Spanish Painting and the French Romantics [Reprint 2014 ed.] 9780674424463, 9780674424456

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Harvard Studies in Romance Languages Published under the Direction of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures Volume XXXII

Spanish Painting and the French Romantics Ilse Hempel Lipschutz

Harvard University Press

Cambridge,

Massachusetts

1972

© Copyright 1972 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 74-172322 SBN 674-83110-1 Printed in the United States of America

To Lewis Elizabeth, Marion, Marc, and Margaret

Preface

Spanish painting, unlike that of Italy or the Low Countries, was relatively late in gaining recognition beyond the boundaries of its own country. Not until the nineteenth century did the works of the Spanish masters circulate to any extent outside Spain and only then did their names come to be tied to their actual oeuvre. This study explores the impact of these works on French imagination and esthetics during a period when general French espagnolisme flourished. Indeed, the French Romantic imagination was spellbound by Spain—by her history, her countryside, her people, and her literary tradition. The question is whether growing familiarity with Spanish art revealed to the French new, hitherto unsuspected dimensions of the Spanish genius, or whether the Spanish canvases merely mirrored pre-existing concepts of a romanticized Spain. In other words, did the works of the Spanish masters confirm the French Romantic vision of Spain and also justify the themes and esthetic theories of a new generation of French writers? Part one of this work shows the paucity of French knowledge of and interest in Spanish painting prior to the Napoleonic campaigns, which brought a huge wave of Frenchmen into direct personal contact with the Peninsula, her people, her life, and her art. Thereafter, awareness and knowledge of the Spanish school of painting became more widespread, reaching a peak during the 1830's, when the Romantics' intense interest in all cosas de España blossomed. The discovery of Spanish painting was finally consummated with the momentous opening of Louis Philippe's Musée espagnol in January of 1838, the terminal year in this study. Part two shows the role that these paintings played in French imagination and esthetics at a time when Spain was becoming a major source of inspiration for hommes de lettres and other artists. It traces the chronological evolution of this pictorial espagnolisme and illustrates its growth and change as a result of increasing factual knowledge of Spanish painting. This knowledge was, however, heavily influenced by the onlooker's "elective affinities." In my study of the sources of literary imagery it became quite obvious that French interpretation of the Spanish canvases was so tinted by a preconceived literary image of Spain that the Romantics chose to see only what they wanted to see, and remained blind to

Vii

Preface many other important aspects of Spanish painting. In Goya's oeuvre, for instance, the generation of 1830 commented mainly on the Caprichos, in which they recognized some of their own visions: Goya's majas embodied their own ideal of the graceful and pretty young Spanish woman, his "monsters" engendered by "the dream of reason" touched responsive chords in their own romantisme noir. Thus, in pursuing this study, my chief interest has been in understanding the way in which the "eye of the beholder" screened what he beheld. This book is a study neither in art history nor in iconography, but in the genesis of literary imagery. Clearly Spanish painting is but one source in the inspiration of each writer; its particular place in the creative imagination of individuals remains to be analyzed. For paintings I have either used the prevailing English titles or translated the descriptive titles; I have retained the original French or Spanish titles only where their use is meaningful. Quotations by French authors from Spanish sources often display erratic spelling and whimsical accentuation; no attempt has been made herein to standardize them. I should like to express my gratitude to all those friends and colleagues who have contributed over the years to bring this study to its final form. Mr. Jean Seznec, now at Oxford, gave me the initial much needed but even more appreciated encouragement to undertake this study. The late and very much missed D. Amado Alonso showed unflagging interest at crucial moments. Mr. René Jasinski's helpful criticisms at the early stages of my work are much appreciated, as are those of D. Enrique Lafuente Ferrari at some of the later stages. Throughout this book my indebtedness is evident to the masterly writings of Mr. Paul Guinard, now professor at the Faculté des Lettres, University of Toulouse, and Director Emeritus of the Institut de France en Espagne. The help and encouragement he has given me at various points in my work, including the communication of several invaluable catalogues, must be gratefully recognized here. A fellowship from the American Association of University Women and later a Vassar College Fellowship enabled me to gather the necessary source material in France and Spain. A grant from the Vassar College Lucy Maynard Salmon Fund and one from the Radcliffe College Henry P. Kendall Foundation helped toward the final preparation of the manuscript. I am particularly grateful to M. Jean Adhémar of the Cabinet des Estampes at the Bibliothèque nationale, who put his inexhaustible funds of materials and personal information at my disposal, and to Mr. Jean Pommier

vili

Preface and Mr. Roger Pierrot, who enabled me to take advantage of the riches accumulated in the Spoelberch de Lovenjoul collection in Chantilly. This work would not have come to completion without the help of the many unnamed but gratefully remembered curators and librarians in the fifty-four museums, private collections, and libraries I have consulted in fourteen different countries ; but above all I shall remain indebted to the ever helpful staff of the Vassar College Library, who often made possible the seemingly impossible. Gratefully I remember Mrs. Elsa Schatz, whose patience and know-how transformed an often illegible manuscript into a printable one. My greatest debt is too large to be expressed in a few words : it is to my husband, who was always ready to listen and to contribute his keen and constructive criticism, and to our children, who patiently lived through the long years of work on this book. I. H. L. Poughkeepsie, New York Spring 1971

ix

Contents

Part One

Paths to

Discovery

1

Spanish Paintings in France before 1808

2

Art Conquests of the Empire

3 27

3

The Period of Discovery: 1 8 1 0 - 1 8 3 7

4

Louis Philippe's Musée espagnol

5

The New Imagery and Esthetics : 1 8 1 0 - 1 8 3 0

6

The Flowering of Romanticism: 1 8 3 0 - 1 8 3 8

149

7

Response to the Musée espagnol

190

Part T w o

Ut pictura

57 123

poesis 141

Appendices A.

Spanish Paintings Listed in the Official Catalogues of the Musée du Louvre, 1 8 1 0 - 1 8 3 8

2d7

Β.

Spanish Paintings Listed in Private French Collections

229

C.

Movement of Art Works during the Napoleonic Period

266

Bibliography

327

Notes

359

Index

403

xi

Illustrations

Francisco de Goya, Ferdinand the Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Guillemardet.

Courtesy of 11

Francisco de Goya, General Nicolas Guye. Courtesy of Mrs. Marshall Field, New York.

13

Francisco de Goya, Victor Guye. Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C. Gift of William Nelson Cromwell.

14

José de Ribera, Adoration of the Shepherds des bergers), in Alexandre de Laborde, Voyage et historique de L'Espagne, II, pl. 67.

(Adoration pittoresque 22

Francisco de Zurbarán, Saint in Spanish Margaret), in Alexandre de Laborde, Voyage II, pl. 66.

Apparel (Saint pittoresque, 23

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Saint Francis in Ecstasy (Saint François en extase), in Alexandre de Laborde, Voyage pittoresque, II, pl. 68.

23

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Saint John and the Lamb, in J. P. Β. Lebrun, Recueil de gravures . . . d'après un choix de tableaux . . . recueillis en Espagne, II, pl. 136.

26

Diego de Velazquez, Prince Baltasar Carlos with Gun and Ramrod, in J. B. P. Lebrun, Recueil, II, pl. 131.

26

Anonymous, Joseph, King of Spain. Courtesy of the Cabinet des estampes, Bibliothèque nationale, Paris.

28

Anonymous, Marshal Soult. Courtesy of the Cabinet des estampes, Bibliothèque nationale, Paris.

32

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Saint Elizabeth of Hungary Nursing the Sick. Courtesy of the Hospital de la Caridad, Seville.

34

Anonymous cartoon, "New Year's Gifts for Soult," in La Caricature, vol. 5 (January 2 4 , 1 8 3 3 ) , pi. 240.

38

Anonymous, Vivant Denon Cataloguing Art Works the Louvre. Courtesy of the Cabinet des estampes, Bibliothèque nationale, Paris.

45

Xll

in

Illustrations Anonymous, French Artist Crying over the Return of Art Works, 1815. Courtesy of the Cabinet des estampes, Bibliothèque nationale, Paris. Anonymous, Triumphal Entry of Works of Art in Paris, 1798. Courtesy of the Cabinet des estampes, Bibliothèque nationale, Paris. Title page and page 1, catalogue of the Prado for 1819. Courtesy of the Museo del Prado, Madrid. Title page and page 5, catalogue of the Prado for 1823. French edition. Courtesy of the Museo del Prado, Madrid. Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Beggarboy, pittoresque, 2 (1834), 209.

52

54 55 55

in Magasin 64

Francisco de Goya, Caprichos: Self portrait, no. 1, illustration for the article "Francisco Goya y Lucientes," Magasin pittoresque, 2 (1834), 324.

66

Francisco de Goya, Caprichos: Asta su Abuelo, no. 39 and Se repulen, no. 51, illustrations for the article "Francisco Goya y Lucientes," Magasin pittoresque, 2 (1834), 325.

67

José de Ribera, Adoration of the Shepherds, in Magasin pittoresque, 2 (1834), 353.

68

Illustration for Felix Pyat's short story "Murillo," L'Artiste, 4 (1832), 57-60.

70

Illustration for Felix Pyat's short story "Murillo," Le Rameau d'or (1835), 42-50.

71

Menut Alophe, Un Tableau de Murillo in L'Artiste, 5 (1833), 128.

72

Anonymous, The Nightmare of Louis Philippe. Courtesy of the Cabinet des estampes, Bibliothèque nationale, Paris.

76

Francisco de Goya, Caprichos: El sueño de la razon produce monstruos, no. 43. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Good Shepherd in Almanach des dames (1816), pl. 1.

77 78

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Holy Family in Almanach des dames (1816), pi. 5.

78

[Bartolomé Esteban Murillo], Saint Elizabeth of Hungary Nursing the Sick, anonymous illustration for Alexandre Guiraud, "La Soeur grise," Paris-illustrations: Album de gravures (1838), 88.

80

Xlll

Illustrations [Diego de Velázquez], The Coronation of the Virgin, anonymous illustration for Alexandre Guiraud, "Le Bréviaire," Paris-illustrations: Album de gravures (1838), 56. Alonso Cano, The Vision of Saint John, in Achille Réveil and Jean Duchesne aîné, Musée de peinture et de sculpture: Recueil des principaux tableaux, statues et bas-reliefs des collections publiques et particulières de l'Europe, II, pl. 123. Francisco de Zurbarán, Saint Anthony, in Réveil and Duchesne, Musée de peinture, II, pl. 130. José de Ribera, Saint Sebastian, in Réveil and Duchesne, Musée de peinture, II, pl. 133. Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Children, in Réveil and Duchesne, Musée de peinture, II, pl. 117. Eugène Delacroix, copy of Goya, Caprichos: Que viene el Coco, no. 3, and Tal para qual, no. 5. Courtesy of the Cabinet des dessins, Musée du Louvre, Paris. Francisco de Goya, Caprichos: Que viene el Coco, no. 3. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass. Eugène Delacroix, copy of Goya, Caprichos: Nadie se conoce, no. 6. Courtesy of the Cabinet des dessins, Musée du Louvre, Paris. Francisco de Goya, Caprichos: Nadie se conoce, no. 6. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass. Eugène Delacroix, copy of Goya, Caprichos: El si pronuncian y la mano alargan al primero que llega, no. 2. Courtesy of the Cabinet des dessins, Musée du Louvre, Paris. Eugène Delacroix, copy of Goya, Caprichos: El amor y la muerte, no. 12. Courtesy of the Cabinet des dessins, Musée du Louvre, Paris. Eugène Delacroix, copy of Goya, Caprichos: Que se la llevaron! no. 8. Courtesy of the Cabinet des dessins, Musée du Louvre, Paris. Eugène Delacroix, copy of Goya, Caprichos: A caza de dientes, no. 10. Courtesy of the Cabinet des dessins, Musée du Louvre, Paris. Eugène Delacroix, copy of Goya, Caprichos: Ni asi la distingue, no. 7. Courtesy of the Cabinet des dessins, Musée du Louvre, Paris. Eugène Delacroix, Méphistophélès dans les airs, illustration for Goethe's Faust. Courtesy of the Cabinet des estampes, Bibliothèque nationale, Paris. XIV

81

87 87 88 88

96 97

98 99

100

100

100

101

101

102

Illustrations Francisco de Goya, Caprichos: Allá vá eso, no. 66. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass. Eugène Delacroix, L'Ombre de Marguerite apparaissant à Faust, illustration for Goethe's Faust. Courtesy of the Cabinet des estampes, Bibliothèque nationale, Paris. Francisco de Goya, Caprichos: ¿No hay quien nos desate no. 75. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass. Francisco de Zurbarán, Saint Agatha. Courtesy of the Musée Fabre, Montpellier, France. Louis Boulanger, illustration for Victor Hugo's Les Fantômes. Courtesy of the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris. Louis Boulanger, illustration for Victor Hugo's Le Dernier Jour d'un condamné. Courtesy of the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris. Prosper Mérimée, copy of Goya, Marchioness of Lazan. Reproduced from the frontispiece of L. Pinvert, Sur Mérimée: Notes bibliographiques et critiques. Francisco de Goya, Marchioness of Lazán. Courtesy of the Dukes of Alba, Palacio de Liria, Madrid. Francisco de Goya, Caprichos: Buen Viage, no. 64. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass. Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, The Virgin Swaddling the Christ Child (La Virgen de la faja), Courtesy of the Szépmiivészeti Museum, Budapest. Velázquez, Murillo, Selfportraits, illustrations for "La Galerie espagnole au Louvre," Magasin pittoresque, 6 (January 1838), 17. Alfred de Musset, copy of Goya, Caprichos: Bellos consejos, no. 15, and Ruega por ella, no. 31. Reproduced by courtesy of M. Roger de Grandcourt de Musset. Francisco de Goya, Caprichos: Bellos consejos, no. 15. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass. Francisco de Goya, Caprichos: Bien tirada está, no. 17. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass. Francisco de Goya, Caprichos: Ruega por ella, no. 31. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass. Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, The Immaculate Conception (La Conception Soult). Courtesy of the Museo del Prado, Madrid. Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, The Vision of Saint Bernard. Courtesy of the Museo del Prado, Madrid.

Illustrations Pantoja de la Cruz, Philip II. Monastery of El Escorial. Courtesy of the Patrimonio nacional, Spain. Diego de Velazquez, Infanta Margarita. Courtesy of the Musée du Louvre, Paris. Louis Boulanger, Petrus Borei (engraving by Célestin Nanteuil). Courtesy of the Cabinet des estampes, Bibliothèque nationale, Paris. Diego de Velazquez, Philip ¡V in Hunting Apparel. Courtesy of the Musée Goya, Castres, France. Louis Boulanger, illustration for the poem "Les Djinns" on the title page of Victor Hugo's Orientales (1829). Courtesy of the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris. Louis Boulanger, illustration for Victor Hugo's La Ronde du Sabbat. Courtesy of the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris. Francisco de Goya, Caprichos: Devota profesion, no. 70. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass. Francisco de Goya, Caprichos: Las rinde el Sueño, no. 34. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass. Francisco de Goya, Caprichos: Por que fue sensible, no. 32. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass. Victor Hugo, Autograph pages for Notre-Dame de Paris, fol. 163 recto and verso. Courtesy of the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris. Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Beggarboy. Courtesy of the Musée du Louvre, Paris. Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, The Angels' Kitchen. Courtesy of the Musée du Louvre, Paris. Francisco de Zurbarán, Saint with an Arrow (Saint Ursula or Saint Christine), illustration for Huard, "Musée espagnol," Journal des artistes, 12th annual, 2 (1838), 14-17. José de Ribera, Adoration of the Shepherds. Courtesy of the Musée du Louvre, Paris. José de Ribera, Saint Mary Magdalen of Egypt. Courtesy of the Musée Fabre, Montpellier, France. Francisco de Zurbarán, Martyrs of the Indies, Saint Serapio. Courtesy of Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut. The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection. José de Ribera, Saint Bartholomew About To Be Martyred. Courtesy of the Musée de peinture et de sculpture, Grenoble, France. XVI

166 169

170 171

176 178 179 182 183

184 186 188

192 193 195

201

202

Illustrations José de Ribera, engraving of the now lost Cato

Tearing

Out His Entrails, in Charles Blanc, et al., Histoire des de toutes les écoles: Ecole espagnole,

peintres

"Joseph Ribera (dit

L'Espagnolet)," p. 1 of article. José de Ribera, Struggle

of Hercules with the

203 Centaur

Nessus. Courtesy of the Museum of the Socialist Republic of Rumania, Bucharest.

204

Francisco de Zurbarán, Saint Francis. Courtesy of the City Art Museum of Saint Louis, Saint Louis, Missouri.

206

Francisco de Zurbarán, Saint Francis. Courtesy of the Trustees, The National Gallery, London.

209

xvii

Part One

Paths to Discovery

1

Spanish Paintings in France before 1808

Though cosmopolitanism has hardly ever been a characteristic of Spain, her relationship with France has never ceased altogether since the Middle Ages. Religious incursions against the Moors in Spain were followed by the large-scale pilgrimages to the shrine of Saint James at Santiago de Compostela which continued over the entire medieval period. If during the Renaissance France's interest turned toward Italy, the seventeenth century brought a renewal of Franco-Spanish ties : for a major part of the century a Spanish princess, Anne of Austria, daughter of Philip III, played a lasting and influential role in France as the wife of Louis XIII, the mother of Louis XIV, and regent of France. Spanish influence was widespread then, extending from the Pyrenees to the Low Countries and manifesting itself not only in political and economic life, but also in literary trends in France. In November 1700 Louis XIV's grandson, the Duke of Anjou, ascended to the throne of Spain as Philip V, to the exultant exclamation of Castel dos Rios, the Spanish ambassador: " ¡ Q u e gozo: Ya no hay Pirineos! ¡Se han hundido en la tierra y no formamos mas que una nación!" 1 During the eighteenth century the two Family Compacts of 1733 and 1743 maintained and reinforced these strong ties between the two countries. Yet in spite of the wide range of French relations with the Peninsula—historical, political, economic, and even literary— Spain's art remained practically unknown outside its own country before the nineteenth century. Several circumstances could account for this French and general European ignorance of Spanish art, among them the difficulty of travel to Spain because of mere geographical, physical obstacles. Direct experience of the country's cultural climate and familiarity with the works of her painters were thus limited to a very few: either hardy travelers or those charged with diplomatic functions, none of whom were preoccupied mainly with Spanish art. Further, the very character of Spanish painting, with its predominantly religious subjects and portraits, did not strongly attract the interest of the European amateur, nor did it help circulate these canvases to any considerable extent outside their places of origin. Not since the pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela had Spain been favored by French travelers: the number of their journeys to the Peninsula was infinitesimal, particularly when compared to their

3

Paths to Discovery many contacts with Italy ever since the Renaissance.2 Neither material nor political conditions encouraged communication. Spanish highways were notoriously dangerous, winding over rocks and near precipices, through narrow gaps and over flimsy bridges; the forbidding cliffs of the pass of Pancorbo, for instance, were recalled with awe by all travelers into Castille, from Madame d'Aulnoy to the Duchess of Abrantès, and later still Mérimée and Victor Hugo. Moreover, coaches were exposed to the danger of the legendary but all too real Spanish highwayman. Even as late as 1830, Mérimée in his Lettres d'Espagne gives a colorful account of one of these robbers : "Beau, brave, courtois autant qu'un voleur peut l'être, tel est Jose Maria." 3 But what makes for a good story can make for bad traveling. To contemplate a night at most roadside hostelries remained quixotic, and even in 1808 Madame d'Abrantès still preferred the discomforts of spending the night in her own coach to the dirt, noise, and smells of the inn at Torrequemada: "J'ai rarement vu, même dans ce pays, quelque chose de plus repoussant que sa posada. La cuisine de cette posada est un tableau de l'enfer. Lorsque j'arrivai à la porte, je me retirai en déclarant que je coucherais dans ma voiture." 4 Voltaire's prejudiced statement that "l'Afrique commence aux Pyrénées" remained throughout the eighteenth century the attitude of the ordinary French traveler, whose interest in the artistic manifestations of the Spanish genius was certainly feeble. Two people—both women—greatly contributed to bringing the life of the Spanish court closer to French awareness: Madame d'Aulnoy, of fairy-tale fame, at the close of the seventeenth century, and the Princess of Ursins during the reign of Philip V. The Mémoires de la cour d'Espagne, 1679-1681 and the Relation du voyage d'Espagne (1691), 5 by Marie Catherine le Jumel de Barneville, Countess of Aulnoy, remained for over a century among the most authoritative works on Spain, widely read throughout Europe. By 1716 the Mémoires had gone through seven printings in France and the Relation through ten, and both had been translated into English, German, and Dutch. 6 Even in the nineteenth century these books still counted among the important works of information on Spain. Victor Hugo knew them well and drew on them as a source of documentation for both the Spanish themes and the local color of some of his major works ; this is evident, for instance, in his play Ruy Blas or in the poem "La Rose de l'Infante" in the Legende des siècles.7 But Raymond Foulché-Delbosc has convincingly demonstrated that Madame d'Aulnoy's journey never took place in actuality, and that this "relation" of her travels and her contacts with the court of Charles II is nothing but a clever amalgam of

