Revieir of Reviews, I/lu/06. 



Leading Articles. 



391 



THE COST OF SOME FAMOUS PICTURES. 



A -prepos of the recent appointment of Sir Charles 

 Holtoyd as Director of the National Gallen-, the 

 Art Journal in its August number reviews the more 

 noteworthy purchases made for the nation by Sir 

 Frederick Burton and Sir E. J. Poynter, the t\vo 

 previous Directors. 



The national collections of to-day in the Xa- 

 tional Gallery and the Tate Gallery number about 

 1950 works, secured at a cost of about thret^quar- 

 ters of a million, of which about _£8o,ooo has been 

 contributed bv private individuals or has come from 

 funds bequeathed for the purpose. 



Sir C. L. Eastlake, the first Director, reigned from 

 1855 to 1865. From 1866 to 1874 Sir William 

 Boxall was at the helm. Sir Frederick Burton took 

 the reins in 1874, and reigned twenty years. He 

 was succeeded by Sir E. J. Poynter, who resigned in 

 1904, and for about eighteen months the Gallery- 

 was without a Director. 



FAMOUS PURCHASES. 



Sir William Boxall purchased the seventy-seven 

 pictures which form the Peel Collection in 1871 for 

 ;^7 5,000. To-day they are worth many times this 

 price. 



Lists are supplied of the pictures bought for over 

 _£iooo under the directorates of Sir Frederick 

 Burton and Sir E. J. Poynter, with the date of pur- 

 chase and the prices paid. They include, as may 

 be imagined, many masterpieces, and some for sums 

 which to-day look ridiculously small. The highest 

 prices quoted are ^70,000 for Raphael's '" Ansidei 

 Madonna ' (1885) and ^30,000 for Titian's 

 " Ariosto '" (1904). For the last-named picture 

 ^20,000 was found by Lady Wantage, Mr. Alfred 

 Beit and others. 



"LADY COCKBUEX AND HEE CHILDREN." 



One great loss took place in 1892, when it was 

 found that Reynolds's '" Lady Cockburn and Her 

 Children " belonged rightfully to the co-heiresses of 

 Sir James Cockburn, and the picture had to be 

 handed over to them. Subsequently it came into 

 the collection of Mr. Alfred Beit, who was under- 

 stood to have given ;^22,ooo for it; but as the 

 August number of the Burlington Magazine reminds 

 us, the picture is now restored and .secured to the 

 National Gallerv, under the terms of Mr. Beit's will. 



The first number of JVestcrnmitits Monatshefte was 

 issued in October, 1856, and wath the present April 

 number the magazine begins its hundredth volume. 

 A special supplement gives reminiscences and greet- 

 ings from a number of well-known writers. The 

 magazine was founded by George Westermann, of 

 Brunswick, and its first editor, Dr. Adolf Glaser, is 

 still among the living. Its list of contributors in- 

 cludes the names of nearly all the great German 

 writers of the half-centurv. 



MR. THOMAS HARDY ON CHURCH RESTORATION. 



The August number cif the Cornlull Magasine 

 prints Mr. Thomas Hardy's address, " Memories of 

 Church Restoration, " read before the Society for 

 the Protection of Ancient Buildings. 



MISGUIDED ZEAL. 



The passion for restoration, says Mr. Hardy, be- 

 came vigorously operative about three-quarters of a 

 century ago, with the result that after the expendi- 

 ture of millions in nominal restoration we are poorer 

 in specimens of mediaeval buildings to-day than we 

 should have been had these buildings been, simply 

 left to incur dilapidations at the hands of time, 

 weather, or general neglect. He recalls instances 

 of devastation which have come under his notice: — 



Poor forlorn parishes, which could not afford to pay a 

 clerk of works to superintend the alterations, suffered 

 badly in these ecclesiastical convulsions. During the years 

 they were raging at their heiglit I journeyed to a distant 

 place to supervise a case, in the enforced absence of an 

 older eye. Tlie careful repair of an interesting early Eng- 

 lisli window had been specified; but it was gone. 



The contractor, who had met me on the spit, replied genial- 

 ly to my gaze of concern: "" Well. now. I said to myself 

 when I looked at the old thing. I won't stand upon a 

 pound or two: I'll give 'em a new winder now I am about 

 it. and make a good job of it. howsomever." X caricature 

 in new stone of the old window had taken its place. 



In the same churcli was an old oak rood-screen of debased 

 perpendicular workmanship, but valuable, the original 

 colouring and gilding. ' thougii much faded, still remaining 

 on the cusps and mouldings. The repairs deemed neces- 

 sary liad been duly specified, but I beheld in its place a 

 new screen of deal, varnished to a mirror-like brilliancy. 



" Well." replied the builder, more genially than ever. 

 " I said to my.seif. ' Please God, now I am about it, I'll do 

 tlie thing well, cost what it will!'" 



"Where's the old screen?" I said, appalled. 



"Used up to boil the workmen's kittles; though'a were 

 not mucli at that!" 



WH.AT IS LOST IN RESTORATION. 



Turning from devastation to restoration, Mr. 

 Hardv explains that certain indefinable qualities are 

 inevitably lost in reproduction: — ■ 



It is found in practice tliat even such an easily copied 

 aliape as. say. a traceried window doe-s not get truly re- 

 produced. The old form inherits, or has acquired, an 

 indefinable quality— possibly some deviation from geometry 

 (curved were often struck by hand in mediaeval work) — 

 which never reappears in the copy, especially in fclie vast 

 majority of cases where no nice approximation is at- 

 tempted. 



The second, or spiritual, attribute which stultifies the 

 would-be reproducer is perhaps more important still, and 

 ia not artistic at all. It lies in human association. Some 

 may be of a different opinion, but I tliink the damage 

 done to this sentiment of association by replacement, by 

 the rupture of continuity, is mainlj- what makes the 

 enormous loss this country has sustained from its seventy 

 years of cliurch restoration so tragic and deplorable. 



Mr. Horvvill, in the Young Man for May, a good 

 number, makes certain comparisons between Aus- 

 tralia and America which will be doubtfully pleasing 

 to the Australians. He evidently thinks them ap- 

 proaching nearer to the American than the British 

 tvpe. He takes a hopeful view of the Common- 

 wealth's possibilities. An Ex-Convict, retailing his 

 experiences, says: — "If you want to get a bona 

 ■fide start avoid a Prisoners" Aid Society." In Eng- 

 land he found it impossible to obtain a fresh start, 

 and therefore leaves for Canada. The opening paper 

 tells the life-story of Sir Edward Clarke, M.P. 



