Nature and Art, July 1, 1886.] 
FINE AET AUCTIONS. 
63 
Gardens. When the Ministry proposed that the Eoyal 
Academy, driven at last from Trafalgar Square in obedience 
to the will of the large party who claim that site for a 
National Gallery, should find rest on the Burlington estate, 
and that they should be allowed to have a design of their 
own, so it were in keeping' with the works projected by the 
Government, jthey reckoned, it seems, without their host, 
or let us say their invited guest. It was not fated that 
the ancient “triangular duel” between the Dilettanti, 
the Academy, and “ the Department,” should be thus 
arranged. 
Mr. Beresford Hope, speaking no doubt upon information, 
re-opened the ball on the 8th ultimo by asking “ Whether, 
in the event of the negotiations between the Academy and 
the State for a site at Burlington House being broken olf, 
some guarantee would not be given that the house in ques- 
tion should not be demolished ? ” This led to an admission 
that the Academy had — though not yet officially— altered 
their minds, and were going to accept three acres offered to 
them at Brompton by that eternal and irrepressible body, 
the Commissioners of 1851, or, as they might fitly be de- 
signated, the Commissioners of South Kensington. Happy 
academicians, happy commission, happy Mr. Cowper, say we, 
if the ghostof this long-vexed question can thus at last belaid. 
For, as was well observed, the Academy enjoy no grant of 
public funds, and may spend their own as they like. The 
mission of the much-abused men of 1851 is to cover the 
land at South Kensington, and the sooner that mission is 
ended the sooner will public heart-burning cease. The 
course of the good-tempered Minister of Works in this 
matter has been prescribed for him long ago by Dogberry. 
“If a man will not stand — why then, take no note of him, 
but let him go ; and presently call the rest of the watch 
together and thank God you are rid of him.” But, alas ! 
his repose will be but transitory. For, if he be really rid of 
the academicians and their tenant-right question, the men of 
taste will yet live to worry him in the names of art, anti- 
quity, and associations ; and the utilitarians, in the names 
of common sense, convenience, and economy about the dis- 
posal of the sites at Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly. One 
honourable member seemed to consider the memory of the 
former occupants of Burlington House quite sufficient reason 
for letting their old house alone. Others thought it ought 
to be preserved and somehow incorporated with a very large 
building. Lord Elcho and Mr. Ayrton very sensibly thought, 
if it really was such an ornament to London the walls 
around it might be removed. All spoke in the usual high 
terms of Trafalgar Square and most contemptuously of the 
building there. A minister was absurd enough to evoke the 
Duke of Wellington in support of an apocryphal distum 
that a National Gallery should, for military reasons, not be 
near a barrack. Lord Cranborne took occasion to censure 
what he termed the “ peculiar spirit of self-assertion, self- 
aggrandisement, and intrigue which appeared so strongly to 
animate the staff at South Kensington.” Mr. Hubbard 
thought South Kensington the very place of all others for 
all exhibitions, and Mr. Cowper, the best of landscape 
gardeners. The speakers in this long debate were not 
numerous ; each agreed to differ toto ccelo from his neigh- 
bour ; and no conclusion was arrived at. A few mornings 
after, Sir Edwin Landseer stepped into the arena, informing 
the public through the Times that he, at least, was no con- 
senting party to the movement of the Academy to Brompton. 
He took for granted, necessarily to his own argument, but 
on entirely insufficient grounds, that the Academy would 
have pleased no one by building in Piccadilly, and thus 
having cleared away a disturbing element from the calcula- 
tion, argued on the respective merits of Trafalgar Square 
and Kensington, as follows : — 
“ To a suitable site for the collections belonging to the 
nation there are some things indispensable. It should pro- 
vide, in an equal degree, for the exhibition of them in an 
accessible way, for the careful preservation of them, and for 
large and frequent additions to them. Trafalgar Square has 
the accessibility, and nothing' else. When the question was 
first mooted seriously sixteen years ago, a committee of the 
House of Commons — of which Lord John Bussell, Sir Bobert 
Peel, Lord Seymour, Sidney Herbert, and Mr. Disraeli were 
members — examined a great many witnesses, and reported 
their evidence to be only short of unanimous against Tra- 
falgar Square as unfavourable for the preservation of pictures. 
They condemned as useless any expenditure for increasing 
the accommodation on that site; pointed out the extent to 
which its many disadvantages had already checked the 
liberality in gifts and bequests it was the nation’s interest 
to have encouraged ; and laid it down as essential, in build- 
ing for the national collections, that three incidents insepar- 
able from a crowded London thoroughfare should be avoided 
— excessive smoke and dust, obstructions to light and air, 
and impossibility of enlargement whenever necessary. 
“ On the other hand, the more dispassionately the matter 
is considered, the plainer it will be that it is for the interest 
of all, and especially for the public interest, that the 
Eoyal Academy should remain in Trafalgar Square. No 
other purpose could be named for which that site is so 
well adapted as for the three months’ exhibition and 
the public schools of the Academy. With proper man- 
agement I believe the space would be sufficient for both ; 
there would no longer be a necessity to close its schools 
while its exhibition was open ; its galleries would be large 
enough for the acceptance of every picture deserving of 
exhibition ; and, by its money saved in building, every 
advantage it has given to students might be enlarged, every 
charitable provision it has made might be rendered more 
worthy, and, appropriating all its income to the promotion 
and encouragement of the arts, it might in future far more 
than repay by the extent of its public service whatever 
public advantage it now receives. A sufficient guarantee is 
afforded by its past history for what its future career in such 
circumstances would be.” 
Every one is not bound to approve Sir Edwin’s confident 
perorations ; but his communication to the literature of this 
ancient and most pretty quarrel is a valuable one, and 
carried weight enough at the time to be cited in the House 
as a reason, among others, for postponing the third reading 
of the Bill. 
FINE ART AUCTIONS. 
A S usual at this season several very valuable galleries of 
paintings and drawings have been disposed of by Messrs. 
Christie, Manson, & Woods, who may be termed the 
Clotho and Atropos of fine-art collections. Those of Moore, 
Macqueen, & Co.', realized together £1 7,250. Mr. More- 
land’s small gallery, in which were high-class specimens of 
Canaletti, Claude, the Vauderveldes, and a very fine Cuyp, 
produced about .£8,000. The important collection of Mr. 
George Young comprised examples of Calcott, F. Goodall, 
T. Webster, P. Nasmyth, Fleury, Creswiek, Boberts, T. S. 
Cooper, Wilkie, Collins, Etty, Stanfield, Constable, and 
Turner. The “ Haywain,” by Constable, brought 1,300 
guineas; and the “ Seventh Plague of Egypit,” formerly in 
Beckford’s collection, 1,010 guineas. Again, the final por- 
tion of Mr. Flatow’s stock-in-trade was sold for £8,585 
(the first part having brought £24,750). It comprised 
a landscape by Sir A. Calcott at 1,000 guineas, and a 
Sydney Cooper at 500 guineas. Week after week, in fact, 
during the season, an ebb and flow of fine-art treasures may 
be noted with interest at the famous rooms in King Street ; 
and the same thing is, of course, going on at Paris. The 
competition in the gay city for high-class works is, ap- 
parently, more intense than here. The collections of tho 
J Comte de Choiseul, Mons. Meyer, and others recently 
! sold have produced large sums. The “ Phryne,” for 
j instance, now a conspicuous ornament of Mr. Gambart’s 