4

Spanish Paintings in France before 1808 plagiarisms from various contemporary French writings. Concern here is not with the authenticity of her claims to personal experience, but with whatever contribution her writings might have made toward increasing French awareness of the existence of a Spanish school of painting. That her interest in that country's art treasures, and her sensitivity thereto, were negligible is borne out by the rare passages in which she actually mentions certain paintings noticed during her "travels." After visiting the castle of Buitrago, Madame d'Aulnoy recalls several paintings she " s a w " there: one is of the Princess of Eboli (Philip II's mistress), scantily clad, seated under a tent and surrounded by cupids; another is a large historical composition, showing Elizabeth of France (the wife of Philip II) entering Madrid on horseback, wherein the same Princess of Eboli attends the young queen; a third, described at length and with relish, is a melodramatic death scene of Prince Don Carlos—a cup filled with poison is placed close to his hand, and the bath in which his veins are to be opened awaits him in the background. But these paintings are figments of the imagination with no real counterparts whatsoever: Foulché-Delbosc shows that all three, as well as the historical events they supposedly portray, come straight out of the Abbé de Saint-Réal's Dom Carlos, a historical short story which appeared in Paris in 1672. The only painter actually named by Madame d'Aulnoy, to my knowledge, is Titian; she says that when she visited the Escorial she noticed works by him and "several other" famous painters in the five galleries of the library : "Le Titien, fameux Peintre, et plusieurs autres encore, ont épuisé leur Art pour bien peindre les cinq galleries de la Bibliothèque." Titian is again mentioned incidentally when she tells how young Queen Marie Louise of Orléans, wanting to talk in private with the queen mother, Mariana, pretended to be engrossed in admiration for a Titian recently acquired by the latter and thus lingered until all others had left the room: hardly a very genuine appreciation of "art for art's sake"! Describing life at the court of Spain, Madame d'Aulnoy—or her sources—never once mentions Antonio Moro's or Velázquez' portraits of the royal family. The name of the Italian artist alone comes to her mind when she speaks of "famous painters." On the whole, she is preoccupied with court gossip and intrigues, or with what seems today insignificant detail of the young queen's life, while she only occasionally evokes the surrounding decor and rarely remarks upon any works of art. 8 In her unpublished study of French travelers to Spain between 1630 and 1660, Mrs. F. Peyrègne also points out that not one of them mentioned Velázquez or any other Spanish masters when

5

Paths to Discovery visiting the royal residences, though several commented on works by the better known Italian painters.9 Unlike Madame d'Aulnoy, whose sojourn in Spain never materialized beyond the pages of her books, Marie Anne de la Tremolile, Princess of Ursins, played an active and important part in the daily life at the court of Philip V. Louis XIV himself had chosen her to serve as camarera mayor to his grandson's spouse, Marie Louise Gabrielle of Savoy, only thirteen years of age at the time of her marriage. The Princess of Ursins's role at the court of Spain was to be influential and powerful, and her domination over her young charge was to last until her sudden fall from power caused by the queen's untimely death in 1714. Her letters, much more than Madame d'Aulnoy's supposed memoirs, dwell almost exclusively on machinations of court intrigues, on her difficulties with the Duke of Grammont, or, again, on the actions and reactions of people (mostly those in power) rather than on palaces and the art treasures they housed.10 Louis de Rouvroy, Duke of Saint-Simon, was one more French diplomat-chronicler of the court of Spain. In 1721 he was chosen by the Duke of Orléans, Regent of France, as the ambassador extraordinary to negotiate the double marriage of the princes of France and Spain : that of the young Louis XV with the three-year-old Infanta Marie Anne Victoire de Bourbon-Espagne and that of the Prince of Asturias (the future King Luis I) with the regent's fourth daughter, Louise Isabelle de Montpensier. In his extensive and detailed accounts of the five months spent in Spain, Saint-Simon does not once mention a painting or the name of a painter when he describes the palatial settings for his ambassadorial activities. He is much too preoccupied with questions of protocol, precedence, and aristocratic hierarchies to pay attention to the decor surrounding these small social dramas. Moreover his memoirs were to be published only after 1830, and thus remained unknown to the French public until then.11 Thus, early in the eighteenth century the French literary chroniclers of the Spanish court had done nothing to bring to the attention of the French the name even of Velázquez, the pictorial chronicler of that court. The same kind of role, played by those with diplomatic missions, will again be evident at the close of the century; but then Jean François Bourgoing, a diplomat and a connoisseur of the arts, devoted many pages to descriptions of Spain's art treasures in his Nouveau Voyage en Espagne.12 Bourgoing's book is one of the earliest French works on Spain that shows more than a purely incidental interest in her art treasures.

6

Spanish Paintings in France before 1808 The lack of knowledge in France and other European countries about Spanish painting can also be ascribed to the character of Spanish art. The grande machine, the historical or mythological painting traditionally dominant over all genres in other countries, is seldom found among the works of the Spanish masters. Nor did they favor the genre subjects coming into popularity in the late eighteenth century. In the royal collection, the most representative of all Spanish collections, Italian and Flemish historical and genre paintings far outnumber those by Spanish masters. The latter gave secondary importance to those subjects in preference to the less decorative paintings of religious inspiration and commissioned portraits of royalty and nobility. It is evident that most of these canvases were destined by their very nature to remain either in the possession of the patron's family or else in the churches or convents for which they had been ordered. Some of the most important examples of Murillo's works are today still in the small, unpretentious chapels for which they were originally intended. Most of Velázquez' portraits remained with those families by or for whom they had originally been commissioned; but thanks to the extensive network of Habsburg family ties and diplomatic relations throughout Europe, a fair number of them could be found outside of Spain. 13 But general circulation of Spanish paintings was restricted additionally by a decree, signed by the minister Floridablanca in October 1779 and sanctioned by King Charles III, formally forbidding their exportation. It had been brought to the king's attention that foreigners in Seville were buying all the Murillos they could acquire, "openly or surreptitiously," and it was decided thereupon that "from this day hence" exportation of paintings by "authors no longer living" would be forbidden. 14 That the attempt to circumvent the "inveterate and pernicious abuse" of exporting paintings was only partially effective will be made clear in the course of this study. For these reasons the names of even the greatest Spanish masters, Velázquez, Murillo, Zurbarán, were almost unknown outside of Spain. The one exception was José de Ribera. Born in Játiva in the province of Valencia, Ribera had left his native country for Italy in his early twenties and had spent nearly all of his life in Naples ; there he married the daughter of a well-to-do Sicilian merchant, and there he died in 1652. So it happened that this disciple of Caravaggio was as well known by the French as any other master of the Italian schools, to which he was usually ascribed. It is true, however, that he proudly signed his canvases

7

Paths to Discovery "native of Spain" and acquired the name of "lo Spagnoletto"; moreover, Spain knew him well.15 In spite of the many restrictive factors mentioned above, some knowledge of Spanish art did penetrate into France before the great awakening of interest in the Peninsula during the early years of the nineteenth century. Little by little more works—though none too many—by Spanish masters found their way into French art collections. With increasing frequency books on the fine arts, Spanish travelogues, and the voyages pittoresques devoted space to the artistic manifestations of the Spanish genius. But a French concept of Spanish painting as a self-contained school did not develop until after the influx of Spanish canvases brought on by the Napoleonic wars. The livret of the most representative of all French collections, that of the royal family in the Louvre, as well as all sales catalogues of private collections, continued to list without exception all Spanish canvases under the Italian or, at best, Neapolitan schools—the latter evidently due to Ribera's renown. The French royal holdings, the Ancien Fonds, later incorporated into the Louvre's collections, had included only a few examples of the Spanish masters, some of them of highly dubious authenticity. 16 Three were from the collection of Louis XIV: Francisco Collantes' Flaming Bush in Horeb, an anonymous View of the Escorial, and the famous Velázquez portrait of the Infanta Margarita (today no longer unanimously attributed to the master himself but still considered a most respectable study out of his workshop). 17 By the late eighteenth century the Ancienne Collection had been enlarged by several additional Spanish paintings. In 1782 Murillo's famous Beggarboy, which had circulated on the Parisian market ever since the Gaignat sale in 1768, was purchased from the art dealer, painter, and critic J. B. P. Lebrun for 4,200 livres. 18 At the Count of Vaudreuil sale in 1784 two more Murillos were acquired: Christ on the Mount of Olives and Saint Peter before Christ at the Column. In 1786 the Count of Serrant received the very high price of 22,000 livres for his famed Holy Family by Murillo—the Virgin holding the Christ child on her knees, to whom the small Saint John, presented by Saint Elizabeth, offers a cross made of reeds. Ribera's Adoration of the Shepherds was given to the French government in 1802 by Ferdinand IV, King of Naples, in compensation for canvases taken by Neapolitan troops from the church of San Luigi dei Francesi, in Rome. 19 Even as late as 1810, the catalogue of the Louvre lists all these works (omitting only the anonymous painting of the Escorial) under "Italian Schools." 20 Almost another thirty years were to

8

Spanish Paintings in France before 1808 elapse before the Spanish school would come into its own with Louis Philippe's Spanish Museum in 1838. Only after Baron I. J. S. Taylor's monumental catalogue thereof, listing 446 items, would the Louvre's livrets mention the Spanish school as independent of the Italian ones—though they were still combined under the common heading of "Ecoles d'Italie et d'Espagne." 2 1 If even the Louvre's catalogues listed painters as famous as Murillo and Velázquez as Italian masters, it is not surprising to find that sales catalogues of less important collections also ascribe them to the Italian schools. Examination of a few representative catalogues of the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries discloses not one recognition of the Spanish school as altogether independent of the Italian ones. French critics were convinced that the Italian schools were superior to all others. Steeped in French classicism, they considered Italian painters the absolute masters; it was against their work that Spanish canvases were held up, praised if they attained the same level of absolute, classic beauty, scorned if they differed in technique, subject, or spirit. 22 It must be remembered that the French knew only an exceedingly limited number of Spanish paintings, and of these the authentic ones were in the minority. Perusal of but a few collections reveals this slow penetration of Spanish art works into France. 23 In 1737, at one of the most famous sales of the century (that of the Countess of Verrue, the "Madame de Maintenon" of the Duke of Savoy), only two paintings by "Morillos" were listed. 24 Throughout the later years of the century, Murillo was almost the only Spanish painter whose name appeared at all in catalogues of both large and lesser collections. Velázquez was mentioned for one of the first times at the Duke of Choiseuil's sale in 1772 with a Mars et Vénus sur un lit, des amours s'amusant avec le casque et le bouclier du dieu. The low sales price of 1,115 livres might indicate that even the public of the 1770's was not entirely convinced of the authenticity of this canvas. 25 Another revealing sale of the time was Pierre-Jean Mariette's in 1775—important because Mariette, "contrôleur général de la Grande Chancellerie de France, honoraire amateur de l'Académie Royale de Peinture et celle de Florence," not only was a typical amateur d'art of his day, but had also distinguished himself as a keen art critic, praised even by Diderot. Mariette's catalogue, especially rich in drawings, lists only one entry purportedly by Velázquez, and even this is lumped together with two other items in a single lot. 26 Noteworthy instances of new Spanish paintings coming onto the French market were rare. The same paintings, such as those that

9

Paths to Discovery belonged to Madame de Verrue, passed quite frequently from one owner to another, their prices increasing with each sale. At Blondel de Cagny's sale in 1776 Murillo's Bohémienne aux fleurs from the Verrue collection fetched 12,000 livres, and by 1795, at the Charles Alexandre Calonne sale, its price had climbed to 16,800 livres.27 A few Spanish paintings also reached France as private possessions of the men who had commissioned them. Ferdinand Guillemardet, the National Convention's ambassador to Spain, ordered his portrait painted by the current official painter to the Spanish court, Francisco de Goya y Lucientes. Guillemardet, a rather vain onetime village doctor from Autun, had little to recommend him as a diplomat, yet Talleyrand (former bishop of Autun), had chosen this ardent Conventionalist as his minister plenipotentiary. Guillemardet wasted no time in commissioning the peintre en vogue for his state portrait, and Goya signed the finished work the very year of the ambassador's arrival in Madrid, 1798. 28 Guillemardet's sharp features, his self-asserting pose, and the accoutrements of his official uniform are portrayed with unvarnished truthfulness. His presumable artistic obtuseness may have kept him from appreciating the great master in Goya; nevertheless it is probable that, once recalled to France in 1800— accused of inactivity in his post and lack of understanding of the Spanish people—he quite proudly exhibited his own likeness. It was in his house that Eugène Delacroix, a close friend and correspondent of Guillemardet's sons, knew two of Goya's canvases. In his letter to Louis Guillemardet of January 24,1856 he writes, "Cher ami, une personne de ma connaissance habitant Bordeaux et très compétente en cette matière écrit une biographie de Goya et voudrait en même temps donner le catalogue de ses oeuvres. Il m'avait demandé par lettre ce que je savais à cet égard; je lui ai parlé du portrait de ton père et de celui d'une dame (petit portrait en pied) que tu possèdes également." 29 It was probably also at the Guillemardets that Delacroix first discovered the Caprichos. Michel Florisoone has shown that Delacroix knew, used, and later maybe even owned a copy of the Caprichos brought back by Guillemardet upon his return to France.30 Jean Adhémar includes among the milestones of French contacts with Goya an even earlier painting of a Frenchman: the 1788 full-length portrait of François Cabarrus.31 But Cabarrus, son of a wealthy banker from Bayonne, had married the daughter of one of his father's Spanish business associates and settled in Spain at the age of twenty. Influential in his adopted country's economic and financial life, he hardly ever left Spain. So this portrait—today still

10

Francisco de Goya, Ferdinand

Guillemardet.

Paths to Discovery at the Bank of Spain—was probably unknown to the French except for a few of Cabarrus' friends and visitors. Not until the French occupation during the Napoleonic period did more Frenchmen request Goya to paint their portraits. He thus portrayed (in 18X0) Nicolas Guye, adjutant general to King Joseph and a friend of Léopold Hugo, the poet's father, then governor of the provinces of Avila and Segovia. 32 Soon after his own portrait was finished, Guye commissioned Goya to portray his young nephew, Victor Guye. In this full-length portrait the fair-haired little boy, attired in the heavily gold-embroidered uniform of Joseph's Corps des Pages, looks seriously up from his book. 33 I would like to believe that Victor Hugo's knowledge of Goya dates as far back as his stay in Madrid in 1811 : Nicolas Guye was a family friend of the Hugos, and young Victor Guye attended the same small seminary school, the College of Nobles, as did the Hugo brothers. Only twenty-four boys were enrolled at that time, and the young Spaniards kept disdainfully aloof from their French classmates, sons of the hated intruders. One would presume therefore that at least a certain solidarity—if not friendship— existed between the French pupils. Moreover, Victor Guye was a close friend of Abel Hugo due to their companionship in the Corps des Pages. Would it not make a legend to the poet's liking to have been, in his prime jeunesse, spellbound by Goya's mastery, watching the painter portray his friend? Unfortunately, there is little reason to suspect any such happening : Victor Hugo does not so much as mention the name of Victor Guye among his friends when telling the témoin de sa vie about the time spent in Madrid. But he does recall one picture from these days with the precision of an image d'Epinal. In his bedroom in the Masserano Palace (where the Hugo family was quartered), a painting of the Virgin, her heart pierced by the seven arrows of the seven sorrows, left a vivid and lasting impression on the young Victor: "Victor voyait, de son lit, une Vierge dont le coeur était percé de sept flèches, symbole des sept douleurs. Il la revoit encore maintenant, avec l'incroyable précision de mémoire qu'il a dans les yeux comme dans l'esprit." Not one to underestimate the importance of the least incidents in his life—especially from the retrospective view of the témoin de sa vie—Hugo also recalls the portrait gallery in the Masserano Palace, but as a favorite place where he and his friends played hideand-go-seek! "Les enfants . . . préférèrent la galerie des portraits qui était admirable pour jouer à cache-cache, à cause des portières, des piédestaux, des bustes, et surtout des deux colossaux vases de

12

P a t h s to D i s c o v e r y

Francisco de Goya, General Nicolas

Cuye.

Paths to Discovery

Spanish Paintings in France before 1808 Chine dans l'intérieur desquels la petite Pepita se fit hisser plus d'une fois." The self-styled témoin de sa vie relates how the young Hugo sought refuge in this gallery for moments of quiet contemplation : "Victor avait pris cette galerie en affection. On l'y trouvait seul, assis dans un coin, regardant en silence tous ces personnages en qui revivaient les siècles morts." Hugo sees these childhood impressions as the very source of later literary accomplishments. He credits the same gallery with having inspired the famous portrait gallery scene in the play Hernani: "la fierté des attitudes, la somptuosité des cadres, l'art mêlé à l'orgueil de la famille et de la nationalité, tout cet ensemble remuait l'imagination du futur auteur d'Hernani et y déposait sourdement le germe de la scène de don Ruy Gomez." 3 4 The only painters Hugo names in his description of the family's sumptuous palace apartment are Raphael and Giulio Romano. Original drawings by these two masters are supposed to have graced the dining room walls. 35 Another youthful French resident of Madrid—brought there, too, through her father's rank in the French occupation army—was to distinguish herself on the French literary scene : four-year-old Aurore Dupin, to become famous as George Sand, spent close to four months in the Spanish capital. Her mother endured a difficult journey through Spain to join her husband, stationed in Madrid as Marshal Joachim Murat's aide-de-camp. The family was quartered on the third floor of the palace of the "Prince of Peace," Manuel de Godoy, with Murat and his suite occupying the lower floors. There the small and lonely Aurore wandered through what seemed to her fairy-tale settings, and in her Histoire de ma vie she marvels at their apartment: "Il était immense, tout tendu en damas de soie cramoisi. Les corniches, les lits, les fauteuils, les divans tout était doré et me parut en or massif, toujours comme dans les contes de fées." She even recalls the paintings—mostly portraits, as might be expected—looking down on her with austere countenances : "Il y avait d'énormes tableaux qui me faisaient peur. Ces grosses têtes qui semblaient sortir du cadre et me suivre des yeux me tourmentaient passablement." With the insouciance of childhood she was soon able to overcome her fears ("mais j'y fus bientôt habituée") and she even made up a favorite game by using a large mirror to multiply the reflections of these forbidding characters : " e t pendant plusieurs jours ... je laissai... la psyché répéter l'image immobile des grands personnages représentés dans les tableaux." 3 6 These paintings were evidently, for so young a child, but a point of departure for her daydreams, and they could hardly be said

15

Paths to Discovery to have left a lasting mark on her artistic sensibilities in later life. It is interesting, though, to note that when she mentions Goya's Caprichos to Alfred de Musset some thirty years later, she again projects her own feelings and dreams upon the work of art rather than consider it for itself. 37 Although direct contacts with Spanish paintings were few at this time, there was, as always, another means of acquiring familiarity with the work of an artist: more than the actual presence of canvases, the written word contributed to the spreading of a certain—still scant—knowledge of Spanish painting. Through a few dates important in the development of art history in France, the history of Spanish painting can be followed. 38 In the second half of the seventeenth century, the noted art historian and esthetician André Félibien included the names of two Spanish masters in his Noms des peintres les plus célèbres et les plus connus, anciens et modernes, published in Paris in 1679. Naturally they were painters whose works were represented in the royal collection, but the names have been gallicized. Velázquez becomes "Velasque"; and "Cléanthe," sounding like a petit marquis out of a Moliere comedy, is none other than Collantes. Indeed, what Félibien described as a landscape with figures is in all probability Collantes' F laming Bush of the Ancien Fonds at the Louvre: 39 "Cléante [sic] et Velasque estoient deux Peintres Espagnols contemporains du Cortone. Il y a dans le Cabinet du Roi un Païsage accompagné de figures, fait par Cléanthe; & dans les apartemens bas du Louvre plusieurs Portraits de la Maison d'Autriche peints par Velasque." (p. 54) The excellence of these two painters is, however, strongly questioned by Félibien's interlocutors : neither these nor any other Spanish masters had ever been singled out for their greatness. "Que trouvez-vous, dît Pymandre, d'excellent dans les ouvrages de ces deux inconnus, car je ne me souviens pas d'en avoir oui parler? aussi n'est-il gueres sorti de grands Peintres de leur païs." (pp. 5 4 - 5 5 ) Like most other art historians of his own and later times, Félibien mentions Ribera, but again as an Italian painter: "Joseph Ribera de Valence, surnommé l'Espagnolet fut encore un des Imitateurs du Caravage. . . . " (p. 43) Even twenty years after Félibien, in 1699, Roger de Piles ignored all Spanish names in the list of Noms des peintres connus affixed to his Cours de peinture par principes. His Dissertation sur les ouvrages des plus fameux peintres (1683) had likewise ignored them, and the only Spanish name in his widely used Abrégé de la vie des peintres (1699) is again Ribera's. 40 This omission is even more striking if one

16

Spanish Paintings in France before 1808 remembers that Roger de Piles, as secretary to the French ambassador to Portugal, must have known the Peninsula quite well. Jean-Aymar Piganiol de la Force, in his extensive description of Paris of 1719, mentions the portraits presumably by Velázquez in the queen's apartments in the Louvre without making any critical judgments whatever: "Dans la sale particulière des bains, on voit des ornemens très riches, & les portraits des Princes de la Maison d'Autriche, depuis Philippe I. jusqu'à Philippe IV., peints par Velasque, Peintre Espagnol." 41 Though he mentions the portraits again in his edition of George Louis Le Rouge's Curiositez de Paris (1742), he neglects to name their painter. 42 This omission reveals that the French continued to be quite unaware of the existence of the Spanish masters in spite of an increasing number of publications that attempted to bring them closer to their attention. In 1745 Antoine Joseph Dezallier d'Argenville, himself a painter of sorts, included a few Spanish names among those of the Neapolitan school in his Abrégé de la vie des plus fameux peintres,43 but these numbered only four (three if Ribera is excluded, and he can be considered, after all, an almost legitimate Neapolitan). Murillo and Velázquez were of course included, with six pages devoted to the former and eight to the latter; and, oddly enough, the minor master Luis de Vargas was judged important enough for three pages. 44 In 1749, only four years after Dezallier d'Argenville's more general catalogue, there appeared an anonymous translation, or rather adaptation, of part three of Antonio Palomino de Castro y Velasco's exhaustive Museo pictórico of 1724. This book, to my knowledge the first in French devoted exclusively to the Spanish masters, contributed greatly to a lessening of French and European ignorance of Spanish painting, as had been its translator's intention: "Comme l'école espagnole est très peu connue en France et même dans toute l'Europe, on a cru rendre un service aux curieux en donnant ce petit traité. Par là ils pourront se former une idée des richesses de l'Espagne, tant en peinture qu'en sculpture et architecture." 45 The dictionnaire, so cherished by the Age of Enlightenment as a medium for polemics as well as information, devoted space to painters and artists with increasing frequency. Louis Moreri's famous Dictionnaire historique of 1674, revised and edited in 1740 by Platel, mentions Velázquez, though previous editions had altogether ignored the Spanish painters : "Velasquès est de tous les peintres espagnols celui dont le nom est le plus connu hors de sa

