skill ; and the variety of his sub- 

 jects, from boyhood up to age, tiy every 

 capacity of the portrait painter. 



The Sculpture Room is crowded with 

 works finished and in plaster. Chantry, 

 who, we are glad to see, has returned to the 

 class of his art in which he is most success- 

 ful, has some fine busts. His attempt to 

 reduce the chaotic features of old Sir Wil- 

 liom Curtis into the picturesque shows an 

 extraordinary power of overcoming dif- 

 ficulties, that we should have honestly pro- 

 nounced insuperable. 



Behnes, of all our best sculptors the most 

 graceful, has a fine head of the little 

 Princess Victoria. 



Westmacott, who is rapidly rising to the 

 place filled by Flaxman, and whose feeling 

 of the antique has no living superior, ex- 

 hibits a fine group of a Nymph and Zephyr, 

 and a strongly conceived and impressive 

 statue of the late Warren Hastings. 



We have no room to do justice to the 

 separate exhibitions which have taken place 

 during this active month. Martin, after 

 expending some years on its production, has 

 at last displayed his " Fall of Nineveh." 

 It is an admirable and extraordinary per- 

 formance, and probably capable of having 

 been conceived by no man of less fertility 

 of imagination, than this true poet of the 

 pencil- It has obvious faults. It is too 

 similar in its details to his former pictures. 



* A very beautiful engraving of this picture has 

 been executed by Dean tor "LA BKLLB ASHRM- 

 m.KK," for the S Ties of Portraits of the Female 

 Mobility, in course ot publication in that elegant 

 periodical. 



The architecture is not Assyrian but Indian, 

 and is, pillar for pillar, the architecture of his 

 Belshazzar. The battle which fills the middle 

 ground, loses its massiveness by the attempt 

 at excessive detail, and loses the interest of 

 detail by excessive distance ; its heroes are 

 lost to every thing but the telescope. The 

 walls, the galleys, and the whole back- 

 ground, are too hazy, and the attitudes of 

 Sardanapalus and his surrounding groups 

 are, perhaps, too theatrical. Still, where 

 shall we find the equal of this great picture, 

 in invention, in the power of story, in de- 

 sign, in the fine faculty of bringing the 

 catastrophe of a mighty nation, a great 

 dynasty, and one of the most singular 

 beings of that dynasty, before our eyes 

 as if the deed were doing at this hour? 

 To those who have not seen this picture 

 and we hope, for the honour of their taste, 

 there are few who will long leave such an 

 imputation on themselves we can only say, 

 that an adequate description of the multi- 

 tude of its objects, the spirit of its combi- 

 nation, or the eccentric richness of its 

 character and colouring, are beyond the 

 pen. The top of the picture is filled with 

 the angry omens of the sky, eclipsing stars, 

 rolling clouds, and bursts of lightning. 

 Below these range the summits of pompous 

 oriental buildings, worthy of the great city 

 of the first kingdom, filling the middle 

 ground on the walls of Nineveh, of colossal 

 magnitude, partially broken down by the 

 inundation, which the oracle announced as 

 the fated sign of the national fall. On the 

 plain at their sides is the final battle of the 

 invaders ; a scene of elephants, chariots, 

 and cavalry. Immediately under the eye 

 are Sardanapalus and his slaves and wo- 

 men, preparing to enter the funeral pile ; 

 an immense heap of rich ornaments, drape- 

 ries, and furniture of the palace, raised to 

 consume the last monarch of the empire of 

 Ninus. The artist has made a very striking 

 advance in his drawing of the human 

 figure, and some of the groups are beauti- 

 ful. The action is still occasionally over- 

 strained. But this may be pardoned, in 

 the force and excitement of the crisis. We 

 must look upon the picture as a whole ; 

 and, as such, we congratulate Martin on 

 the most brilliant achievement of his 

 pencil. 



Le Thiere, the French artist, who some 

 years ago exhibited " The Judgment of 

 Brutus," with much public admiration, has 

 given up the intermediate time to a picture 

 on the same scale, on " The Death of Vir- 

 ginia." The style of the French school is 

 now familiar to us. It is spirited, learned, 

 and singularly effective in telling the story. 

 But the passion of the Frenchman for the 

 theatre infects the whole of French life, 

 and denaturalizes every production of his 

 mind and hand. The French poet is drawn 

 away from nature by the theatrical appetite 

 for point and surprise. The French sculptor 

 throws his figures into the attitudes of the 



