OCTOBER 79 



trait has a distinct dash of affectation in it, and the 

 whole pose, excusable enough in Goethe, is of a man in 

 the prime of his life who felt himself to be famous and 

 knew himself to be handsome. To our ideas, the pic- 

 ture is singularly devoid of colour, almost monochrome ; 

 but it strikes one as very modern in treatment, consider- 

 ing its date, and for every reason it must always remain 

 one of the interesting portraits of the world. In the 

 early part of this century and during the Napoleonic 

 days, when the Rothschilds of Frankfort began to spread 

 themselves through Europe and establish their banking- 

 houses in so many capitals, the son who went to Naples 

 bought this great canvas of Tischbein's. In this way it 

 has ultimately found a most fitting home not in the 

 small house which, Goethe truly said, would not admit 

 it, but on the walls of this museum in his native town. 



The Staedel Institute has many artistically interest- 

 ing pictures, most instructive to the student of the old 

 masters, both German and Italian. For those who wish 

 to understand modern criticism and the altering of long- 

 accepted catalogues attributing pictures to wrong artists, 

 I can most strongly recommend 'Italian Painters,' by 

 Giovanni Morelli (John Murray) , translated into English 

 by Constance Jocelyn Ffoulkes. Giovanni Morelli lived 

 at Bergamo in Lombardy. He left as a legacy to his 

 native town a small, but very remarkable, collection of 

 pictures, the chief treasures of which are Dutch master- 

 pieces. I imagine the 'Italian Painters' is almost the 

 root of the kind of modern criticism which has torn 

 from us of the older generation many of the faiths of 

 our youth. For instance, the famous Guide's ' Cenci' of 

 the Barberini Palace for more than a century drew tears 

 of pity from the eyes of poets and their followers as 

 being a most tender representation of a famous criminal 

 painted in prison, who, but for this supposed portrait of 