17

Paths to Discovery patrie." The familiarity with this master's name seems due again to the portraits in the queen's baths. " O n ne connaît guère de lui que des portraits qui sont peints avec une vérité et une force de couleur qui égalent ce que Rheimbrandt a jamais fait de plus vigoureux dans ce genre." 4 6 In 1752 Jacques Lacombe's Dictionnaire portatif des beaux-arts appeared, with the usual three names : Murillo, Velázquez, and Ribera. Unlike his predecessors, Lacombe does not limit his comments on these masters to biographic details or information concerning their training as painters; he also tries to analyze briefly each master's characteristic style and even the overall atmosphere emanating from his paintings. Murillo's coloring is to his liking and he admires the vérité of his work : "un coloris onctueux, un pinceau flou & agréable, des carnations d'une fraîcheur admirable, une grande intelligence du clair-obscur, une manière vraie & piquante font rechercher ses Tableaux." 4 7 Discussing Velázquez, Lacombe also mentions the portraits in the queen's baths, as well as a Moyse sauvé des eaux in the collection of the Duke of Orléans and several portraits in the Franche-Comté, said (unconvincingly) to have been finished by Le Bourguignon. Lacombe is struck by Velázquez' forcefulness and finds in him " u n esprit orné de toutes Ies connaissances qui ont rapport à la Peinture, un génie hardi & pénétrant, un pinceau fier, un coloris vigoureux, une touche énergique." 4 8 Voltaire's remarks on Spanish painting in his Essai sur les moeurs et l'esprit des nations, published in 1756, indicate his unfamiliarity with the recently published books on painting that mentioned the Spanish masters. Preoccupied with political and religious polemics, he dwells only briefly on the cultural aspects of a nation which he considers benighted in intolerance : "L'Inquisition et la superstition y perpétuèrent les erreurs scolastiques." A man of the theater himself and an early French admirer of Shakespeare, he credits Spanish theater for having served as the "modèle à celui d'Angleterre," but he dispatches Spanish painting in one sentence : "Ils eurent quelques peintres du second rang, et jamais d'école de peinture." 4 9 In 1776, the Abbé de Fontenay published his Dictionnaire des artistes,50 mentioning once again the same three stars of Spanish painting. Because Fontenay simply copied Lacombe's work, it is not surprising that he contributed nothing new to French information on Spanish art. In the same year however, D. P. J. Papillon de la Ferté's exhaustive Extraits des différens ouvrages publiés sur la vie des peintres was published. It contains what is to my knowledge the

18

Spanish Paintings in France before 1808 earliest separate listing of the Spanish masters, independent from those of the Italian schools, filling the last sixty pages of the first of the two volumes. Papillon de la Ferté intended to kindle interest in a school of painting still unknown in France. Yet, like his contemporaries, he based his standards on Italian painting, and the highest praise he could bestow on the Spanish masters was to equate their works with those of the Lombardian and Venetian schools : "La manière de peindre des Espagnols tient de celle de Lombardie & de Venise autant par le ton de couleur que par la touche du pinceau." Then follows a one or two page exposé of the life, works, schooling, and disciples of twenty-six Spanish painters (with a few lines on another forty-eight names), almost every one measured against the standards of the Italian schools: Navarrete "el Mudo," called "Joan Fernandès Ximenès de Navaretta," for instance, is highly praised as "le Titien Espagnol." Yet Papillon de la Ferté seems to have been, for his times, unusually sensitive to the penetrating depth of Velázquez' portraits — a perspicaciousness not to be encountered again before the Romantics' studies. "Velasquez ne se contentoit pas de rendre ses portraits fort ressemblans, il vouloit encore saisir l'esprit & les mouvemens particuliers de la personne qu'il peignoit." It is remarkable that, having shown this insight, he discusses Murillo in terms that add nothing to Lacombe's: " O n trouve dans ses ouvrages un pinceau moelleux, des carnations vraies, une parfaite intelligence de couleur & de clair-obscur, & une vérité qui ne peut être surpassée que par la nature même." 5 1 Papillon de la Ferté's work brings to a close the period when French awareness of the very existence of Spanish painting was limited almost exclusively to a vague familiarity with the names of its three masters. Papillon de la Ferté's pronouncements were soon seconded by other publications that greatly enlarged upon the scant information available at the time. Toward the close of the century, only one year before the Revolution, a work appeared that, more than any of its predecessors, contributed to a broadening of French knowledge of Spain: the aforementioned Nouveau Voyage en Espagne ou tableau de l'état actuel de cette Monarchie, by the diplomat Jean François Bourgoing, erstwhile minister plenipotentiary to Spain. 52 The important revised fourth edition of 1807 was a most useful manual, prized by the members of the Napoleonic armies in Spain ; not only could its reader follow the author on a voyage pittoresque acquainting him with Spain's geographic and social conditions, but he could also, for the first time, gain information on the Spanish

19

Paths to Discovery artistic genius. Bourgoing had visited libraries and leafed through old manuscripts; he had studied the architectural periods and styles of cathedrals and palaces, and he had acquired a respectable knowledge of the paintings adorning royal residences, churches, and convents. Impressed by his visit to the Royal Palace of Madrid, he marvels at the king's riches and observes that his book will try to remedy the general and deplorable French ignorance about Spanish painting: L'école espagnole, moins connue que les deux autres (Italie et Flandre), mérite de l'être d'avantage. A peine hors de l'Espagne a-t-on entendu nommer Navarette, Alonzo Cano, Zurbaran, Zerezo, Cabezalero, Blas de Prado, Joanes, etc. qui parmi leurs compatriotes jouissent d'une réputation méritée à plusieurs égards. Ce n'est même que sur parole, qu'en France du moins, on fait quelque cas de maîtres beaucoup plus connus, de Rivera, dit l'Espagnolet, qui, quoique né Espagnol, appartient plus encore à l'Italie qu'à son pays natal; de Velasquez, remarquable pour la correction du dessin et l'entente de la perspective; de Murillo, un des premiers peintres du monde pour le coloris, pour la fraîcheur et la vérité des chairs et pour la douceur de l'expression. 53 Bourgoing's comments on Spanish painting are not limited to commonplace generalities such as those on Velázquez' "correction du dessin" or Murillo's "coloris . . . e t . . . douceur de l'expression." His book includes detailed and at times quite knowledgeable descriptions of paintings he saw during the course of diplomatic missions. He carefully—maybe too painstakingly—enumerates all the paintings he has seen at San Ildefonso de la Granja, at the Escorial, at the Buen Retiro and the Royal Palace in Madrid, at the cathedrals of Valencia, Seville, and Toledo. In later editions he recalls his own warning following a lengthy description of a side chapel at the Escorial, "l'art d'ennuyer, c'est celui de tout dire" ( 1 , 1 8 2 , 1 7 8 8 edition), and he considerably shortens several long lists of paintings to include only the most important. In several instances Bourgoing tries to analyze the outstanding characteristics of a particular work and its painter. He is alert not only to the masterpieces of the past, but also to the artistic currents of his own day. He is one of the first Frenchmen I know of to mention Goya. As early as the 1788 edition of his Tableau he observes, "Don Francisco de Goya mérite aussi une mention honorable par son talent, pour rendre avec fidélité & agrément les moeurs, les costumes, les jeux de sa patrie" (I, 248). One recognizes

20

Spanish Paintings in France before 1808 here the Goya of the early period: his luminous cartoons for tapestries and his graceful popular scenes. But as Goya's talent evolved and he became a much sought-after portrait painter, Bourgoing kept his comments up to date by adding a note in the edition of 1807, nineteen years later: "Goya excelle aussi dans le portrait" (I, 293, note). In 1806 another book on Spain was published that also played a large part in broadening French knowledge of the country. Alexandre Louis Joseph de Laborde's Voyage pittoresque et historique de l'Espagne outshines Bourgoing's work in its perspicacious appraisal of "tout ce qui peut servir à faire connoître la nation espagnole, telle qu'elle est aujourd'hui; les fêtes, les danses, les usages nationaux." 54 Compared to Bourgoing's detailed and informative study, de Laborde's book is more in the nature of a popularization, in the tradition of the voyage pittoresque. He captures his readers' attention at the outset by clearly outlining each section of his book. His plans are vast and ambitious : together with his presentation of the history of Spain in general, from Moorish to modern times, her current social and economic conditions, and her scientific and literary history, he will retrace "l'histoire des arts depuis leur renaissance sous Ferdinand et Isabelle, Charles I e r , et Philippe II, jusqu'à nos jours; et donnera une connoissance suffisante de la peinture espagnole et des chefs-d'oeuvre qu'elle a produits." 55 The Voyage is illustrated with full-page engravings of monuments, regional costumes, the Spanish countryside, and also (this an innovation) reproductions of paintings by Spain's great masters : of nine illustrations there are three works attributed to Velazquez, three to Murillo, and one each to Zurbarán, Claudio Coello, and Ribera. The Velázquezes are on very different themes, hinting at the manifold aspects of this master's works. What de Laborde calls Portrait de Fernand Cortes is today considered to represent Philip IV's court jester Don Juan de Austria. It was then thought part of the cycle of portraits of Spanish noblemen so typical of Velázquez' oeuvre; and, indeed, the buffoon's vacuous stare could be overlooked by the unsuspecting viewer whose imagination and love of the picturesque are kindled by the rich apparel and shiny armour. 56 De Laborde's second illustration reproduces one of Velázquez' most masterful works : The Waterseller. This is almost a genre picture: an old man in tattered clothing offers a glass of water to a young boy. 57 The last reproduction is the Adoration of the Shepherds, owned at that time by Count del Aguila, of Seville. Although its attribution to

21

Paths to Discovery Velázquez is no longer accepted, the Adoration takes an honorable place in the great Spanish tradition of this theme. A s a matter of fact, it recalls closely Ribera's Adoration of the Shepherds, also reproduced by de Laborde: the shepherds are not biblical characters but simple Spanish peasants, wearing their coarse everyday clothing, who bring their modest offerings of fowl, lambs, and baskets of food to the Christ child and humbly gather around him. 5 8 D e Laborde's three Murillo illustrations exemplify the variety of this master's style also. His mysticism is represented by the Saint Francis in Ecstasy; the vaporoso manner of the " g e n t l e " Murillo, as he was often called, is apparent in an Assumption; the Dream of a Patrician is in the nature of a historical painting. 5 9 T h e Saint Peter Walking on the Waters by Claudio Coello, a Saint in Spanish Apparel by Zurbarán, and Ribera's Adoration60 complete de Laborde's choice of engravings. T h e illustrations are accompanied b y explanatory notes giving both factual information on each

José de Ribera, Adoration of the Shepherds, Laborde, Voyage pittoresque.

22

in de

Spanish Paintings in France before 1 8 0 8 painter and critical judgments of his w o r k ; moreover, de Laborde tries to analyze the very spirit of Spanish painting as mirrored in the examples he has selected. Almost simultaneously with the publication of this book another important work appeared by J. B. P. Lebrun on the same subject—his Recueil de gravures .. . d'après un choix de tableaux . . . recueillis . . . en Espagne.61 Even more of an expert in matters of art than the diplomat Bourgoing or the tourist de Laborde, Lebrun was tremendously impressed by the Spanish masters. He voices the regrets of the earlier critics about French and general European ignorance of the Spanish school. But, as his title indicates, the preoccupation of his journey was rather egotistic: he wanted to acquire works of art by the Spanish masters rather than merely admire them in collections owned by others. " M o n admiration me donna bientôt le désir d'arracher à l'oubli plusieurs maîtres célèbres qui sont inconnus de tout ce qui n'est pas l'Espagne." 6 2

Francisco de Zurbarán, Saint in Spanish Apparel (Saint Margaret), in de Laborde, Voyage pittoresque.

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Saint Francis in Ecstasy, in de Laborde, Voyage pittoresque.

23

Paths to Discovery In his quest Lebrun was ably assisted by a French connoisseur of art residing in Spain, one Frédéric Quilliet. 03 A dealer in objets de luxe, a man of letters and artist himself, and conveniently devoid of scruples, Quilliet was the ideal interpreter and intermediary for Lebrun, with whom he searched the smallest and least known convents and obscure collections as well as the better known sources for purchasable items of interest to art collectors. He was a man of influence who often enabled his friend to visit quarters usually closed to the ordinary traveler. He says, for instance, of their visit to the Escorial: " j e fis ouvrir à mon ami Lebrun les angles de L'Escurial." 64 In several footnotes to his Dictionnaire des peintres espagnols Quilliet mentions having shown canvases to Lebrun and helped him to purchase them : for instance, he recalls acting as interpreter when the two visited the Hospital de los Venerables Sacerdotes in Seville. There they offered— unsuccessfully—20,000 francs for a portrait by Murillo of the Canon Don Justino de Neve y Yebenes, the painter's close friend and lifelong benefactor. 65 Even after his return to France Lebrun could not forget this portrait of " M . de Neve," which he admiringly —and regretfully—mentions in his note on Murillo in the Recueil. However, not all his dealings in Seville were doomed to failure, and he did at least acquire an allegorical painting, supposedly by Juan Niño de Guevara, representing "war vanquished by peace and study," which also had aroused his admiration. 66 In Madrid Lebrun bought a tapis by "Antoine" de Pereda, 67 and Quilliet also made possible the purchase of a portrait of the "chroniste don Gabriel" by the monk "Augustin Léonardo": "J'avais procuré dans Madrid ce portrait à M. Lebrun; je l'ai acquis depuis." 68 Upon his return from Spain, Lebrun proudly displayed fifteen paintings by Spanish masters in his collection. Anxious to let the Parisian public share his admiration for this little known school, he freely admitted them to his home every Wednesday and Sunday. 69 The paintings were reproduced in the Recueil, published one year after his return from Spain. A short, largely biographical notice accompanies the work of each painter, with an indication of where his major works or reproductions thereof could be seen. Ribera (though considered by Lebrun "l'un des plus grands peintres que l'Espagne ait produits") is represented by one plate only, a Virgin with the Christ Child and Saint Catherine.70 One engraving, a Saint Peter del Cantara and One of His Companions, Walking on the Waters, illustrates "Clodio" Coello's work; 7 1 and, again, a lone Monk, Holding the Christ Child to Whom Appears the Virgin,"72

24

Spanish Paintings in France before 1808 represents "Alonzo" Cano—hitherto almost unknown even to the painter and amateur d'art Lebrun: " C e maître, que jamais je n'avais vu que dans quelques auteurs, a été plus loin que notre imagination dans les arts; en un mot, il faut voir."73 In Lebrun's collection a preponderance of Murillos is to be noted—as in all the other collections discussed here—but for the first time their number is almost equaled by works of Velazquez. Some of the seven "Murillos" are of dubious authenticity, although others are among the painter's best known works, or creditable copies thereof, such as an Immaculate Conception,74 a Virgin with the Christ Child,75 and a Saint John with the Lamb;™ this last is a close replica of the one owned today by the Prado. 77 The five "Velázquezes" are all at least attributable to that artist. It is interesting, however, that Lebrun, like de Laborde, identified only one correctly: the portrait of Pope Innocent X. 7 8 He describes Saint Anthony Abbot and Saint Paul the Hermit as Elie et Elisée dans le désert.79 Lebrun's portrait of a Guerrier en pied (supposed to be Cromwell) seems to be a non-authentic portrait of the Count-Duke of Olivares : though the facial features closely resemble those in the various portraits of him by Velázquez, the overall composition does not seem to have an original in any of the authoritative catalogues. 80 Lebrun does not seem to be familiar with the various members of the royal family so often portrayed by Velázquez : Cardinal Camillo Pamphili is mistaken for King Philip IV, 8 1 and the Infante Baltasar Carlos remains a vague "grand personnage, très jeune, occupé à la chasse." 8 2 It is in speaking of Velázquez and his portraits at the court of Madrid that Lebrun mentions Goya's engravings thereof; this is not only one of the early French notes of the contemporary Goya, but the only one I have found that mentions these engravings : "Goya, peintre vivant, a gravé, à l'eau-forte, une suite de divers tableaux du palais de Madrid, et plusieurs autres dans la grande collection que la cour faisait graver." A note gives more precise information about the engravings and remarks upon the prevalent French unawareness of the state of the arts in Spain : "L'on a peu suivi ce travail important: douze planches sont faites depuis long-temps et n'ont pas paru. Je crois qu'en tout il y en a 24 à 36 achevées." 8 3 Lebrun's Recueil brings to a close what might be considered the "period of preparation" for French discovery of Spanish painting. Even though many of the paintings are no longer considered of indisputable authenticity, they did quite faithfully evoke the essential characteristics of Spanish painting in general

25

Paths to Discovery and of a few better known masters' works in particular : religious painting dominates all genres, followed by portraiture from kings to beggarboys, while an insignificant number of paintings represent mythological and historical subjects, landscapes or "incidental" landscapes, and, finally, still lifes.

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Saint John and the Lamb,in Lebrun, Recueil.

26

Diego de Velázquez, Prince Baltasar Carlos with Gun and Ramrod, in Lebrun, Recueil.

2

Art Conquests of the Empire

The gradual awakening of interest in the cosas de España and in artistic manifestations of the Spanish genius was tremendously reinforced by Napoleon's Spanish campaigns : suddenly three hundred thousand Frenchmen from every possible background came into direct contact with Spain and with all aspects of her life and culture. Profiting by disturbances in Spanish internal politics, Napoleon had lured Ferdinand VII and his father, the former Charles IV, with his wife and Prime Minister Manuel Godoy, to the ill-famed conference at Bayonne in April 1808. There the emperor not only forced Ferdinand VII to abdicate, but also insisted that Charles, who had recently renounced the throne in favor of his son, reaffirm his own abdication. Napoleon granted land and privileges in France and even offered the throne of Etruria to Ferdinand, but reserved the right to name a king of Spain: in accordance with his practice of distributing European thrones to members of his family, he recalled his brother Joseph from Naples to make him "King of Spain by the Grace of God." Napoleon did not take into account the acute sense of national honor and integrity of the Spanish; for five years thereafter, the war—or rather the campaigns—in Spain, which marked the beginning of the end of the Napoleonic glory, brought the intruso to grips with the fierce resistance of the Spaniards, righteous defenders of their country and their patrimony. Like the soldiers sent to campaign in Italy three hundred years before, the armies of the Empire in Spain came back to France deeply impressed by the riches they had seen in the occupied country. But these impressions were not the only reminders of their discovery: only too eagerly did they collect palpable examples, returning laden with a rich harvest of paintings and objets d'art. The pillage of each town entered by the advancing French armies had become general practice from the beginning of the Peninsular War, and rarely were paintings and other works of art passed by. José María Queipo de Llano, Count of Toreno, a member of the Juntas opposing the French and a fierce advocate of national freedom, records in his Levantamiento that the French "interest" in "objects of value and esteem" had been manifested since the very beginning of the campaigns: "Habia comenzado el primero [despojo] ya desde 1808, y se habia extendido á Toledo, al Escorial

27

Paths to Discovery

y á las ciudades y sitios que encerraban en ambas Castillas, asi como en las Andalucías y otras provincias, objetos de valor y estima." Toreno's mention of Valencia as one of the few towns whose churches and convents escaped plunder reveals how widespread this pillage must have been: "tampoco las bellas artes tuvieron que deplorar por acá las pérdidas que en otros lugares; y si desaparecieron en Zaragoza algunos cuadros de Claudio Coello, del Guercino y del Ticiano, no en Valencia, en donde casi se conservaron intactos las que adornaban sus iglesias y conventos." 1 Indeed, examination of the memoirs of many a French soldier reveals numerous accounts of their discovery of the masters of the Spanish school. This interest was not always exclusively esthetic: in his Mémoires, General Louis François Lejeune recalls how his men, encamped outside of Saragossa, found rather unsuspected qualities in the canvases of the Spanish masters : they sheltered themselves from the inclemencies of the Aragonese climate behind screens formed of paintings taken from churches and convents, while old manuscripts were spread on the humid ground, to serve as litters: Pour se garantir mieux de la fraîcheur des nuits, les soldats avaient apporté au camp tous les tableaux qu'ils avaient pu retirer des églises ou couvents dont on s'était emparé; et ces toiles, peintes ou vernissées, les abritaient parfaitement contre le soleil, la pluie, le

28

Art Conquests of the Empire froid et l'humidité. A défaut de paille, ils faisaient avec le parchemin des manuscrits antiques une couche moins dure, mais plus sèche que la terre. Dans toute autre position, on se serait dit: Plutôt souffrir que détruire; mais ici il y allait de la vie, et, faute d'autres ressources, on employait au camp les plus gros livres pour se coucher, les ornements des autels et les statues des saints, les sculptures en bois doré, pour se chauffer, et les tableaux d'église pour couvrir les baraques. 2 Lejeune himself must have been unusually sensitive to the splendors of this improvised art-gallery : had he not distinguished his name as much by his brushes as by his military exploits? Volunteer at sixteen, general at thirty-five, and baron of the Empire shortly thereafter, he had become the on-the-scene pictorial chronicler of practically every major battle of the Napoleonic campaigns from Marengo to Wagram, from the Pyramides to Chiclana de la Frontera. And indeed, walking through the encampment, he enjoyed the improvised art exhibition rather than condemning the soldiers' vandalism: "Une visite au camp était pour nous une véritable récréation. Cette exposition de peintures ressemblait à celles qu' on voyait autrefois à la Place Dauphine, au pied du Palais de Justice, à Paris lorsque les jeunes artistes n'étaient pas encore, en 1792, admis à exposer leurs ouvrages au Louvre." Among the besiegers of Saragossa, the contingent of Polish soldiers, profoundly Catholic, seems to have been particularly sensitive to the emotional impact of these paintings : the saints' devotion and readiness for self sacrifice became an incentive for these "braves Polonais" to emulate them, and they even read a promise of "eternal recompense" into these paintings. Lejeune tells how the commander in chief, Marshal Jean Lannes, took advantage of this childlike devotion: a picture of Christ telling Saint Peter to walk on water led this marshal to exhort his men to show the same blind faith and obedience, and the miracle of the long fought-for surrender of the besieged town would also happen: "Hé bien! mes amis, leur dit le maréchal, Dieu parle ici à saint Pierre précisément comme j'ai à vous parler à vous-mêmes. Dieu lui dit: Pierre, si tu as foi à mes paroles, tu marcheras sur les eaux; ce qui signifie que: Si tu as confiance en moi, l'espérance soutiendra ton courage, et ta persévérance triomphera de tous les obstacles. Et vous, mes amis, dans peu de jours vous prendrez Saragosse!" 3 But this was certainly not the major use that French soldiers found for Spanish paintings; on the contrary, they were coveted possessions and were high on the list of wartime requisitions. 4

