The Pinacotheca of Munich. 623 



But we aspire not to be critics. We are content to be humble nar- 

 rators ; and so we must e'en hasten onwards. The fifth saloon forms 

 with the third a brilliant retinue, as it were, in attendance on the ma- 

 jestic Rubens. Noble portraits by Vandyck and Rembrandt, animal 

 pieces by Snyers and Weenix, studies of light and shadow by Hoe- 

 thorst, and landscapes by Everdingen, form its chief contents, which 

 are not a little set off by the great Madonna of Gaspard Grayer and 

 the Great Fair of Teniers. In the rooms adjoining are small pictures 

 of interiors and of homely scenery by Teniers, Ostade, Brower, Ger- 

 rard Dow, Mieris, and Wanderwerff, some paintings of inanimate 

 nature by Flemish artists, some Rusdal landscapes, and animal pieces 

 of Berghem. Before we leave these* rooms, we ought to say in com- 

 mon justice, that the Pinacotheca contains not only the most numer- 

 ous, but one of the finest collections of Flemish pictures that are to be 

 found in Europe. 



The FRENCH and SPANISH schools occupy the sixth saloon and its 

 apartments. Here we have Murillo's Beggar Boys in all their varieties 

 painted with a truth and winning simplicity scarcely equalled by the 

 pictures of the same artist in Marshal Soult's collection : and then we 

 have the never-to-be-mistaken portraits of Velasquez, who with all 

 his splendid talent is too manure to please a person of refined taste, 

 the inimitable landscapes of Claude Lorraine, the marine pieces 

 of Vernet, and the pictures of Spagnoletto, Lebrun, Lesueur, and 

 Poussin. This department, however, maybe enlarged with advantage. 

 The seventh saloon is the first of the ITALIAN school, and it con- 

 tains the works of the latest masters of the Venetian, Bolognese, and 

 Florentine schools. Here is a fine Madonna by Pontormo, there is a 

 Holy Family by Vasari : on one side is the history of Hercules by 

 Dominichino, and on another a Magdalen of Tintoretto and a Crown- 

 ing with Thorns by Guercino, while in other parts we confront Tia- 

 rini's Tancredi in the Enchanted Wood, Canaletto's View of Munich, 

 and several works of Titian and Carlo Dolci. In the eighth saloon are 

 to be noticed more particularly Guide's Assumption of the Virgin 

 according to many the finest picture in the gallery Dominichino's 

 Susannah, Titian's portrait of himself and another of Charles V., 

 and several portraits by Paul Veronese : but the ninth saloon, entirely 

 filled with pictures presented by the munificence of the present king 

 Louis Charles, is the true repository and sanctuary of Italian art. The 

 Holy Family of Raffaelle (which we believe was purchased in Eng- 

 land), the St. John and the Infant Saviour are especially remarkable 

 as splendid monuments of this painter's genius, and they remind one 

 involuntarily of the grandest works that were ever achieved either by 

 him or by his master Pietro Perugino, of whose works also there is 

 here a fair sprinkling, all others being thrown into the shade by the 

 brilliant talent displayed in his ^Appearance of the Virgin to St. Ber- 

 nard undoubtedly one of the most valuable treasures of the Bavarian 

 gallery. The Madonna of Innocent de Imola and another of Corre- 

 gio are totally inappreciable pictures and unique specimens of compo- 

 sition. The old Italian school is very sufficiently represented by Fra 

 Filippo, Filippino, Ghirlandajo, Zingaro, and others : but Raffaelle's 

 Holy Family, Giorgione's portrait of himself, the Holy Families of 