29

Paths to Discovery For this, Frenchmen had a ready-made excuse, thought up by the Spanish themselves : even some of the most patriotic Spaniards believed such looting would serve to spread the knowledge of Spanish painting beyond the boundaries of the Peninsula. Toreno, for instance, could not help but acknowledge that the "scandalous pillage" of works of art had led to "true and fruitful" results in giving them "new lustre and greater glory" in the eyes of the "admiring world."5 Many were the Frenchmen who took advantage of this justification, and even Mérimée would fall back upon it as late as 1836 to protest the restitution of Spanish art works: "Les Français ont eu le tort de laisser tant de trésors d'art qui souvent ne sont pas estimés à leur juste valeur par leurs légitimes propriétaires."6 The project of placing unappreciated Spanish treasures in the French limelight was reinforced by a certain artistic chauvinism. Was not "France, mère des arts," the natural home of all artistic production? Nor does this attitude date only from Napoleonic days; under the National Convention one finds a document dated 30 Messidor An II strongly proclaiming this "cultural mission": by gathering art treasures from conquered countries, France not only saves them from oblivion and inevitable destruction, but also gives them their rightful place in what should be their adopted country : "considérant que leur plus véritable dépôt, pour l'honneur et les progrès des arts, est dans le séjour et sous le main des hommes libres." 7 But not everyone adhered to these principles, and many loud cries of indignation were raised against the pillage. Spaniards above all, of course, but also Portuguese, English, Swiss, and some French, condemned it in their journals and memoirs and even in articles.8 The indignant Spanish persistently distributed tracts against the hated and despised "rey intruso, Pepe Botellas" and his men, hardly one of which fails to mention the looting. Thus Antonio de Capmany, the writer, historian, and philologist who fled to Seville at the approach of the Napoleonic forces to continue from there his anti-French propaganda : "Antes fué Paris el emporio de las ciencias y las letras. Hoy es el almacén general de las rapiñas." 9 We find the same accusations in the Letters of the Reverend James W. Ormsby, a chaplain with the English army in the Peninsula. "That they have plundered in the most atrocious manner, it is impossible to doubt. The French came into the country unencumbered by baggage, as is their custom; indeed they were even destitute of necessaries; and they are carrying off more of every description than should properly belong to any army of three

30

Art Conquests of the Empire times their number. Since the armistice, they have had the audacity to strip the museum and library of all that was valuable." 10 The protests of some Frenchmen against the way in which certain of their officers obtained art works are typified by the report of an obscure cannoneer, Manière : the inhabitants of Toledo, having successfully resisted the forcible removal of a Saint Jacques supposedly by Velázquez11 from the cathedral, were threatened by a certain marshal that he would blow up the old Roman bridge, sole means of communication between the town and the surrounding countryside. Only "un million en quadruples ou onces d'or" delivered within two hours, the marshal announced, could make him relinquish the painting, pacify him, and save the bridge. His demands were met within the time limit. Although he did not obtain the coveted Velázquez, he secured a considerable fortune : "une voiture attelée de deux mules arriva avec deux caisses, le maréchal les fit mettre dans son fourgon avec les tableaux qu'il avait volés à Séville et à l'Escurial, on partit, le pont resta intact, mais les Espagnols gardèrent San Jago, qu'ils payèrent un million au maréchal." 12 And our honest cannoneer indignantly exclaims: "Que de fortunes acquises dans ce genre!" The most flagrant example of a fortune in valuable paintings "acquise dans ce genre" is found in Marshal Nicolas Jean de Dieu Soult, who began his meteoric career as colonel général of the Consular Guard and soon became one of the first and youngest marshals of the Empire. The battles of Austerlitz and Jena and the titles of governor of Berlin and duke of Dalmatia mark the steps in his rapid rise. He arrived in Spain as early as November 1808, Napoleon himself having made him commander in chief of the Second Corps of the Army. One year later Soult had subjugated Andalusia: Granada, Seville, and Cordova are names which added further luster to his fame. Elevated to the rank of général en chef des Armées du Midi, he never lost the emperor's favor. After the defeat of Vitoria (June 21, 1813) and in the midst of his preoccupation with the Moscow campaign, Napoleon, profoundly irritated with Joseph, discharged the latter's chief of staff, Marshal Jean Baptiste Jourdan, and despite frictions and jealousies replaced him with Soult, who was by this time the emperor's lieutenant-général. When Soult returned to France after five years of campaigning throughout the Peninsula, he brought back more than the honors of war alone. His private art collection was one of the first through which a large number of Spanish masterpieces could be enjoyed outside their native country, and it was certainly one of

31

P a t h s to D i s c o v e r y

Anonymous, Marshal

Soult.

Art Conquests of the Empire the richest. One hundred and nine of the hundred fifty-seven canvases listed in his sales catalogue belonged to the Spanish school, and their outstanding quality is indicated by the high sums they commanded at the posthumous auction held in Paris in 1852: they brought 1,342,146 francs out of a total of 1,1551,250 francs. Fifteen Murillos, among the best of the master's works, outshone even the most remarkable of the Moraleses, Zurbaráns, Herreras, and many others, and left a deep impression on the Parisian public. 13 But how had these paintings been acquired? Had the marshal not remembered, all too well, his "rights of conquest"? Had he not accepted all too many "gifts" in acknowledgment of the "administration sage et prévoyante" that a certain province or town had enjoyed under him? Though some affirm that "il faisait aimer le nom français" 14 and that the paintings were presented to him in gratitude for his clemency, there is more frequent testimony to the contrary—even that of the marshal himself. Richard Ford, in his Handbook for Travellers in Spain, relates the following incident, told him by a British visitor to the marshal's gallery: "In the cathedral of Seville . . . hung the two superb Murillos—the 'Birth of the Virgin' and the 'Repose in Egypt,' which on M. Soult's arrival were concealed by the chapter ; a traitor informed him, and he sent to beg them as a present, hinting that if refused he would take them by force (Toreno XX). The worthy Marshal one day showing Col. Gurwood his 'collection' at Paris, stopped opposite a Murillo and said : Ί very much value that specimen, as it saved the lives of two estimable persons.' An aide-de-camp whispered, 'He threatened to have both shot on the spot, unless they gave up the picture.' " When Ford mentions Murillo's paintings at the Hospital de la Caridad in Seville, he bitterly accuses the marshal of plundering art works: "Hence he [Murillo] painted, in 1660-74, that series of grand pictures, of which Soult—hence justly called by Toreno the modern Verres, and by Mr. Stirling the 'Plunder Marshal General'—carried off 5, all of which is entirely blinked by Monsr. Maison in his pilfered Guide,"15 As a matter of fact, Soult and his men had found a reliable guide to the location and value of Spanish works of art in Juan Agustín Ceán Bermúdez' Diccionario de las bellas artes, published in 1800. 16 Many a painting mentioned by Ceán Bermúdez disappeared when Soult reached the town under which it was listed; the work "forms a complete dictionary of all the leading artists of Spain, with their biographies, lists of their principal works, and where they are or were to be seen; for this book in the hands of the Soults and Ci. proved a catalogue which indicated what and where was the most valuable artistical plunder." 17

33

Paths to Discovery

•sgiss Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Saint Elizabeth Sick.

of Hungary Nursing

the

Art Conquests of the Empire During Soult's administration in Andalusia a decree was promulgated ordering an assemblage in Seville's Alcázar of works of art taken from churches and convents. The gathering was intended as a foundation for a museum in Madrid; yet many of the canvases stored in the Alcázar found their way into the marshal's private collection. Indeed, even a perfunctory survey of the original emplacements of paintings owned by Soult sounds like a guided tour through Seville's most famous churches and convents : they came from the cathedral, from convents such as La Merced Calzada, La Merced Descalza, Santa María la Blanca, Los Capuchinos, and San Alberto, and from the Hospital de los Venerables Sacerdotes and, above all, the Hospital de la Caridad. Murillo's famous Saint Elizabeth of Hungary Nursing the Sick and seven other of his canvases were forcibly taken from the Caridad. 18 Voices were raised, even in Paris, in condemnation of Soult's methods of enlarging his own collection. Almost every critic who mentioned the collection up to the time of its sale in 1852, and even after that, made reference to these methods. In 1835, Théophile Thoré, chief art critic of the Revue de Paris, denounced Soult in a long and penetrating article on his gallery. Thoré accuses Napoleon of having knowingly suffered a widespread "organized pillage" throughout Europe; while some officers were more intent on obtaining easily marketable precious metals (such as those from the sacred vessels of churches) or even imposing direct monetary "contributions," Soult specialized in acquiring all the paintings to which he took a liking—he was careful, however, to cover his "ownership" with letters of "donation." 1 9 Moreover, access to the marshal's collection was granted only as a special favor, after arduous exchanges of letters of introduction and petitions. Soult, a collector but not a connoisseur, did not display his paintings in gallery fashion, but used them to adorn almost all the rooms of his mansion: they decorated the walls of his anti-chambre, his study, his dining room, and his bedrooms. 20 Thoré justly claims that no private home, no matter how luxurious, could adequately display canvases as large as the Murillos, and he acidly concludes : Cette possession, dont la légitimité est au moins contestable, n'a pas même tourné au profit de l'art en France, bien qu'elle semble tirer son origine de l'amour de l'art. Séville a perdu ses chefsd'oeuvre: les religieuses compositions qui excitaient dans les églises la dévotion des chrétiens sont accrochées maintenant au pied d'un lit bourgeois ou aux lambris d'une anti-chambre, et depuis plus de vingt ans qu'elles sont à Paris, Paris n'a pas eu la faveur de les

35

Paths to Discovery examiner. Malgré notre respect pour la propriété individuelle, nous avons peine à comprendre la propriété particulière et sans restrictions en fait de créations supérieures du génie. Les chefs-d'oeuvre sont du domaine public, ils appartiennent à l'humanité. 21 Thoré's attacks would be echoed the following year (1836) in an article signed S.C. on Soult's gallery in the journal L'Artiste. This author voices two "sad preoccupations": never, but especially not in "the nineteenth century of modern civilization," should the rights of conquest be extended to works of art; every nation is the "sacred guardian" of its own masterpieces. Furthermore, no individual should ever have the right to seclude them from general view in a private home, thus keeping them from profiting the world of art. Since the paintings were already in France, a solution is suggested : "Ces chefs-d'oeuvre . . . ont été conquis par le sang national, et devraient, à ce titre, être une propriété nationale. M. Soult se prête avec une complaisance dont il faut encore lui savoir gré à laisser visiter sa galerie par ceux qui en font la demande par écrit. . . . Les artistes n'aiment pas à faire de pareilles demandes et . . . ce n'est pas dans une simple visite qu'ils peuvent analyser ces belles toiles, les dessiner, en prendre des croquis, en faire des études; elles sont donc, comme je le disais, perdues pour l'art." 2 2 Was it to still such clamor that, early in 1813, the marshal gave four of his pictures to the newly created Musée Napoléon? There were three Murillos, the two commemorating the founding of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome ( T h e Dream of a Patrician and the Patrician Telling His Dream to the Pope) and the already famous Saint Elizabeth of Hungary Nursing the Sick, together with Zurbarán's Apotheosis of Saint Thomas Aquinas.23 Soult may have donated the paintings as a sort of conscience money; but the monumental dimensions of all four canvases suggest that they might well have been, of all his pictorial loot, the most awkward to display on the walls of a private mansion, however large: the two Murillos on Santa Maria Maggiore measure 2m30 by 5m22 each; his Saint Elizabeth, though of slightly less imposing dimensions, is still a respectably cumbersome 3m25 by 2m45; and Zurbarán's Saint Thomas is a room-size 4m75 by 3m75. Though not necessarily a connoisseur of the work of art, Soult certainly knew its market value : throughout his lifetime he used his paintings for profitable financial transactions, ready to recall a closed deal if it seemed not advantageous enough. As early as 1810 he sold his Angels' Kitchen ( l m 8 9 by 4m46) to the Louvre for 85,000 francs. In 1823 he employed the art dealer Buchanan, in London,

36

Art Conquests of the Empire to try to sell his famous Conception "Soult" for 2 5 0 , 0 0 0 francs. T h e deal did not materialize; and in 1 8 3 5 he approached Louis Philippe to offer him the Conception, together with Murillo's Christ Healing the Paralitic and a Liberation of Saint Peter supposedly by Ribera (today attributed to Murillo), also taken from the Hospital de la Caridad in Seville. 2 4 Soult asked for 5 0 0 , 0 0 0 francs for the lot, and the deal was concluded on April 1 3 , 1 8 3 5 , with the Count of Montalivet acting for Louis Philippe. But the Parisian public did not have much opportunity to see these canvases, as they graced the walls of the Louvre for little more than a month: on M a y 23 the deal was canceled, and two days later the marshal regained possession of his paintings. Only after Soult's death did the Louvre finally acquire his Conception. At the sale of his collection in London, M a y 1 9 - 2 2 , 1 8 5 2 , the French government outbid such other contenders as Nicholas I, Tsar of Russia, Isabel II, Queen of Spain, and the Marquess of Hertford and gained possession of the coveted canvas for the then unheard-of sum of 5 8 6 , 0 0 0 francs (615,300 including the five percent government tax). 2 5 This painting had already become, in the eyes of the French, the prototype of Murillo's portrayal not only of the Virgin in her glory, but also of the Andalusian woman in all her regally gentle yet earthbound beauty. Other paintings of Soult's collection were subsequently scattered throughout Europe; indeed, he helped unwittingly to spread knowledge of Spanish painting. Ford records Soult's various dealings in his Handbook: "His 'Grace' bribed Buonaparte with one, the Sa. Isabel; two others, the 'Abraham and angels' and the 'Prodigal Son,' he sold to the D. of Sutherland, and the 'Healing of the Cripple' to M r . Tomline, at fabulous prices ; the fourth, the " A n g e l and S. Peter," passed at his final sale in 1 8 5 2 , to Russia. T h e large amount of cash that the sale produced offers another proof of the judgment with which Soult, 'that well known French dealer,' 'collected.' " 2 6 T h a t Soult's primary concern was not with expert care of the art work he acquired is well known. A common practice of the time, in which he shared, was to cut paintings into manageable portions to facilitate their transport. The inner portion of Murillo's aptly named Vierge coupée, for example, comprising only the Virgin holding the Christ child, was cut out in accordance with Soult's orders. In the aftermath of the battle of Vitoria this part was lost by him and found its way into England; while t r y i n g — unsuccessfully—to regain it, he had the inner portion of his painting fitted with substitute figures by the soldier-painter Louis François

37

Paths to Discovery

Anonymous cartoon, "New Year's Gifts for Soult," in La Caricature. Lejeune. 27 But Soult was not the only collector to mutilate paintings, as is revealed by Louis Viardot's comment on the Louvre's Princess Mariana, Queen of Spain, attributed to Velázquez: "Ce tableau a été découpé dans une grande toile du palais de Madrid par un officier du roi Joseph, en 1814." 2 8 In the political caricatures of Soult made throughout his lifetime—and they were numerous, for until his death in 1851 he remained one of the outstanding and controversial figures on the French political scene—he was often portrayed surrounded by paintings and objets d'art. La Caricature's comments on his artistic inclinations were frequent and biting. In the January 1833 edition a cartoon showed "playthings" being distributed as New Year's gifts to prominent figures in public life. The editor's comments on the "gifts" for Soult are revealing: "Livré à MM. les Frères de l'ATTRAPE pour être donné à un riche amateur de peinture . . . un catalogue des tableaux de Murillo les plus estimés et les moins chers." 2 9 In Soult's pile of gifts one can clearly recognize two richly framed canvases : one of a Madonna, and another one, half-hidden, but visibly signed "Murillo" in the top right corner. A cartoon of 1834, "Les Honneurs du Panthéon," shows Soult, together with other dignitaries on the French political scene, hung on gallows; a

38

Art Conquests of the Empire framed painting, again with Murillo's signature showing on the edge of the torn canvas, has been forced, like a carcan, around Soult's neck. 30 Soult was the most outstanding but far from the only French officer in Spain who showed a keen interest in works of art during his stay in the Peninsula. Murat, Napoleon's brother-in-law, though less actively interested, did not return to France without a few souvenirs—he seems to have favored the better known masters of the Italian and Flemish schools over the still relatively unknown Spanish painters. Rubens and Correggio especially attracted his fancy, which he satisfied by taking their works from the Royal Palace of Madrid, from churches and convents, and even from private homes, including those of Godoy and the Duke of Alba. Toreno records in his Levantamiento : "Recogío Murat en su tiempo varios de ellos, principalmente del real palacio y de la casa del príncipe de la Paz, parando mucho su consideración los cuadros del Correggio de que casi se llevó los pocos que España poseía, entre los cuales merece citarse el llamado Escuela del Amor que fue de los duques de Alba, prodigiosa obra de aquel inimitable genio." Toreno adds an accusing note that this School of Love was not given back to Spain with those returned after 1815 to the "ten noble Families" of Madrid : "El cuadro de La Escuela de Amor está ahora en Londres, en el museo que se llama National Gallery . . . lo vendió en Vienne la viuda de Murat el actual marques de Londonderry, por 11,000 guineas." And there can be no doubt that a "certain" French general, "very well known," who appeared deeply interested in the Rubenses in the convent of Dominican nuns at Loeches was again Murat: "Despues contóse entre las señaladas rapiñas la que verificó cierto general francés, muy conocido, en el convento de dominicas de Loeches, lugar de la Alcarria y fundación del conde duque de Olivares, de donde se llevó afamados cuadros de Rubens, que al decir de Don Antonio Ponz eran de lo mas bello de aquel artífice en lo acabado, espresivo, bien compuesto y colorido." 31 Another French general, Pierre Antoine Dupont de l'Etang, is among those infamous for plundering the Spanish patrimony. When Cordova surrendered to her assailants on June 7 , 1 8 0 8 , this general and his troops fiercely ransacked the town and added five hundred carriages of loot to their convoy when they left after nine days: Although no resistance was made, the populace was massacred, and the city, Mezquita, and churches were plundered (Foy III, 231); every one, says Maldonado (i. 291), from the general to the fraction

39

Paths to Discovery of a drummer-boy, giving themselves up to pillage. The officers vied with the rank & file (Madoz, VI. 658). The "plunder exceeded ten millions of reals": 8,000 ounces or 25,000 1, were found in Dupont's baggage alone. 32 And the Mémoires of General Leopold Sigisbert Hugo, Victor Hugo's father, also abound in lengthy—and at times rather guilty— descriptions of the looting he had witnessed. On occasion, though, the general sounds rather pleased with having outwitted the Spanish authorities to find the hiding places of their art treasures. In Sigüenza, for instance, he learned that the cathedral's treasury was immured in the church itself, whereupon, witnessed by officers of his own detachment, he assembled the town's officials and the cathedral's dignitaries in front of this recently constructed wall and questioned them on the whereabouts of the treasury. When they feigned ignorance he gleefully confounded them by having workmen break down the wall to expose the cache. 33 Mathieu-Faviers, Intendant général des armées and Pair de France, was another baron of the Empire who shared the enthusiasm of so many of Napoleon's officers for Spanish painting: this is approvingly recalled in the "Avertissement" of the 1837 sales catalogue of his collection: "Il y a presque vingt-huit ans que M. le Baron de Faviers a commencé la collection des grands maîtres de l'école espagnole . . . en les recherchant en Espagne avec l'activité la plus passionnée pour les arts." 3 4 But this "recherche" seems to have been made in the same spirit and by exercising the same means of the droit de conquête as we saw in Napoleon's other generals cum art connoisseurs. When the French occupation troops in Seville used the convent of San Francisco as quarters for one of their regiments, its art treasures seem to have found new owners without delay : four of the convent's Murillos came to be in Soult's possession, and three in Mathieu-Faviers's, while another four are listed in the Alcázar inventory. 35 One painting, Two Franciscan Monks, proved too stiff to be rolled for easy transport and so was left behind by Soult. 36 A note to painting number two in Mathieu-Faviers's sales catalogue, a Virgin Holding the Christ Child, by Murillo, tells us that " C e tableau a été donné par Joseph Napoléon, alors roi d'Espagne, à M. le baron Faviers, et fut accompagné d'une lettre fort honorable," and for another Murillo (a Holy Family, number sixteen), there again is a revealing note: " C e tableau fut acquis dans un palais voisin de l'inventaire général de l'hospice de la Charité de Séville." Was it not from this very "hospice de la Charité" that Soult had taken his most treasured Murillos?

40

Art Conquests of the Empire Indeed, Mathieu-Faviers's predilection, like that of Soult and most other Frenchmen at this period, seems to have been for works by Murillo : of fifteen canvases, his sales catalogue lists nine Murillos. Yet he must have owned more than nine paintings by Murillo : Curtis lists eleven (which do not all coincide with the subjects of the catalogue) as having belonged to him, and we know that he sold his Death of Saint Clara to Alexandre Aguado at some point in his life. 37 This, undoubtedly the most famous of the canvases he owned, is now in the Dresden Museum of Fine Arts. 38 That many of his Murillos were of high quality and probable authenticity is confirmed by the handwritten marginal annotations I have found in his sales catalogue: a Sainte famille (listed as number one) by Murillo sold for a high of 21,000 francs—already in the price range commanded by the lesser Murillos in Soult's collection sold fifteen years later. Another French officer to own a distinguished collection of Spanish paintings was the Lieutenant-général Count ChristopheAntoine de Merlin, who had distinguished himself during the Portuguese campaign of 1810. Married to Mercedes Jaruco, niece of General Gonzalo O'Farril y Herrera (Spanish minister of war under Ferdinand VII and then under Joseph), he lived in Spain throughout the French occupation. The Merlins' separate sales catalogues reveal that both were eclectic and discerning collectors. The catalogue of the auction at the count's death lists only seven paintings by Spanish masters, but they were all of high caliber: an Infanta, purportedly by Velázquez, a monk meditating over a skull by Zurbarán, and several Riberas. As might be expected, his widow kept the finest of his pictures, and it was only at her death in 1852 that another twenty-two Spanish paintings of excellent quality (to judge by their sales prices), by both classic and modern Spanish masters, entered into the French art market. 39 Marshal Horace Sebastiani was not averse, either, to amassing paintings, often receiving with them a título de recompensa nacional. At his death in 1851, his sales catalogue lists nine paintings by Spanish masters. Not much of a connaisseur d'art himself, Sébastiani had followed the prevailing taste and favored works by the most widely renowned masters, Murillo, Velázquez, and Zurbarán. 40 For him, though, the Italian masters had relinquished none of their pre-eminence, and their works comprise the major part of his collection. A decree of January 4 , 1 8 1 0 , gave him ownership of a Titian, a Bordone, and a painting by the equally coveted Flemish master Van Dyck. 41 There is evidence of his having owned an impressive number of paintings; for example, he apparently offered seventy-three canvases for sale to the prince

41

Paths to Discovery regent of England in 1814.42 And, to prove that he was a connoisseur—and collector—in realms other than that of the fine arts, and actively cultivated a particularly eclectic taste during his stay in Spain, there is the following entry in his sales catalogue : "Sept cents bouteilles de vins d'Espagne et autres très vieux et d'une qualité supérieure." 43 It was probably through Sébastiani that Lucien Bonaparte, Napoleon's younger brother, was able to add some Spanish canvases to his private collection, as intimated in an article on the Aguado gallery in Les Beaux Arts of 1843.44 Indeed, a book of engravings chosen from the paintings and sculptures of Lucien Bonaparte's gallery reveals that his collection contained at least six works by Spanish masters, or attributed to them: there are three listings for "Murillos," two for Ribera, and one for Velázquez.45 Another soldier-amateur d'art, and indeed a most knowledgeable one, was the above-mentioned Louis François Lejeune, the painter-general. Lejeune is said to have grasped the first opportunity after the French entry into Madrid to take his aides-de-camp to the Royal Palace to admire its paintings : "Avant de mourir, vous devez voir les Raphaël et les Murillo." 46 But it must be said to his credit that, judging by what is thought to be his sales catalogue, his cabinet contained only a small number of Spanish paintings : one is supposedly by Murillo and the others are by minor masters or else are copies.47 Soult, Murât, Sébastiani, Dupont, Hugo, Mathieu-Faviers, Merlin, Léry,48 Lejeune, Belliard, the court physician Bourdois— these are only some of Napoleon's officers who, together with many others who are forgotten today, contributed to the diffusion of knowledge of Spanish painting in France. The general French interest was becoming so widespread, in fact, that soon after his accession to the Spanish throne Joseph, more eager to appease the Spanish than to please his brother Napoleon, found it necessary to issue a decree forbidding any "exportation" of Spanish works of art; and by 1810 the interest had increased to such a degree that he was compelled to reaffirm his opposition officially. He reinforced his new decree with a system of severe fines : the informer, the apprehender, and the nearest hospital were to share a fine equivalent to the value of the painting, and for repeat offenses the fine was to be double.49 Not only did the French "protect" Spanish works of art by taking them to France, but, faithfully playing the role of Maecenas, they planned to establish in Madrid a national museum of fine arts.50 Madrid (and all of Spain for that matter) had no public

42

Art Conquests of the Empire museums like the Louvre where the works of the great masters might be enjoyed by all. Most paintings belonged to the king, to the grandees, to private individuals, and, above all, to religious institutions. Joseph, as king of Spain, though more interested in the pleasurable aspects of life ("les femmes, les beaux-arts et les lettres," to quote General Maximilien Foy51) than in his administrative duties, was eager to let the Spanish people know and appreciate their own artists. The project of forming a national museum received his wholehearted support; and of all the institutions originated by the French this was one of the few to survive their defeat in Spain. Less than a year after his arrival in Spain, Joseph was actively engaged in the project, as the following decree, dated December 20, 1809, shows: Don Josef Napoleón, por la gracia de Dios y por la constitución del Estado, Rey de las Españas y de las Indias. Queriendo en beneficio de las bellas artes, disponer de la multitud de quadros que, separados de la vista de los conocedores, se hallaban hasta aquí encerrados en los claustros, que estas muestras de las obras antiguas más perfectas sirvan como de primeros modelos y guía a los talentos; que brille el mérito de los célebres pintores españoles, poco conocidos de las naciones vecinas, procurándoles al propio tiempo la gloria inmortal que merecen tan justamente los nombres de Velázquez, Ribera, Murillo, Rivalta, Navarrete, Juan San Vicente y otros; . . . decretamos lo siguiente: Artículo

primero

Se fundará en Madrid un museo de pintura que contendrá las colecciones de las diversas escuelas, y a este efecto se tomarán de todos los establecimientos públicos, y aún de nuestros palacios, los quadros que sean necesarios para completar la reunión que hemos decretado. The emperor, eager to concentrate as many cultural monuments as possible in France, had informed Joseph of his desire for a share of the paintings gathered for the museum in Madrid, and the second article of the decree provides for this "token of union" between the two nations: Articulo

secundo

Se formará una colección general de los pintores célebres de la Escuela española, la que ofreceremos a nuestro augusto hermano el Emperador de los franceses, manifestandole al propio tiempo nuestros deseos de verla colocada en una de las salas del museo Napo-

43

Paths to Discovery león, en donde siendo un monumento a la gloria de los artistas españoles, servirá como prenda de la unión más sincera de las dos naciones.52 That the decree would encounter considerable opposition was only to be expected. The Spanish were ingenious and resourceful, if not always effective, in protecting their art treasures. In a letter of February 3,1810, the French diplomat and artist Vivant Denon denounced the general Sevillian resistance to an order, issued the day after occupation of the city, enjoining convents, corporations, and casas de beneficencia to surrender "minutely" detailed inventories of whatever objects of value they might possess.53 Much of the cathedral's treasury had been embarked, ready to sail out of reach upon the arrival of the French; other churches and convents had taken their prized possessions to safety in private homes, hidden or even buried them, or sold them at ridiculously low prices rather than leave them to the French: Monseigneur. Tout est dans l'ordre des notes que j'ai eu l'honneur de vous présenter, seulement je dois observer à V. E. ce qui suit : La cathédrale a retiré ses quatre Murillo, un tableau de l'école Italienne et les a mis avec tous ses bijoux dans une barque qui, à cinq lieues d'ici, avait l'ordre de lever l'ancre à l'entrée des troupes. Les Capucins ont roulé leurs dix-sept Murillo et les ont ou enterrés (les barbares) ou mis dans des maisons particulières. St. Albert a retiré ces jours-ci del Cano et des Zurbaran. St. François, fermé en principe, a refusé il y a quinze jours 60,000 piastres fortes de les sept Murillos, qui ornent encore son Eglise. La Merced a tout vendu moins trois Murillo qui sont deux dans l'Eglise et un dans la Chapelle de l'Expiation. Les Carmes chaussés ont vendu leur Vierge du Rosaire de Murillo (les ignorans) 250 piastres; l'acheteur l'a vendue 300; celui-ci l'a vendue à D. Manuel Real 600 piastres, et il en veut une somme assez raisonnable. Saint Bonaventure est difficile à s'ouvrir, il paroit qu'il a remis ses peintures et bijoux à Dn. In. Radila, son Sindic; cependant il faut attendre encore un jour pour prendre une détermination quant à celui-ci. . . 54 At the Hospital de la Caridad, depository of magnificent Murillos and important Valdés Leals, the hermano mayor issued a warning recommending "the longest possible delay in the handing over" of these paintings ;55 but since no measures were taken to actually hide them, they were soon "collected" by the French.

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Art Conquests of the Empire

Paths to Discovery In spite of the many obstacles raised by the owners, works of art began to stream into the numerous art-collecting centers established throughout Spain within a few weeks after the publication of the December decree. Together with "public establishments" Joseph opened "even his royal palaces" to provide a basic stock for the new museum; and the ten first families of Madrid, as well as many churches and convents, were obliged to contribute to it. Another important source was the treasuries of the recently suspended religious orders : soon after the French arrival in Madrid Napoleon had closed two-thirds of all convents for men in Spain, and after continued opposition of the religious orders to the French administration, Joseph's secretary of state, Luis Mariano de Urquijo, had issued a decree on August 20,1809, suppressing all clerical, monachal, mendicant, and regular orders. Their possessions reverted to the State, and a commission headed by the Spaniards Cristóbal Cladera, Mariano Agustín, and the expert in Arabic studies José Antonio Conde removed more than fifteen hundred canvases from their establishments.56 In addition to this Spanish commission, Joseph availed himself of the services of French experts capable of effectively seconding and even leading the treasure hunt throughout the Peninsula. The most outstanding of them was Vivant Denon, engraver and painter, and friend of the artist Jacques Louis David.57 Denon was a cultured diplomat of encyclopedic knowledge, and soon Napoleon "l'inamusable" (to quote Talleyrand) had been won over by his charm: "Mais b i e n t ô t . . . il [Napoléon] fut charmé par cette conversation si vive, si spirituelle et si nourrie, par cette infatigable curiosité qui poussait Denon à risquer sa vie pour prendre un croquis, par cette vision qu'il avail si juste et si graphique des faits contemporains, par cette instruction encyclopédique qui en faisait le meilleur juge en matière d'art." 58 He had been directeur des médailles under Louis XV, and in 1798 he had participated in the Egyptian campaign as a volunteer member of Napoleon's "Commission des sciences et des arts." In search of someone to head his newly reorganized Musée Napoléon, the emperor chose Denon in 1804. The new director scoured all of Europe to enrich his museum, and the conquest of Spain offered him new fields to search. Throughout the Peninsula he unearthed objets d'art for the Napoleonic museums, Joseph's as well as the emperor's. A letter to Napoleon dated January 18,1809, from Valladolid illustrates the zeal with which he pursued his mission: he complains of Joseph's apparent lack of interest and even passive resistance to the collection of works of art: "Si tout autre prince que le frère de

46

Art Conquests of the Empire Votre Majesté eût occupé le trône de Madrid, je les aurais sollicités [les ordres impériaux] pour ajouter à la collection du Musée vingt tableaux de l'école espagnole dont elle manque absolument et qui auraient été à perpétuité un trophée de cette dernière campagne." 59 The controversial Frédéric Quilliet also put his knowledge and extensive information at the disposal of this cultural project. Even today the exact role he played during his stay in Spain is unclear. He had been living there for several years previous to the wars and had many Spanish friends ; though accused by some Spaniards of spying, he remained in Madrid after the French defeat and embraced the Spanish cause. In him Joseph found the ideal person to become directeur des monuments d'art en Espagne. Parts of his Dictionnaire testify to his personal involvement with the assembling of Spanish works of art. In the articles on José de Sarabia and Juan de Uceda, 60 little-known seventeenth-century painters of the Sevillian school, he remarks that he had singled out some of their works for the art-collection center in the Alcázar of Seville. In the article on Zurbarán, he mentions the paintings of the Cartuja of Jerez de la Frontera and reveals their fate: "J'ai fait porter à Madrid ces beaux monuments." He says also that a painting by Jerónimo Ramirez, taken from the Hospital de la Sangre in Seville, had been brought by his orders to the Alcázar. 61 In this Alcázar center nearly a thousand canvases—999 numbered items to be exact—were assembled by June 1810. 6 2 Among them, to give only a few examples of the wealth of the gathering, were eighty-two attributed to Alonso Cano, seventy-four to Juan de Valdés Leal, and forty-three to Murillo (including some of his most famous works). The only major Spanish painter not represented was Velázquez. Even the title of the carefully edited inventory is revealing: "Inventario de las pinturas del palacio y salones del Alcázar de Sevilla pertenecientes á S. M. C. el Señor D. José Napoleon (q. D. g.)." It should be noted that Joseph now "owned" these paintings; yet, in spite of this, I have found no trace whatsoever of his actually having kept any of them as his personal property. 63 He seems to have been genuinely altruistic in his concern to display Spanish art in a national museum rather than use it to enlarge his private collection—unlike so many of his generals. As a matter of fact, even after the Spanish art works had reached Paris, Joseph continued to protect them from falling into the hands of his brother, by hiding them in various provincial towns, such as Tours and Orléans, with the hope of returning them to their former Spanish owners. There are thus three notes, dated April 1 4 , 1 6 , and 18, [1814], one of which is actually in Joseph's

47

Paths to Discovery hand and signed by him, to this effect: he places these art works at the disposition of D. José Martínez Hervás, Marquess of Almenara, his former minister of the Interior, who then resided in Paris.64 The Alcázar collection center, though the most important, was far from being the only one. Others were established throughout Spain, as for instance at the Escorial, in Toledo, or in the convent del Rosario in Madrid. In November of 1809 Quilliet gave to the "Administrador de Bienes Nacionales" a list of eighty-three paintings transferred from the Escorial to Madrid. A little later, paintings and objets d'art were no longer counted individually, but by the box and by the crate: thus, in December 1809,105 crates containing paintings and other valuable objects were shipped from the Escorial to Quilliet in Madrid.65 Manuel Napoli, curator and restorer of paintings at the Royal Palace of the Buen Retiro, seems to have been in charge of the deposit at the convent del Rosario: collaborating with the French till the last, he was actively engaged in transferring 292 paintings from there to the Royal Academy of San Fernando as late as the spring months of 1813. After Ferdinand's restoration, Napoli had to face a "purification process" wherein he defended himself against the charge of having been " a collaborator or satellite of such an unworthy intruder." He said he had been forced to collaborate with the French because he lacked independent means of subsistence. He claimed that he could not easily submit written documents in his own defense, since any "government by intruders" functions more by oral commands than by written statements. Nevertheless, he did submit several interesting documents—an exchange of letters between himself and Joseph's executives about the transfer of paintings from the Rosario convent to the Academy of San Fernando, for example. It should be noted that Napoli defended himself by using a familiar argument: works of art live above and beyond revolutions. "Las ciencias y bellas artes no tenían inteligencia alguna en la revolución." He was not, in his communication, above making insidious comments about some of his colleagues, "ambitious and stubborn satellites," in order to whitewash himself.66 Mariano de Madrazo, in his Historia del Museo del Prado, 1818-1868, reproduces not only lists of paintings sent to Madrid, but also a note mentioning canvases taken from the accumulation at the Escorial and given by Joseph to several generals. Soult received six (of these only two were by Spanish masters, Navarrete el Mudo and Ribera), and Horace Sébastiani and Augustin Dessolles were given three each.67 But meanwhile French affairs in Spain were going from bad to worse and Count Antoine de La Forest, the

48

Art Conquests of the Empire imperial ambassador in Madrid, had to admit that the foundation of a Spanish museum was not among the most pressing considerations of the French in the year 1811. In a report of September 20 to the minister of foreign affairs, Hugues Bernard Maret, Duke of Bassano, he confessed that the reaction of the Junta del Consejo del Estado on hearing of this untimely project was rather ironic—general laughter stopped short the reading of a report on the creation of the Prado. Projects of this nature seemed rather incongruous and meaningless at a moment of grave national crisis : "Une inadvertance a fait appeler la lecture d'un autre projet de décret. Il y est question de l'achèvement du Museum du Prado. Un sourire général a empêché que la lecture ne fût achevée, et certes jamais projet de dépenses d'embellissement n'avait paru plus hors de propos." 68 Even when their departure from Spain seemed imminent to the French, their preoccupation with the fate of these art works did not dim. The exchange of letters and orders involving Napoli that concerned transferal of paintings from the Rosario convent to San Fernando continued until May 14,1813, and the French were to leave Madrid on May 27.m At least for the moment, Joseph's project to create a national museum in Madrid was at an end. But the seeds had been sown, and one of Ferdinand VII's first moves after his restoration was to carry out Joseph's project: the Prado, located in the Palace of Buenavista (as originally intended by Joseph), opened its doors to the public in 1819. Thus Joseph's favorite project was not completed during his reign, while the one he was apparently less anxious to see accomplished—the consignment of paintings to Napoleon—was brought to a somewhat successful conclusion. Understandably, the French were more interested in sending art treasures to "safety" in Paris than in fostering a long-range project in a country where they foresaw defeat; therefore the selection of paintings for Napoleon was pursued with increasing activity.70 On the very day of publication of the above-mentioned decree requesting paintings for the emperor, a first choice of forty-six canvases was made and a list of them, probably reviewed by Quilliet, submitted to Joseph. By September 1810, fifty paintings were ready to be sent to Napoleon. La Forest, "le plus obscur et le plus verbeux des diplomates," eager to comply with the emperor's wishes, concerned himself with finding "des moyens de transport sûrs et commodes" for the paintings. On September 2 the Spanish minister Romero sent him this note : "Etant prête à recevoir son illustre destination la collection de cinquante tableaux des plus célèbres peintres espagnols

49

Paths to Discovery qui, d'après un décret du Roi doit être présentée à S. M. l'Empereur, il prie Votre Excellence de vouloir bien m'indiquer si elle connaît des moyens de transport sûrs et commodes." A military convoy was scheduled to leave shortly, but the paintings could not be packed and made ready on time. Moreover, Joseph had discovered that among them were works removed from the Royal Palace in Madrid against his express wishes : these, therefore, remained in Spain. He gave orders to continue the search in the different collection centers, and even in the royal palaces of Cordoba and Seville. But only in case of absolute necessity was he willing to deplete the main collection in Madrid, intended to form the basic stock for the Spanish museum: "y que así, ordenó, de toda la masa general de cuadros que se habían recogido como propiedades nacionales se formase y firmase lista . . . de 50 cuadros en que estuviesen comprendidos todos los autores españoles y que solo en el caso de faltar alguno y constar en Palacio se sacase de él." A new commission was appointed on October 25, headed by three eminent and competent Spaniards, all painters and members of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts : Manuel Napoli, Mariano Salvador de Maella, and no less an expert than Goya himself. They inspected between six and seven hundred canvases ; yet, once more, of their final list of fifty only twenty-seven found favor with Joseph and his advisor La Forest. All these criticisms and delays raised by Joseph make it appear that he was actually trying to retard the selection of paintings for his brother, while he remained actively interested in the collection for the Spanish museum. Indeed, he seemed no more anxious than the Spanish authorities to hasten the departure of the art treasures intended for the Musée Napoléon, and when he left Madrid on March 17,1813, never to return, they were still in Spain. However, he had left orders to assemble the full number of requested paintings, by whatever means, and to have them sent to Paris. They were added to the huge convoy, escorted by General Hugo (the poet's father), that left Madrid on May 26,1813 bound for Valladolid, and ultimately for France. Most of the 1500 vehicles, "carts, carriages, wagons, anything with wheels, and hundreds of beasts of burden," laden with looted goods were to be lost at the battle of Vitoria (June 21,1813), where no less a figure than Wellington himself fell into possession of a large part of the spoils: when he offered to return 165 paintings in 1816, Fernán Núñez, the Spanish ambassador to England, spoke for Ferdinand in graciously granting him ownership of these works, obtained by "just and honorable means." The fifty paintings for Napoleon, however, had

50

Art Conquests of the Empire been part of a small convoy that had left early in the morning of the 21st, led by General Mancune, and thus they did ultimately reach Paris, where they arrived in July, after four long years of vicissitudes. Vivant Denon, disappointed by their poor quality, sent word to Minister Champagny : "Il se trouve tout au plus six tableaux qui pourront entrer dans le Musée Napoléon, et l'on peut s'apercevoir facilement par ce choix combien S.M. le roi d'Espagne avait été trompée par les personnes qu'elle avait chargées du soin de les désigner." These were not, by far, the only Spanish paintings acquired by the Musée Napoléon during the period of the Peninsular Wars. It has already been noted that by June 1813 four of Soult's canvases had reached the walls of the Louvre; and Denon's correspondence reveals that he did not rely only upon Joseph's relatively meager gift to the emperor for the enrichment of his museum. On one of his trips to Spain Denon himself chose a great many valuable paintings, to which the "Commission impériale des séquestres et indemnités en Espagne" added more to bring the total to 250 before the lot was shipped to Paris. In a letter to Denon accompanying the paintings, the Commission recalls how and where its members, with his active assistance, had selected them: the paintings were "choisis tant par vous, lors du voyage que vous avez fait à Madrid que par les membres de la commission, dans les galeries des hôtels appartenant au domaine extraordinaire de Madrid." Having fewer scruples than Joseph and his Spanish commission, Denon not only vastly increased the number of Spanish paintings for the Louvre, but also selected works of uniformly high quality. In a letter to Champagny (Sept. 3 , 1 8 1 3 ) he expressed his delight at finally seeing these paintings in Paris : "Le directeur charmé déclarait que sur les 250 toiles, toutes estimables, deux étaient de premier ordre, et 150 se prêteraient admirablement à la décoration des résidences impériales." 71 There must have been close to three hundred canvases of Spanish origin stored in the Louvre by 1815, as shown by lists made in that year. But even after all the years of preparation, the Spanish paintings were not exhibited to the public. The political situation had become more and more critical: Napoleon had lost the battle of Leipzig, France was overrun by allied troops, and on May 2 , 1 8 1 4 , Louis XVIII entered Paris. Within the first week after his restoration he signed a decree ordering restitution to former owners of all art works taken from the German states and from the Spanish grandees during the wars of the Empire and the Revolution. A few months later, a formal Commission of the Allied Powers attempted

51

Paths to Discovery

Anonymous, French Artist Crying over the Return of Art Works, 1815. to establish complete lists of "displaced" works of art as a basis for restitution. In the Louvre alone 5103 "objets d'art et de curiosité" were identified and removed. Of these, 284 paintings and 108 "objets divers" were returned to their former Spanish owners. 72 The restitutions were not, of course, made without violent protest from those who had participated in accumulating the treasures. The heated exchange of letters between French owners protecting their acquisitions and the Spanish ambassador reclaiming his stolen national patrimony reveals how strong the feelings were on both sides: on September 22,1814, in a letter to Denon, the Spanish ambassador d'Alava reclaimed the paintings "qui avaient été enlevés de Madrid à la sortie de Josef Napoleon de cette ville en 1813."73 Louis XVIII himself intervened in this exchange, expressing his formal objections and opposing passive resistance to the removal of the paintings : he answered "qu'il ne pouvait pas les donner, ni empêcher qu'on les emportât."

52

Art Conquests of the Empire If French resistance to the restitution of the Louvre's "officially" owned paintings was that strong, how much more violent must it have been where "privately" owned works of art were concerned. A case in point is that of Murillo's Saint Elizabeth, "donated" to the French nation by Marshal Soult: did he not have legal ownership of what had been an outright " g i f t " to him by the town of Seville? This was the argument invoked by Denon in further correspondence with d'Alava: 27 septembre 1815 . . . A peine ai-je reçu la lettre de Votre Excellence que le tableau de Murillo représentant Sainte Elisabeth soignant les malades a été enlevé de force. Je vous déclare donc, Monseigneur, que ce tableau ne sera point mis au nombre de ceux rendus, mais bien noté comme emporté par la violence, puisqu'il a été donné au maréchal Soult par la ville de Séville. Celui-ci l'a donné au Roi, chose dont il était parfaitement le maître. 74 Although d'Alava claims to have shown "toute la délicatesse d'un homme d'honneur" in this affair, the violent terms in his answer to Denon are quite astonishing for a diplomat—he accuses the agents of "Buonaparte" in general and Marshal Soult in particular of "viciously" having spoilt Spain of her art-treasures : J'ai reçu hier au soir votre lettre d'hier. La ville de Séville ne pouvait pas donner à M. le maréchal Soult ce qui ne lui appartenait pas, ce qui ne lui a jamais appartenu; et je connais trop bien le tableau en question depuis ma jeunesse pour ne pas savoir quel est son véritable propriétaire. L'existence de ce tableau au Muséum dépend d'une origine aussi vicieuse que bien d'autres, et nous avons appris à nos dépens de quelles manières on faisait en Espagne ces donations pendant l'invasion de Buonaparte. Je pourrais, Monsieur, ajouter quelques réflexions en réponse à votre lettre, mais je me contenterai de vous dire que dans cette affaire désagréable, j'ai employé toute la délicatesse d'un homme d'honneur, et que, pour réclamer ce qui appartient à la nation espagnole de justice et de droit, j'ai mis plus d'égards que les agents de Buonaparte en ont mis en Espagne pour nous dépouiller de ces objets. 75 Indeed, a sort of legal justification for such permanent acquisition of captured art treasures had been given as early as 1797, with the treaty of Tolentino. This had been an occasion for Napoleon to express his elation over owning "almost all of Italy's most beautiful art treasures" in a letter to the Directoire, from

53

Paths to Discovery

Anonymous, Triumphal Entry of Works of Art in Paris, 1798. Tolentino, dated "I e r ventose, an V " (February 1 9 , 1 7 9 7 ) : " N o u s aurons tout ce qu'il y a de beau en Italie, excepté un petit nombre d'objets qui se trouvent à Turin et à Naples." 7 6 Even someone as apparently objective as Stendhal invoked this treaty as justification of "legitimate" French ownership in his Histoire de la peinture en Italie (1817) : "Les alliés nous ont pris onze cent cinquante tableaux. J'espère qu'il me sera permis de faire observer que nous avions acquis les meilleurs par un traité, celui de Tolentino . . . Les alliés, au contraire, nous ont pris nos tableaux sans traité."77 The painter Antoine Gros, one more of the Empire's barons, vehemently accused the allies of not understanding France's cultural mission ; and in his eulogy on the death of Vivant Denon, he violently denounced the forced restitution of paintings and other objets d'art: "Qu'ils les emportent! Mais il leur manque des yeux pour les voir, et la France prouvera toujours, par sa supériorité dans les arts, que ces chefs d'oeuvre étaient mieux ici qu'ailleurs." 7 8 And it is true that some of the Spanish paintings did greatly benefit by their stay in France. Féréol Bonnemaison, a painter and the only

Title page and page 1, catalogue of the Prado for 1819 (facing page, top). Title page and page 5, catalogue of the Prado for 1823. French edition (facing page, bottom).

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C'aravage. 4. À M A D R I D \M , d'un dictionnaire Mngraphiq»c des peintres espagnols n'aCespedea, Le derc Rodas, Morales , lurnommé il Divino . rali proposé de distinguer que trola groupes, IVfote de VaNavarretto, »ornomroé il Mudo. Ribolla . Moja, Padin-o, lence . l'école de Madrid , et l'école de Seville; Il arali en beo u-pére de VeU«qnei. Pareja, rscl»>cde VeUsqnei, Matomême tempo désigné comme cbeide la premié rc de ces écoles, Martinet, gendre de Vdasqtiet, Tubai, VRIadomit. virente Joanes; comme chef de la «conde , Velatque» d· Sllrn ; commi· rtirf de U troisième. ICstelun Morillo. Sans attacher beaucoup d'Importance à ce système que plu d'étilde» et de» notions plus récentes ont peut-être le droit de modifier, nous l'admettons dans ce premier article, à cause de sa «Implidlé, et non» entretiendrons d'abord Bestión (te 1« peinture de ce poyj dans son dictionnaire des»os letteli π de» trota grands maîtres que nous venons de i^om .lrli, et il partage tonte la grande famlllr des peintre« moderne» entre le» »etiles éeolr» d'Italie, de France . d'Allemagne , de Hollande, de Flandre el d'Angleterre. Quelque» chefs-d'cenvre confondo» dan» l'école italienne »11 Louvre, le «alons du maréchal Soalt, des gravures a»act rare«, le» atoertioB» de deux v* trota v«;agean. coiU tout ce qui avait pu taire pressentir i no» ariLstes qu'il j rrtl pout eux de» source» dTntpiraiien et de» modèle» audelà de» Pyréaét». La nouvelle galerie, bien qu'elle vdt ['ailleurs que de la Foi. Jamal« Vienne H i traiter des «ttjfU choisi» eti dehor· l'y «tre préparé per la communion. Il eût ime u sacrilège de ae propoter «α n»«ltk

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on Spanish painting. 3 7 Even the Classicist Delécluze, hardly one to join the Romantics' fervor over any excess, be it in literature or in painting, tried to write an honestly objective account of the Musée's works—even though he was not always able to hide his own distaste for them: Je commencerai donc par inviter ceux qui les visitent à ne pas se laisser dominer par la première impression qui n'est pas toujours favorable, et à observer avec attention ces peintures où l'intensité des ombres est ordinairement poussée à l'extrême. Les enthousiastes de l'Ecole espagnole en ont d'ailleurs si indiscrètement vanté le mérite, qu'il arrivera sans doute que Ton sera porté à en contester

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Paths to Discovery l'excellence. Mais si, comme je le pense, les amateurs fanatiques des peintures de Ribera, de Velasquez et de Murillo vont beaucoup trop loin dans leurs louanges, il faut bien se garder de tomber dans un excès contraire. 38 By the end of 1838, information on Spanish painting— its history, its works, its masters—had been introduced into almost all French circles in which newspapers and magazines were read; since the Musée espagnol would remain open to the public for over ten years, Spanish painting had finally come into its own in France. For years writers of the stature of Charles Baudelaire and Gustave Flaubert would admiringly (and regretfully, after its closing) remember the days of the Musée. In his Salon de 1845, Baudelaire expressed his gratitude to Louis Philippe for having created the museum; and in the Salon of the following year he exhorts the bourgeois, this bête noire of his generation, to appreciate its contribution—it has not only enlarged French artistic horizons, but has also contributed to better understanding between the two nations: "Aux B o u r g e o i s . . . . Le musée espagnol est venu augmenter le volume des idées générales que vous devez posséder sur l'art; car vous savez parfaitement que, comme un musée national est une communion dont la douce influence attendrit les coeurs et assouplit les volontés, de même un musée étranger est une communion internationale où deux peuples, s'observant et s'étudiant plus à l'aise, se pénètrent mutuellement, et fraternisent sans discussion." 39 Years later, in a letter to Théophile Thoré defending the painter Edouard Manet from the charge that he had sought immediate inspiration in the Musée's paintings, Baudelaire accused the "stupid French Republic" of not having been able to keep the collection: " M . Manet, à l'époque où nous jouissions de ce merveilleux musée espagnol que la stupide république française, dans son respect abusif de la propriété, a rendu aux princes d'Orléans, M. Manet était un enfant et servait à bord d'un navire." 4 0 This accusation was echoed by Flaubert in his Education sentimentale of 1 8 6 9 : Pellerin, a painter, would not forgive the Revolution of 1848 for causing the loss of the Musée espagnol. "Pellerin en voulait à la révolution à cause du musée espagnol, définitivement perdu. C'était ce qui l'affligeait le plus, comme peintre." 4 1 It is revealing that the English amateur and collector Frank Hall Standish in 1841 bequeathed his large collection of predominantly Spanish works to Louis Philippe, to be added to the museum; Paris had become the center for Spanish painting outside of Spain, and Standish evidently wished to reinforce this

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Louis Philippe's Musée espagnol concentration of art works rather than scatter his possessions through private sales. His collection was added to the Musée and exhibited to the public as early as 1842 in a series of halls on the top floor of the Louvre's north wing, over the recently opened Musée de la marine. These 220 paintings and over 260 drawings included works of most of the Spanish masters : thirteen Murillos, ten Zurbaráns, four Velázquezes, and innumerable others. 42 After the Revolution of 1848, Louis Philippe, who had sought refuge in England, claimed this collection together with Taylor's acquisitions as personal property, and their restitution was finally made in 1850. After Louis Philippe's death both collections were auctioned by Christie's in London, in 1853, and their treasures scattered over the whole Western world. 43 Hardly a single noteworthy museum exists that does not today have a canvas once owned by Louis Philippe— from the Rumanian National Museum in Bucharest, with its Adoration of the Shepherds by El Greco, to the Bob Jones University collection in Greenville, North Carolina, with an Annunciation by Zurbarán. 44 By the time these collections were taken out of France, however, they had been exposed to the public for over ten years and had made a profound and lasting impression on French imagination. The French were no longer dependent on historical and factual information alone but had acquired visual and thus emotional familiarity with the works of the great Spanish masters. In these works the French Romantic imagination recognized many of its own themes and aspirations. No less than the plays of Lope de Vega and Calderón, these canvases came to reveal the history of Spain to the artist, as well as to inspire the poet with their portrayal of the "history of Spain's destinies and passions," and with their representation of this country's women, martyrs, and characters of times past: C'est vraiment quelque chose de merveilleux et d'imprévu que cette apparition soudaine de tant de chefs-d'oeuvre qui sont pour nous la révélation de toute une langue nouvelle qui explique, non moins bien que les drames de Calderón et de Véga, une contrée voisine que nous connaissons encore à peine. Là, lorsque toutes ces toiles parées de leurs encadrements et de leurs vernis, seront rangées par ordre chronologique de siècles, non seulement l'artiste étudiera l'histoire de la peinture espagnole, en parcourant cette collection de pages déchirées à chaque âge dans le livre de l'art, mais le poëte lui-même y viendra s'inspirer devant ces portraits, ces martyrs, ces moines et ces donas qui sont aussi l'histoire des destinées et des passions espagnoles. 45

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Part Two

Ut pidura poesis

5

The New Imagery and Esthetics: 1810-1830

During the early nineteenth century, France, and all of Europe in fact, was discovering a new Spain, different from the one commonly pictured in the past, and closer to reality. Throughout the Age of Enlightenment most French espagnolisme had been limited to a repetition of conventional themes and commonly accepted ideas. The image of Spain was much as Voltaire had painted it in his Essai sur les moeurs et l'esprit des nations: a somber country, dominated by the Inquisition and asphyxiated by intolerance and superstition. This purely intellectual and often polemic concept of Spain had been interwoven with a Cid's pundonor, the glittering if at times rather artificial enchantment of a Figaro's verve, or the picaresque lightheartedness of a Gil Bias—one as purely literary and even conventionally Spanish as the other. But during the early nineteenth century a different, less stereotyped and more complex Spain had been discovered, and no longer did the French believe that "l'Afrique commence aux Pyrénées," nor were they satisfied to accept without scrutiny a preconceived image of the neighboring country. Political events kept them alerted to what was happening across the Pyrenees. The expedition of 1823, short but extremely important on the French political scene, sharpened once again French awareness of "les affaires d'Espagne." The civil wars raging throughout Spain during the 1830's following the reinstatement of Ferdinand VII, "rey absolutamente absoluto," kept the interest of even the most casual French observer of current events focused on Spain. These political happenings gave yet another dimension, more real and less literary, to the heightened interest in all things Spanish that marked the 1830's. Indeed, Spain had become the terre d'élection of the younger generation of French writers. There they found new sources of inspiration, and there they also found the objects of many of their esthetic quests. This rêve de l'Espagne was expressed by writers of all tendencies, from the ultra Romantic Petrus Borei to the more controlledly realistic Balzac : imprecise but strong, an emotional longing was translated into literary form. The young writers' imagination was kindled by this country of violent contrasts, of

141

Ut pictura poesis brilliant and vivid coloring, of strong passions, and of absolute though at times still fanatic religious feelings. The range of new themes offered by Spain to the French Romantics and their almost visual literary esthetics was wide. 1 Her countryside; her forbidding sierras and barren plains parched by a pitiless southern sun; ochre mountains under cloudless, deep blue skies; arid, dusty roads; and, in the south, a Moorish atmosphere interwoven with a deeply rooted Christian tradition—these became the settings for an ever increasing number of French works and supplanted the previously favored softly nebulous brumes d'Ecosse. Spain's people, too, in physical appearance and character, held a strong fascination for the Romantic writer. From the haughty and remote king and the proud hidalgo to the social outcast, the guerrillero, and the bandit (whose "soul," of course, was not any less "noble" than that of the hidalgo), all found a place in French fiction. Hugo's Hernani, Charles-Quint, Ruy Blas, and Don César, Mérimée's Carmen, Don Juan de Maraña, and his "noble" wayfarer Don José Maria, and Dumas's Don Juan de Maraña are but a few of the Spanish protagonists of French literary works of that period. And moreover, the Spanish woman, of southern, almost Moorish features, incarnated the new ideal of feminine beauty : her oval face, softly framed by wavy, dark hair parted in bandeaux, her almond-shaped black eyes shaded by long silky lashes, and a rather sallow, almost olive complexion gave her exotic appeal. With hardly an exception, French writers of the Romantic period endow their feminine protagonists with the dark beauty of the Spanish woman. Not surprisingly, the many enthusiastic reports on the Spanish dance troupe that visited Paris in 1834 dwelt far more on the striking appearance of the female performers than on their mastery of the dance. During the same period the French also discovered Spain's literature, sometimes through factual history, sometimes through themes, as those of Don Juan or the picaro, sometimes again through great books like Don Quixote or Calderón's and Lope de Vega's plays. In 1812 the studies on Spanish literature from Friedrich Bouterwek's Geschichte der Poesie und Beredsamkeit seit dem Ende des XIII. Jahrhunderts (1801-1813) were translated into French as Histoire de la littérature espagnole (2 volumes) by Marie Aimée de Steck, and in 1813 appeared the four volumes of Jean Charles Léonard Simonde de Sismondi's Histoire des littératures du Midi de l'Europe. The romancero with its many translations and adaptations opened new perspectives on a form of popular poetry: in 1814

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The New Imagery and Esthetics : 1810-1830 Auguste Creuzé de Lesser published Le Cid, romances espagnoles imitées en romances françaises, to be followed in 1823 by a second series of romances; Abel Hugo translated some romances in 1822; Emile Deschamps included adaptations in his Etudes françaises et étrangères (1828)—to name but some of the most noteworthy. At the same time Spanish drama was discovered: August Wilhelm von Schlegel's Vorlesungen über dramatische Kunst und Literatur (1809-1811), translated in three volumes by Albertine Adrienne Necker de Saussure in 1814, found in Spanish plays a dramatic form closely akin to the drame romantique as Victor Hugo and his group developed it during the next decades. French translations of Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, Calderón, and other Spanish dramatists served as illustration for the more factually informative works on the history of Spanish literature. Thus the publisher Ladvocat's important Collection des chefs-d'oeuvre des théâtres étrangers (1822-1823, 25 volumes) contained five volumes of works by all major Spanish dramatists. In the late 1820's the number of publications with Spanish themes increased tremendously, to reach a peak in the mid-thirties : travelogues, novels, short stories, serial novels (often second-rate and worse), poems, operettas, and plays; in short, all major and minor literary genres, tried to recapture some of the dreamed-of color and atmosphere of Spain. Chateaubriand's Les Aventures du dernier des Abencérages (written towards 1807, published in 1826) is quite typical of the many stories with a romanticized Spanish setting: the Moorish splendors of Granada's Alhambra and the Generalife form the backdrop for the doomed love between Aben Hamet, only descendant of Boabdil, Granada's last Moorish king, and Blanca, whose brother is the last male descendant of the Cid. Romantic theater drew even more heavily on Spanish settings than did the novel: Mérimée's Théâtre de Clara Gazul (1825) is but one of many dramatic recreations of the vibrant atmosphere of Andalusia; and of course Victor Hugo's plays, from his early melodrama Inez de Castro (written towards 1818), to Hernani (1830) and Ruy Blas (1838), show how heavily influenced he was by the suggestive powers of Spanish settings. Romantic poetry also became suffused with this sought-after Spanish couleur locale, as in Hugo's Orientales (1829) and even more in Musset's Contes d'Espagne et d'Italie (1830). Typically during these years there was in the French intellectual climate a close relation between all the arts, and particularly between painting and writing : "La poésie et la peinture étaient soeurs," as Théophile Gautier reminisced when nostalgically

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Ut pictura poesis describing the atmosphere of these years in his Histoire du Romantisme. Indeed, most French men of letters of the period showed more than a literary interest in the fine arts: Mérimée was Inspecteur des Musées nationaux, Stendhal wrote an Histoire de la peinture en Italie, Musset and Hugo showed undeniable talent for drawing, and Gautier, a painter at the outset of his career, remained a keen and intelligent art critic throughout his life. Painting was closely linked to the literary movement in subject, interpretation, and theory. In 1819 Géricault's Raft of the Medusa and in 1822 Delacroix's Barque of Dante heralded a new era in painting. The complete scale of values of the neoclassic school of painting—in composition, color, and drawing—was overthrown. The Romantic painters favored a diagonal line of composition over the well balanced classic equilibrium; they sought lifelike movement rather than the statuesque immobility of David and his school. The painter's brush no longer tried to reproduce the precisely analytical line of the pencil. Even in the use of color a new scale was advocated : the neoclassics' cold greys and blues, relieved only by an occasional pink, were rejected, and tormented blacks, deep greens, and vibrant reds were employed to express moods rather than to record facts. On the canvases of the Spanish painters the young French generation discovered a masterly expression of their own esthetic aspirations—the Spanish school, by its very character and its independence from the classic Italianizing tradition, gave visual form to what in France had remained abstract theories. So, by the late 1820's, the French were ready to appreciate Spain's artistic wealth and to analyze, interpret, and benefit from it; as a result, the Romantics' literary esthetics became heavily indebted to the works of the Spanish masters, in which they found their own new themes and theories illustrated so convincingly. During the period of preparation, the decades preceding the blossoming of Romanticism in the 1830's, those in France who spoke about the works of the Spanish masters considered them purely from a factual or, at best, historically informative point of view. Rarely did they formulate any value judgments and hardly ever was the canvas considered an expression of either the personal characteristics of its painter or the national characteristics of his country. Most commentators and even art critics dissociated painting from all other aspects of life in the Peninsula, for art was not—and was not supposed to be—a reflection of the life or, still less, of the spirit of a people. Only during the height of the Romantic movement did this attitude change and Spanish painting come fully into its own, playing a considerable part in French literary imagery.

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The New Imagery and Esthetics: 1 8 1 0 - 1 8 3 0 Through the rare early judgments that were made on Spanish painting one can clearly follow the evolution of French taste from eighteenth-century neoclassicism to the new Romantic esthetics. The first comments were almost entirely limited to scant factual information: at best there was a brief mention of an artist's dates, his place of birth and work, and, in some cases, the names of his masters and his disciples. In all but the rarest instances the author avoided value judgments, and the few comments one encounters before the late 1820's are all of a frankly condemnatory nature. 2 How could these critics, steeped in France's classic tradition, not have been disconcerted and even shocked by many of the Spanish paintings: where they sought harmony, they found violence; where they looked for the dignity of an ideal beauty, they encountered the squalor of harsh realism; where they preached separation and the hierarchy of genres, they saw, on one and the same canvas, the grotesque and the sublime in close and familiar contact; where they sought design, they found exuberant use of color, while correct drawing and almost sculptural stances were replaced by seemingly impulsive and uncontrolled movement. In the 1750's Jacques Lacombe had not only found fault with Murillo's choice of overly popular subjects that were distressingly devoid of nobility, but even reproached him for "lack of correctness" in his drawing : "on y désireroit plus de correction dans le Dessein, plus de choix & de noblesse dans les figures." If Lacombe objected to Murillo's lack of discrimination in his choice of subjects and to the absence of idealization in their execution, he was bound to react even more violently to what he called Ribera's "bad taste" and to the unmitigated fierceness of his terrible and horrifying subjects: " O n ne peut peindre avec plus de vérité, mais on est fâché de trouver tant de férocité dans ses Tableaux . . . il y a beaucoup d'expression dans ses têtes mais son goût n'est ni noble, ni gracieux." 3 This violent reaction to Ribera's often brutal realism would still be voiced, even in the 1830's, by Delécluze and other opponents of Romantic esthetics. In 1776, almost a quarter-century after Lacombe, the Abbé de Fontenay's attitude toward Murillo and Ribera was still no different : in Lacombe's very words he repeats the charges against Murillo's lack of nobility, and he, too, accuses Ribera of showing "neither noble nor graceful taste" in the choice of his "terrible, horror-laden subjects." 4 A more independent and thus considerably more revealing work on painting in general, with specific information on Spanish painting, also appeared in 1776, when for the first time Spanish painting was given a separate listing. Papillon de la Ferté, in his Extraits des différens ouvrages publiés sur la vie des peintres, gives

145

Ut pictura poesis extensive and precise information on each painter's life, his artistic training, his oeuvre, and even his disciples and their work. This author also attempts to identify the spirit of Spanish painting with some of the Spaniards' more general national characteristics, two of which struck him above all—a solemn dignity, and deep yet gentle religious feelings. "Leurs compositions sont ingénieuses & graves comme eux. Ils ont traité l'histoire Sainte avec une vénération religieuse, avec une piété affectueuse & tendre." Nevertheless, Papillon de la Ferté, a man of his century, applies the same esthetic criteria expressed by his predecessors : his unquestioning admiration for an ideal classic beauty is accompanied by an unconditional condemnation of lifelike realism. So, for instance, he praises the obscure Pablo de las Roelas for having sought and attained the "admirable harmony" of ideal beauty, while he remains unable to recognize Velázquez' greatness. He speaks disparagingly of the "lowly subjects" and the "rustic genre" of the latter's early compositions, and credits only the influence of the Italian masters with directing him toward the "nobler" genres of the portrait and the historical painting in which he was to be quite successful : "Mais Pacheco ayant fait venir des tableaux d'Italie annoblit les pensées de Velasquez, il quitta aussi-tôt les sujets bas pour s'attacher à l'histoire & au portrait, et y réussit bien." 5 Two years later—still more than ten years before the Revolution—appeared Bourgoing's important work on Spain, Nouveau Voyage en Espagne, ou Tableau de l'état actuel de cette monarchie. Even though innumerable paintings are minutely described in this work, value judgments are again the exception, remaining brief at best, and usually rather superficial : for Murillo, as an example, the author falls back upon the conventionally accepted term "gentle," without attempting a more personal and searching analysis. But even the briefest characterisations like this "gentle" are rare exceptions in his lengthy descriptions of paintings. At one point, though, his personal reaction to Murillo's work is revealing of the predominant attitude of art critics : adhering to France's classic tradition, he scorns the "disgusting objects" by which Murillo—and with him other Spanish painters—let their brushes be "soiled." 6 This remained the generally accepted opinion until the Romantic generation discovered an early heralding of its own theory of contrasts in Murillo's oeuvre. His "disgusting" and "gentle" qualities, often on one canvas, embodied the Romantics' own quest for "the sublime and the ridiculous." In 1806 de Laborde's Voyage pittoresque, with its short interpretative notices accompanying his engravings of Spanish art

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The New Imagery and Esthetics : 1810-1830 works, marked what was really the first step in the popularization of Spanish painting. In his "survey of the state of the arts in Spain," de Laborde endeavored to analyze qualities peculiar to Spanish painting, for he saw in it "un caractère particulier que n'ont point les autres écoles." He was one of the earliest French critics to recognize in Spanish painting something other than an isolated form of esthetic expression—nor did he consider it exclusively from an art historical or factually biographical point of view, but regarded it as emerging from a background of national characteristics. He had been deeply impressed by the profound and almost mystic religious spirit of the Spanish, the spirit that was one of the major sources of inspiration in Spanish painting for centuries: "Cette école se distingue particulièrement dans les peintures sacrées, et l'on reconnoît dans les tableaux des Espagnols les sentiments que ce peuple éprouve en général pour les mystères de la religion; nulle part l'extase, l'onction, la vraie piété ne sont aussi bien exprimées que dans leurs ouvrages, et les passions mystiques rendues avec plus de chaleur." De Laborde's comments on most painters whose works he reproduced were largely factual, but in a few cases he attempted to formulate certain value judgments. Murillo's madonnas became for him an occasion to muse not only about the religious attitudes of the Spanish, but even about their more general characteristics. The cult of the Virgin, so deeply rooted in Spain's religion, seemed to him revealing of a duality typical of the "tender and passionate" Spanish character : spiritualism combined with realism, profound religious devotion, but expressed through the portrayal of an earthily beautiful young woman. In later years all comments on Murillo, from Delacroix's to Gautier's, and from brief popular magazine articles to learned works on Spanish painting, would dwell on this purely human beauty of the model—as much as and even more than on the spirit of the canvases' religious themes. But de Laborde is far from embracing the esthetics of "la nature donc, la nature et la vérité" proclaimed by Victor Hugo in his Préface de Cromwell. While he could admire the closeness to life of Murillo's Virgins, he could not accept such realistic portrayal of the less noble aspects of everyday life. When he discusses Ribera's Adoration of the Shepherds he remarks, as had Bourgoing before him, that faithful imitation of nature can frequently lead, in a work of art, to coarse and trivial representation: " O n y reconnoît sur-tout le caractère naïf et fidèle de l'école espagnole, cette imitation quelquefois un peu triviale de la nature." 7 At a time when Louis David, the high priest of French art, sought patterns in Greek

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Ut pictura poesis statuary for even those of his works that portrayed contemporary events/ this "naïf et fidèle" character of Spanish painting must have strongly displeased those imbued with the deep-rooted French classic tradition. De Laborde's book is the last to make any significant evaluations of Spanish painting during this period of preparation. Though Lebrun's Recueil de gravures of 1809 included reproductions of a fairly representative range of works by Spanish masters,9 the author did not once attempt to expand his comments on individual artists into a broader vision of Spanish painting or a more searching analysis of its characteristics. The Napoleonic campaigns in Spain and the increasingly active interest and involvement in the Peninsula's art treasures brought about a total change in climate; but during this lean period of literary and artistic production between the wars and the accalmie of the Restoration I have not found any noteworthy interpretative mention of Spanish art; only later did it become a focus of interest to many French artists and writers.

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The Flowering of Romanticism: 1830-1838

The very early twenties heralded an era of rich production in the arts. As observed earlier, the works of painters like Delacroix and Boulanger revealed definite Spanish influences; but it took several years, to judge by the literary texts, before the factual and historical information on Spanish painting that was increasingly available in France through specialized books and generalized writings about the Peninsula reached those who were not specialists in the field of fine arts and left any noticeable mark on literary esthetics. Because almost all meaningful examples of parallelism in theme between the French written word and the Spanish painted image occurred over only a very few years, the first half of the 1830's, and because there is no indication of any predominant theme in a year-by-year literary study, no chronological tracing of themes will be attempted here. It would be of disputable validity in any case, as the selection of one painter's work over another's would be dictated by the personal preferences of each writer—or by his knowledge of Spanish painting, limited to certain masters. It was mainly the writers at the avant-garde of the young Romantic movement who first sensed the esthetic enrichment offered by Spanish paintings, where Spain's people, so frequently evoked in their writings, came to life: kings, Virgins, and majas; urchins and decrepit old men. And it was indeed in this contact of opposites, of the "sublime and the ridiculous," often on one canvas, that the French Romantics found a pictorial justification of their own newly formulated literary theory of what Hugo, in the Préface de Cromwell, called the "harmonie des contraires." In Murillo's Saint Elizabeth a young queen of ethereal beauty is surrounded by repulsive lepers; in his Angels' Kitchen angels descend from heaven to attend to lowly kitchen chores; Zurbarán's saints are clad in everyday clothing; and if Velazquez' brushes honor the king of Spain, they pay the same respect to the meanest of his court jesters. The Romantic period witnessed a change of taste in feminine esthetics, and it was often on a Spanish canvas that the French writer found an incarnation of his ideal woman; the Spanish paintings seemed to have confirmed the new image of feminine beauty. The eighteenth century's favorite, the Boucher or Watteau type of woman, pink and blonde, sensuous in a minor key, and

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Ut pictura poesis again the fair and fragile sylphide, of diaphanous body and ethereal personality, beloved by Chateaubriand and his generation, had been replaced by the totally different, strikingly Mediterranean beauty. When Byron's Childe Harold left behind him the greyness of England to wander through Spain, he had already noticed the beauty of "Spain's dark-glancing daughters," at times provocatively exciting and at times regally distant, who appealed to him far more than the northern women. Who round the North for paler dames would seek? How poor their forms appear! how languid, wan and weak! And when Byron described the beauty of the Maid of Saragossa, famed for resisting the French besiegers of her town in 1808, he admired in her the very features that would attract the French Romantics: long dark hair, black eyes, and an almost elf-like charm enhanced by her delicate shape : Oh! had you known her in her softer hour, Mark'd her black eye that mocks her coal-black veil, Seen her long locks that foil the painter's power Her fairy form, with more than female grace . . ,1 Gautier's jeune France Rodolphe echoed his English idol's scorn for the north's "paler dames" while searching for a woman of Spanish or Italian beauty as the object of his passion: "Rodolphe résolut que la femme qu'il aimerait serait exclusivement Espagnole ou Italienne, les Anglaises, Françaises et Allemandes étant infiniment trop froides pour fournir un motif de passion poétique. D'ailleurs, il avait en mémoire l'invective de Byron contre les pâles filles du Nord; et il se serait bien gardé d'adorer ce que le maître avait formellement anathématisé." When Rodolphe describes the woman of his dreams, her large and humid black eyes are shadowed by the finely brushed line of her "Arabic" eyebrows, and her olive-colored complexion with yellowish-bistre tinges hides passionate feelings.2 Childe Harold and Rodolphe were joined by innumerable other Romantics in their admiration of the Spanish woman. Musset's enfant du siècle Octave dreams of "les Espagnoles, les premières des femmes," 3 and when he falls in love with an English woman, Brigitte Pierson, he is enthralled by her dark, almost southern beauty. Her pale skin and large black eyes are certainly not distinctively British features.

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The Flowering of Romanticism: 1830-1838 Such infatuations were not confined to fiction. Dufongeray, an obscure soldier of the campaign of 1823, reveals in his memoirs that he too longs for a Spanish woman above all others. "Mais le diable m'emporte, je donnerai toutes les Françaises de la terre pour une Espagnole." He continues, describing her almost in Byron's terms : "Moi, si j'étais poète, les Espagnoles m'inspireraient tout ce qu'il y a de plus diabolique en vers. Leurs grands yeux noirs, leur babil inépuisable, et toujours si spirituel, ces tailles si souples et si cambrées." 4 An almost endless list of women whose Spanish beauty appealed greatly to their contemporaries could be quoted: the famous German dancer Fanny Elssler, about whose "Spanish" beauty the press raved far more than about her mastery of the dance; La Malibran, the much admired singer of Spanish origin who died in Paris in 1836 at the age of 28 ; Théophile Gautier's mistresses, from Eugénie Fort to Ernesta and Carlotta Grisi; 5 Madame Victor Hugo, admired for her "beauté de reine espagnole"; George Sand, addressed by Chopin as his "brune et olivâtre Lélia." At the outset of this esthetic revolution in France, Stendhal had outlined the "requirements" of his modern beauty, in the chapter " D e l'idéal moderne" of his Histoire de la peinture en Italie: Si l'on avait à recomposer le beau idéal, on prendrait les avantages suivants : 1. Un esprit extrêmement vif. 2. Beaucoup de grâces dans les traits. 3. L'oeil étincelant, non pas du feu sombre des passions mais du feu de la saillie. L'expression la plus vive des mouvements de l'âme est dans l'oeil, qui échappe à la sculpture. Les yeux modernes seraient donc fort grands. 4. Beaucoup de gaieté. 5. Un fonds de sensibilité. 6. Une taille svelte, et surtout l'air agile de la jeunesse. 6 Such features were more than realized in Goya's majas. Of all French writers of these years, Alfred de Musset appears the most fascinated by the charm of Goya's women. Much of his Contes d'Espagne et d'Italie of 1830 shows how well he knew the Caprichos: several of the painter's young women found places in the poet's lines. Throughout Musset's poems with Spanish themes runs a leitmotiv celebrating the beauty and charm of the Spanish woman; and this woman was personified by Goya's majas. Besides Musset's poems, his sketchbooks also testify to this fascination. 7 They include his own painstakingly faithful copies of several plates

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Ut pictura poesis of the Caprichos,

such as n u m b e r 1 5 (Bellos consejos),

f a m o u s n u m b e r 3 1 (Ruega

por ella). I n Bellos consejos

a n d the Musset

copied only the seated young woman, eliminating altogether her ugly old guardian. The image of the young woman could not have been closer to the prevailing French ideal: a black lace mantilla covers her hair, delicately framing her oval face; her coyly downcast eyes, half hidden under the shadows of the protecting mantilla, throw furtive, sidelong glances ; a filmy white lace bodice reveals more than it covers of her bust; and she gracefully raises her fan, showing a delicately modelled arm. Indeed, all the requirements for Stendhal's "modern b e a u t y " are present in this young woman; and the very same characteristics distinguish the second of Goya's young women faithfully copied by Musset, the central figure of number 3 1 (Ruega por ella). The similarity of Musset's copy to Goya's original is again extraordinary: the poet scrupulously maintains both the position and the detailed features of the focal

Alfred de Musset, copy of Goya, Caprichos: Bellos consejos, no. 15, and Ruega por ella, no. 31.

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Francisco de Goya, Caprichos:

Bellos consejos,

no. 15.

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Ut pictura poesie

Francisco de Goya, Caprichos:

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Bien tirada está, no. 17.

The Flowering of Romanticism: 1 8 3 0 - 1 8 3 8

Francisco de Goya, Caprichos:

Ruega por ella, no. 31.

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Ut pictura poesis figure of the print, a young woman (with the same oval, dark-eyed face that seems to have attracted Musset so strongly) seated on a low stool. Her willowy body is bent forward in order to adjust a stocking diaphanous enough to reveal the sensuous curves of her slightly raised leg; her other foot, in an elegant pointed pump, appears provocatively from under the ruffled edge of her white dress. This detail is worthy of mention, since admiration for the tiny and graceful feet of the Spanish woman became a recurrent theme of the 1830's: almost as often as he described her facial features, the French writer commented on the delicate smallness of her feet. But the young woman's figure was not the only one in Goya's picture to capture the poet's imagination : Goya's old woman guardian, seated behind her mistress, was copied to the last detail by Musset. The same stark lighting cruelly exposes the almost repulsive ugliness of this old creature; any human shape is lost under the folds of her shroudlike shawl ; and a bulbous nose looms over her thin toothless mouth—but her sunken eyes jealously watch over her young charge, as she clutches a rosary in her gnarled fist. A French poet of 1830, imbued with espagnolisme, could hardly have ignored this old woman—as duenna her image was by then almost automatically linked to that of the young Spanish girl: both guardian and Celestina, she appears in an uncountable number of French texts, in which she faithfully follows and protects her ward, and at times also leads her astray. A second attendant had been present in Goya's print, half hidden in deep background shadows : a pretty young maid, busy combing her mistress's hip-long dark hair, whom Musset eliminated altogether. Was his aim to enhance once again, and even more than Goya had done, the contrast between the beauty of youth and the ugliness of old age, between the "sublime and the grotesque?" In Musset's drawing all of youth's loveliness is concentrated in one person, the central figure of the etching; and the contrast between her grace and the duenna's hideousness becomes all the more startling.8 But Musset was not satisfied with fixing Goya's women merely in his drawings. Poet above all, he transposed their painted reality into its precise and fully as evocative verbal image. Indeed, the central figures of the young women of both Caprichos 15 and 31 appear in several poems of his Contes d'Espagne et d'Italie: "Madame la marquise," "Madrid," and "L'Andalouse." In "L'Andalouse" Musset not only followed the etching to its last detail, but he captured its very atmosphere with extraordinary

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The Flowering of Romanticism: 1830-1838 artistic perception. Some of his slight changes help enhance this Goyesque mood rather than diminish or change it : the maja's provocative and scintillating charm emanates from the poem as from both Goya's and Musset's pictures. She consciously shows off her most enticing features : "son corps souple" is bent to adjust a "bas de soie" that covers but reveals "sa jambe ronde"; her diminutive waist is set off by the same tight bodice of the pictures, but now its fragile and innocent lace is transformed by the poet into sensuous satin—though still white. Less important details of her clothing are also preserved in the poem : she wears the white mitts Goya had given her, and the same dainty slippers : Elle est à moi, moi seul au monde. Ses grands sourcils noirs sont à moi, Son corps souple et sa jambe ronde Sa chevelure qui l'inonde, Plus longue qu'un manteau de roi ! Et sa basquina sur sa hanche, Son bras dans sa mitaine blanche, Son pied dans son brodequin noir! Et qu'elle est folle dans sa joie, Lorsqu'elle chante le matin, Lorsqu'en tirant son bas de soie Elle fait, sur son flanc qui ploie, Craquer son corset de satin! 9 Musset did, in these lines, change one small detail: the white slippers in Goya's etching are now black. Was this due to the necessity of rhyming "noir" with the "boudoir" of a previous line, or was it to accentuate verbally the stark black-white contrasts of Goya's etching? The close affinity between poem and picture is evident in Musset's recurrent use of black and white touches; yet black and white do not seem to me the most obvious colors that the author of "Sur trois Marches de marbre rose" might choose to describe the charms of a young woman, his maîtresse. A shaded, delicate color scale, with fleshy pinks and fragile blues, seems a far more natural choice; but not once does Musset use even a touch of color in this poem. He out-Goyas Goya in his use of contrasting light and shade. The woman's face also is described in terms of Goya's print: her dark, sparkling eyes, her regal mass of hair would naturally attract the poet so sensitive to her sensuous and provocative qualities. As in Bellos consejos, her eyes are shaded by

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Ut pictura poesis the mantilla's edge, which only makes her sidewise glances more alluring : Vrai Dieu! lorsque son oeil pétille Sous la frange de ses réseaux, Rien que pour toucher sa mantille, De par tous les saints de Castille, On se ferait rompre les os. (p. 16) In "Madrid" the same theme of a young woman guarded by her aged duenna reappears. Though she watches closely over her mistress, she becomes also a Celestina and is quite ready, and willing, to open doors—or windows, as here—to the suitor who has met with her approval : J'en sais une, et certes la duègne Qui la surveille et qui la peigne N'ouvre sa fenêtre qu'à moi. (p. 21) In the opening scene of Victor Hugo's Hernani, also of 1830, an old duenna opens the door of a secret staircase to her mistress's suitor (that this happens to be the wrong suitor is one of the play's cleverly contrived moments of dramatic surprise). In the careful stage directions there are the same black-white contrasts as appear in Musset's imagery; and the duenna, Dona Josefa Duarte, is "vieille, en noir, le corps de sa jupe cousu de jais," while her young charge, Dona Sol, is clad in pure white. The theme of the young woman guarded by a not incorruptible duenna is, of course, quite common in the Romantics' imagery, so it would hardly be just to credit only Goya's Caprichos with inspiring Musset. In "Madrid" and "L'Andalouse," however, several precise details confirm how large a part the Caprichos played in kindling at least Musset's imagination. In "Madrid," the painter's drawing is recognizable beneath the poet's lines; once more, Musset traces the silhouette of the graceful, alluring Madrileña, her minute feet, "son corps si souple et si fragile": Madrid, Madrid, moi je me raille De tes dames à fine taille Qui chaussent l'escarpin étroit, (p. 20) In this poem one aspect of the Capricho, Ruega por ella, reappears that is omitted by Musset both in his drawing and in

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The Flowering of Romanticism: 1830-1838 "L'Andalouse": though the poet has eliminated Goya's young attendant he gives her task of combing her mistress's hair to the duenna. That this image owes all to Goya seems quite obvious, for attendance to the more menial aspects of her ward's toilet is not an occupation usually bestowed on the forbidding Spanish duenna by French Romantic poets. Further, an almost Baudelairian sensuous admiration for "La Chevelure" is hardly typical of Musset's poetry : Goya's plate is evidently at the very source of the imagery in this poem. These transpositions d'art show how deeply Musset was indebted to Goya. Examination of these poems suggests little or no first-hand experience of Spain. In "L'Andalouse," for instance, Musset's ignorance of Spain's regional characteristics is clear: the poem's geographic hodge-podge is startling even to the least knowledgeable hispanist. The poem's first title was "Barcelone," which placed it in Catalonia, a region devoid of Andalusia's glittering enchantment. Musset's "marquise's" name, Amaëgui, has nothing Andalusian, or Catalan for that matter, about it that might give it a semblance of authentic local color: it is as typically Basque a name as could be found. Yet, for most French Romantic writers of the 1830's Spain was synonymous with Andalusia, and of Andalusian beauty their ideal Spanish woman had to be; this stereotype is clearly recognizable in Musset's poems. In "Madrid" the poet claims to be far more attracted by his "princesse andalouse" than by the less impassioned Madrileña: Car c'est ma princesse andalouse! Mon amoureuse! ma jalouse! Ma belle veuve au long réseau! C'est un vrai démon ! c'est un ange ! Elle est jaune comme une orange, Elle est vive comme un oiseau! (p. 21) In "Madame la marquise" he once more sings her praises: "j'ai pour amie / Une Andalouse à l'oeil lutin" (p. 22). The "oeil lutin" certainly evokes the furtively alluring glances that Goya's young women cast about them in those prints copied by Musset. It is interesting to note that Musset, fascinated by the Andalusian beauty, seems to ignore Murillo's portrayals of the Sevilliana altogether. Not once in his writings of these years have I encountered even the most fleeting mention of Murillo, nor any inkling of familiarity with his work. It was in Goya's graceful and lighthearted majas that the poet sought his Andalusian princess.

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Ut pictura poesis But how much stronger is the Wahlverwandtschaft of Musset's own sprightly personality with them than with Murillo's vaporously sentimental madonnas. George Sand's response when Delacroix showed her his copy of the Caprichos in 1834, shortly after her return with Musset from their ill-fated journey to Italy, where their love affair had found a bitter and painful end, was noted earlier. At seeing Goya's "pretty women" George Sand's own unhappiness and feelings of inadequacy were poignantly revived : how much less attraction did she hold for Musset than would one of Goya's captivating creatures, come to life? "Je sais qu'il aime ces femmes-là. Si je pouvais prendre la figure d'une de ces petites images, et aller le trouver la nuit! Il ne reconnaîtrait pas le malheureux George, et il m'aimerait ne fût-ce qu'une heure!" 1 0 Her approach to Goya's work is typically Sandian : an intensely personal projection of herself, her emotions, her views, and her interpretation totally eliminates any objective appreciation of "art for art's sake." Nevertheless, the fact remains that by 1834 Goya's women could assume such strong lives of their own that George Sand might consider them potential rivals, or, in a more hopeful frame of mind, as conspiring emissaries. Irresistible charm was indeed a major characteristic with which French Romantic poets endowed their image of the Spanish woman. Goya's sparkling majas that so appealed to Musset and his friends of the "bohème galante" were complemented by the warmly serene beauty of Murillo's dark, southern madonnas. Throughout his career Murillo had remained deeply rooted, artistically and emotionally, in Seville, his native town. His Virgins may have represented the mother of Christ, but they had been modeled after young women in the streets of Seville. French Romantics immediately recognized in them a total truthfulness to nature, and it was noted by the earliest commentators on Murillo's work. Only, what to a previous generation had been cause for reproach now became a source of admiration and praise. Romantic esthetics were touched (and pleased) by Murillo's disdain for ideal beauty in favor of a life-capturing portrayal of essentially human qualities. Indeed, Murillo's name came almost automatically to the mind of the French Romantic writer when he formulated his concept of feminine beauty. It was in 1830, at the height of French espagnolisme, that Mérimée made his enriching journey to the Peninsula. Captivated like so many others by the beauty of the Spanish woman, he found her materialized in Murillo's work: he was impressed by the master's realism in portraying the mother of God, her earthiness

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Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, The Immaculate Soult).

Conception

(La

Conception

Ut pictura poesis enhanced by a total lack of "pureté divine/' and he recognized in her the original model—a young girl of southern beauty who dreams with melancholic passion of her loves to be. "II est l'inventeur d'un type de Vierges que l'on retrouve à Seville, sa patrie, à Cadix et dans le midi de la Péninsule. On dit que sa fille lui servit souvent de modèle pour des madones. Je ne puis pas dire qu'elles aient généralement cette expression de pureté divine qu'on suppose à la mère de Dieu; ce sont de jeunes filles passionnées et mélancoliques qui n'ont point encore eu d'amant." 11 These madonnas reminded Mérimée of a theme that deeply fascinated the Romantics : the monk, devout but young, to whom a womanly presence offers all too many obstacles to his renunciation of the world and his vows of chastity—but now the woman is replaced by a painting of the Virgin. Pious contemplation of this painting will lead the monk unconsciously to a voluptuous longing for the woman portrayed. This theme had already been exploited to the utmost in Matthew Gregory Lewis' Ambrosio, or The Monk, an eighteenth-century gothic novel revelling in demoniac horror and supernatural events and recalled in the same article by Mérimée. The protagonist of The Monk, Ambrosio, spends long spellbound hours before a painting of the Virgin—only here the model had charms which are even more powerful than those of a beautiful but still real woman: no one less than the devil had incarnated himself to be the model for this painting, the better to tempt Ambrosio. Murillo's Vision of Saint Bernard12 reminded Mérimée of Ambrosio's temptation : the spell cast upon the onlooker by the madonna of this painting is no less enchanting than that of the virgin in Lewis' icon. "Je ne crois pas qu'il soit un tableau plus capable de faire pécher un moine dévot, mais jeune. La Vierge est si jolie et montre tant de beautés que l'on cache aux profanes, que le diable a beau jeu pour exciter les sens! Lisez le Moine de Lewis." 13 The most striking example of a Murillo Virgin come to life to tempt a saint is in Flaubert's Tentation de Saint Antoine (of a later date, and actually beyond the time span of this study). Flaubert had been deeply stirred by Murillo's so-called Gypsy Madonna, which he saw in the Corsini Gallery when passing through Rome in 1851 and which had provoked in him an emotional rather than artistic reaction. This he wrote to his friend Louis Bouilhet on April 9, 1851 : "J'ai vu une Vierge de Murillo qui me poursuit comme une hallucination perpétuelle." Three weeks later, May 4 , 1 8 5 1 , he is still haunted by her spell : " J e suis amoureux de la Vierge de Murillo de la galerie Corsini. Sa tête me poursuit et ses yeux passent et repassent devant moi comme des lanternes dansantes." Jean Seznec

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The Flowering of Romanticism: 1 8 3 0 - 1 8 3 8 has shown the close parallelism between Flaubert's expérience vécue and its literary counterpart in La Tentation de Saint Antoine: Saint Antoine himself is no less overwhelmed and attracted than was Flaubert by the beauty of a Virgin he spends hours and even days contemplating. 14 Murillo's ability to capture feminine attractiveness became, in 1832, the excuse for Félix Pyat's melodramatic short story "Murillo"—mentioned earlier—in which the author invents an episode of Murillo's sentimental life wherein the only actual fact is the protagonist's name. 15 Thus even in the popular serial novel

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, The Vision of Saint Bernard.

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Ut pictura poesis Murillo's models had come to personify the Spanish woman as French Romantics saw her, darkly beautiful, passionate to the point of blind jealousy and even self-destruction. Another article in L'Artiste a year later, " D e l'influence des noms," pointed out the evocative power of a mere Spanish name in creating an immediate image of certain feminine types. To give only one example, the name "Margarita" paints, for the author of this article at least, "la svelte Espagnole qui cache un poignard dans sa jarretière et un amour brûlant dans son coeur." 16 Mérimée's correspondence of these years shows that he, too, has fallen under this spell : hardly ever does he address letters to his mistress in her own name, the prosaically Anglo-Saxon "Jenny" followed by a bourgeois "Dacquin"; he substitutes the passionate Spanish "Mariquita de mi alma." 17 The 1830's were indeed the years when almost every writer was "piqué par la mouche espagnole," to quote Edgar Quinet. Even Balzac, for whom Spain was not a foremost esthetic concern, takes brief cognizance of her great artists, who so well portrayed the beauty of her women. In many of his descriptions of beautiful women a typical Mediterranean type is recognizable. She is Mademoiselle de Villenoix in Louis Lambert (1832) ; Balzac admiringly describes her pure features, "ces lignes ovales, si larges et si virginales," her pale complexion with its "blancheur mate" and its "nuances brunes," and again her large eyes hidden by thick lashes : "Elle avait de beaux yeux voilés par de longues paupières frangées de cils épais et recourbés." 18 In Les Maraña of the same year, a short story placed partly in Tarragona during the Napoleonic occupation, Balzac again describes a woman with this almost Moorish beauty: C'était une figure blanche où le ciel de l'Espagne avait jeté quelques légers tons de bistre qui ajoutaient à l'expression d'un calme séraphique, une ardente fierté, lueur infusée sous ce teint diaphane, peut-être due à un sang tout mauresque qui le vivifiait et colorait. Relevés sur le sommet de la tête, ses cheveux retombaient et entouraient de leurs reflets noirs de fraîches oreilles transparentes, en dessinant les contours d'un cou faiblement azuré. Ces boucles luxuriantes mettaient en relief des yeux brûlants, et les lèvres rouges d'une bouche bien arquée. La basquine du pays faisait bien valoir la cambrure d'une taille facile à ployer comme un rameau de saule, (p. 68) And in a final comparison he recalls Murillo's madonna: "C'était, non pas la Vierge de l'Italie, mais la Vierge de l'Espagne, celle du

164

The Flowering of Romanticism: 1830-1838 Murillo, le seul artiste assez osé pour l'avoir peinte enivrée de bonheur par la conception du Christ, imagination délirante du plus hardi, du plus chaud des peintres" (p. 70). In this instance Balzac seems unaware of the typical characteristics of Murillo's oeuvre: his description does not evoke one of this master's madonnas so much as a Goyesque maja. "La basquine du pays . . . une taille facile à ployer comme un rameau de saule"—are these not the very terms Musset had used in his transposition d'art, reproducing Goya's pictures in his own poems? (And the basquina is far from the flowing robes in which Murillo clothes his virgins.) Could it be that, at the time Balzac wrote, the madonnas of the Spanish masters, and particularly those of Murillo, had become synonymous with Andalusian beauty, and that Balzac but echoes here an already stereotyped image? The same kind of vague comparison in the following year, 1833, reinforces these suspicions: in Eugénie Grandet he again compares his heroine's "nouvelle et grave beauté," blossoming after her cousin's arrival, to that of a Spanish "vierge après la conception": "Avant la venue de son cousin, Eugénie pouvait être comparée à la Vierge avant la conception; quand il fut parti elle ressemblait à la Vierge mère: elle avait conçu l'amour. Les deux Maries, si différentes et si bien représentées par quelques peintres espagnols, constituent l'une des plus brillantes figures qui abondent dans le christianisme." (pp. 422-423) For Balzac, evidently, Spanish paintings of the Virgin had become detached from the names of their painters : the subject alone had become part of his literary imagery by the early thirties. In the rare instances, however, where he does mention a Spanish painter by name as an interpreter of feminine beauty, it is almost always Murillo's name that springs to his mind. Only three times does Balzac mention a Spanish painter other than Murillo in his writings before 1838, and all three times the painter is Velázquez; but even then he is only mentioned coupled with Murillo and in cases where the aim was to name famous Spanish masters. 19 Goya and Murillo gave life to the Romantic image of the Spanish woman in her real and yet idealized beauty; Velázquez' work brought close another colorful Spanish type cherished by all French writers of the period : the Spanish king and grandee in all their inaccessible majesty and their proud, even haughty magnificence. Velázquez' oeuvre more (and better) than any historical or biographical treatise opened doors to the secret world of Spanish royal palaces, with their jealously guarded privacy and their rigid code of court etiquette. French critics immediately

165

Pantoja de la Cruz, Philip II.

The Flowering of Romanticism: 1830-1833 noticed the evocative strength of these paintings, and they commented more often on the character of the kings portrayed than on the beauty of the painting itself. Quand vous visitez une des résidences royales d'Espagne, vous y admirez avec une sorte de respect les portraits de toutes les dynasties qui se sont succédé sur le trône de Pelage. L'étiquette seule, cette souveraine des souverains de toutes les Espagnes semble retenir sur la toile ces graves figures; car le génie des peintres espagnols n'a de rival que le génie des écoles d'Italie; et ces rois, ces princes, avec leurs attributs blasonnés, leurs nains et leurs monstres domestiques, qui, grâce aux pinceaux de Vélasquez, de Murillo, de Ribeira, etc. se survivent à eux-mêmes et vous regardent immobiles, c'est sans surprise que vous les verriez obéir au romancier qui oserait les inviter à descendre de leurs cadres, à remplir de nouveau le palais de leur grandeur, à s'y entourer, comme dans leur première existence, de leurs ministres, de leurs confesseurs, de leurs maîtresses, de leurs courtisans et de leurs gardes.20 Does one not think here immediately of certain scenes of Hugo's Hernani or Ruy Blas, of certain passages of Nodier's or Mérimée's works in which these Spanish kings have "survived to themselves" and assumed a new literary reality? This theme of the Spanish king was a frequent source of inspiration to the French in the thirties; and in some cases it is clear that a painter's work became the immediate model for the writer's image. Bourgoing, on visiting the Escorial, had thus been struck by Juan Pantoja de la Cruz' famous portrait of Philip II; through the painting he sought a better understanding of the history of the reign of this "somber and austere" king.21 But it was Velázquez above all whose work the French searched for a chronicle of the Spanish court and a true portrayal of the figure of its king. Early critics, bound by the deep-rooted academic esthetics of an idealizing art, almost all blamed Velázquez for the unflattering lifelikeness of his portraits. Velázquez' Habsburgs, aloof, heavy, sullen, and hardly beautiful, do seem rather unidealized, even if the painter's magic has transformed their ugliness into a thing of artistic beauty. French comments on his royal portraits most often ignored Velazquez' mastery and only saw his faithfulness to the subject portrayed. Auguste Kératry, a critic bound unquestionably by classical esthetics, acknowledged only Velázquez' "grand caractère de vérité" in 1822. Even Mérimée, when in Madrid in 1830, saw in Velázquez the faithful recorder and translator of the legendary figure of the Spanish king rather than the extraordinarily perceptive artist and

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Ut pictura poesis great master. When he visited the Prado he observed of Velázquez' subjects, "Ils sont tous un peu roides et sérieux. Au reste, peut-être Vélasquez n'a-t-il fait en cela qu'imiter la nature avec scrupule. Il peignit la cour—et quelle cour! Est-il étonnant que tous ses portraits aient la même expression de morgue superbe et d'absence d'idées." 22 Another voice raised in the same tenor was Baron Taylor's, who recognized the nobility and distinction of the Spanish king as seen through Velázquez' work, but did not credit the painter with any more subtle qualities than superb craftsmanship in his knowledge of "la science de la peinture" and in his use of color and light. 23 Victor Hugo's writings of these years also show a preoccupation with the figures of the Spanish nobleman, king, queen, and hidalgo. In the characters of Hernani, or Ruy Blas, for instance (the latter a work of 1838—the Musée espagnol year—the original title of which was, revealingly, La Reine s'ennuie), he tried to capture the same qualities of noblesse, of dignity, and also of empty boredom that seemed so apparent in Velázquez' portraits. Though Hugo credits his childhood impressions of the imposing characters in the portrait gallery of the Masserano Palace with inspiring the gallery scene in Hernani, the literary transformation of these memories shows a general mood rather than precise details. 24 A certain Velazquean climate that permeates parts of the play is not borne out by any specific reference to the master's work: neither in the characters' features nor in their costumes, both carefully described to the last detail, does Hugo recall Velázquez with precision. 25 Twenty years later (again, beyond the date limit of this study) Hugo's imagination was once again kindled by the same theme of desolate loneliness of a young infanta. In "La Rose de l'Infante" of the Légende des siècles one can recognize line by line, color by color, the Louvre's Infanta Margarita. Hugo transposes Velázquez' canvas to the written page not only with the most sensitive observation of visual details, but also with a penetrating recreation of the painting's mood. Théophile Gautier, fascinated himself by these transpositions d'art, well analyzed the common vision of the poet and the painter in his comments on "La Rose de l'Infante": Ce tableau qui semble peint avec la palette de Velasquez, La Rose de l'Infante, quel profond sentiment de la vie de cour et de l'étiquette Espagnoles. Comme on la voit, cette petite princesse, avec sa gravité d'enfant, sachant déjà qu'elle sera reine, raide dans sa jupe d'argent passementée de jais, regardant le vent qui enlève feuille à feuille les

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The Flowering of Romanticism: 1 8 3 0 - 1 8 3 8

Diego de Velazquez, Infanta

Margarita.

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Ut pictura poesis pétales de sa rose et les disperse sur le miroir sombre d'une pièce d'eau, tandis que le front contre une vitre, à une fenêtre du palais, rêve le fantôme pâle de Philippe II songeant à son Armada lointaine.26 Even Balzac shows some insight into the role Velázquez had come to play in French imagination when in La F emme de trente ans he speaks of the somber, forbidding character of Philip II, erroneously crediting Velázquez with having fixed forever on his canvas the "majesteuse terreur que doit inspirer la royauté." 27 Balzac is here merely using Velázquez' work as a faithful mirror, seeing in it confirmation of his own pre-existent image of the Spanish king. One of the most striking examples of the impact of Velázquez' portrayal of the hidalgo as the Romantics dreamed of him is the portrait of Petrus Borei by Louis Boulanger. This single painting reveals the indebtedness to Velázquez of three key figures of French

Louis Boulanger, Petrus Borei (engraving by Célestin Nanteuil).

The Flowering of Romanticism: 1 8 3 0 - 1 8 3 8 Romanticism: the painter Boulanger, one of Victor Hugo's closest and most faithful friends and admirers, the engraver Célestin Nanteuil, known for his illustrations of innumerable writings by members of the young literary group, and the subject of this portrait himself, Petrus Borei le lycanthrope, a strange and aloof young poet of the avant-garde. Boulanger's portrait is almost an exact replica of Velázquez' Philip IV in Hunting Apparel, then at the Louvre. 28 The stance of Boulanger's subject is reversed, but it shows him from the same three-quarter-face angle—and here

Diego de Velázquez, Philip IV in Hunting

Apparel.

Ut pictura poesis Boulanger's difficulties with foreshortening are painfully evident, especially when compared with the masterly technique of the original. Boulanger's background is nearly identical to Velázquez': trees and bushes are outlined against a cloudy sky, producing a similar pattern of light and shadows. Even in his details Boulanger uncritically follows the original: the king and the poet both hold soft hats in their hands; the large hound, a natural companion to Velázquez' king, appears now as an oversized, disproportionate mongrel—an astonishing pet to be fondled by a Romantic poet.29 Gautier, recalling the Sturm und Drang Zeit of his generation in his Histoire du romantisme, drew a literary portrait of Petrus Borei that captured the same Velazquean mood. In Gautier's eyes Borei was the incarnation of the "plus parfait spécimen de l'idéal romantique" : "C'était une de ces figures qu'on n'oublie plus, ne les eût-on aperçues qu'une fois. Ce jeune et sérieux visage, d'une régularité parfaite, olivâtre de peau, doré de légers tons d'ambre comme une peinture de maître qui s'agatise, était illuminé de grands yeux, brillants et tristes, des yeux d'Abencérage pensant à Grenade." Does Gautier not use the identical vocabulary found in the writings of other authors to describe the much admired Andalusian beauty? The type was cast; and here again the poet seeks confirmation of his preconceived image in the painting, rather than searching the painting for its own distinguishing characteristics. Voicing the tastes of his time, Gautier recognizes in Borei characteristics that would make him part of a Mediterranean or even Arabic world: "Le croire Français, né dans ce siècle, eût été difficile. Espagnol, Arabe, Italien du quinzième siècle, à la bonne heure." Perhaps he remembers the Boulanger portrait as he describes Petrus Borei, a man more likely to have stepped out of a Velázquez canvas than to move in the stodgy bourgeois world of nineteenth-century Paris: "Il était un peu plus âgé que nous, de trois ou quatre ans peut-être, de taille moyenne, bien pris, d'un galbe plein d'élégance, et fait pour porter le manteau couleur de muraille par les rues de Séville ; non qu'il eût un air d'Almaviva ou de Lindor: il était au contraire d'une gravité toute castillane et paraissait toujours sortir d'un cadre de Velasquez comme s'il y eût habité." 30 Single types, the Spanish woman or the hidalgo, were not the only aspects of the cosas de España that French Romantics saw illustrated in the works of the Spanish masters; there they also sought, and found, a genuine expression of the very spirit of Spain. One painter above all personified the genius—good and evil—of this

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The Flowering of Romanticism: 1830-1838 Spain: Francisco de Goya y Lucientes. The life of Goya could have made him the hero of one of Hugo's dramas : a poor artisan's son, he had reached the height of aristocratic distinction; had become the lover of the most famous and fascinating woman of his day, Cayetana, Duchess of Alba; he was sought out by kings, generals, and diplomats for the favor of a portrait; and yet he died lonely, severed from his beloved country, family, and many of his friends, a political exile. Thus Goya the man, as much as his work, represented many aspects of the légende espagnole as the French Romantics envisioned it. In the Caprichos, the best known of Goya's works in France at that date, French writers found a new imagery and new principles. The imagery was at times grotesque and even cruel, at times picturesque or merely realistic: there were aged duennas hovering over graceful young women, and there were the same witches and dwarfs, gnomes and monsters—all the satanism of black Romanticism—that surged through many Romantic works, from Gautier's Albertus to Boulanger's Ronde du Sabbat. There were takeoffs on social injustices and on the blind self-sufficiency of the nobles—these must have been cherished by those who were preoccupied with the social and political problems stirring France in the 1830's and who reveled in the lampooning of a pear-shaped Louis Philippe. However, French Romantics were not struck primarily, as were later generations, by Goya's biting social satire. In the Caprichos they discovered new techniques of painting and a new attitude toward the subject: exact drawing was sacrificed to violent, emotional chiaroscuros, the controlled shadings and nuances of engraving were replaced by the passionate blacks and whites of aquatint—and the painter as an observer was replaced by the artist as an active participant. Yet for all their enthusiasm for Goya, this generation was sensitive mostly to the picturesque, almost superficial values of his work; they did not allow themselves to be perturbed—as others would a decade later—by this master's "tragic sense of life." The critics and writers of the 1830's did not attempt to interpret the work of art, nor to analyze its esthetic qualities, but rather considered it a visualized illustration of their own verbal imagery. They searched Goya's oeuvre for what they considered essentially Spanish characteristics, and in it they found mirrored and confirmed many of their own preconceived images of Spain. In 1831 an anonymous article in the Revue encyclopédique that was actually an enlarged book review of Slidell's Une Année en Espagne noted that Goya's work was more exactly revealing of the

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Ut pictura poesis Spanish character than any possible written analysis might be: Un seul homme, peut-être, Francisco de Goya, est parvenu à donner une idée juste de son pays. Dans sa verve âpre et mordante, il a profondément compris les vices qui rongent l'Espagne, il les a peints comme il les haïssait. C'est un Rabelais le crayon et le pinceau en main, mais un Rabelais espagnol, sérieux, et dont la plaisanterie fait frémir. Le rire est une sensation trop tiède pour lui, et le ridicule qu'il écrit dans ses magnifiques esquisses, avec la pointe acérée d'un poignard, vous donne la chair de poule et vous fait frissonner. Un dessin de Goya en dit plus sur l'Espagne que tous les voyageurs; mais son oeuvre est très peu connue. 31 Even Delacroix, however perceptive a painter, reacted in a similar manner to Goya's work. When he visted Algeciras in 1832 he did not see this Andalusian town and its inhabitants in a direct, personal reaction, but he interpreted it through the other painter's work: "Tout Goya palpitait autour de moi." 32 The actualité of the Caprichos was once again pointed out in an anonymous article that appeared during the early thirties in the Magasin pittoresque. Perhaps the most explicit article on Goya to appear before Gautier's later studies, it was illustrated with several plates from the Caprichos; but even this well informed author saw but an excellent framework for an analysis of contemporary Spanish mores in the bitter disillusionment and monstrous hallucinations of the Caprichos. "Ses caricatures, qu'il appelait ses Caprices, sont plus connues hors de l'Espagne que ses tableaux: quoique sa haine des préjugés et des abus, et son patriotisme, n'y soient que légèrement voilés, elles ne sont pas toutes faciles à comprendre pour les étrangers. De bons commentaires sur les oeuvres satiriques de Goya seraient un excellent cadre pour décrire les moeurs espagnoles modernes." 33 But the Caprichos carry a different and deeper meaning; they go much beyond mere documentary information on Spain, or even a critically satirical interpretation of her social and political ills. Those aspects of the Caprichos that puzzled many of the conservative critics—and that were ignored by most of them—were echoed in the works of some of the foremost young Romantic writers and painters; they may not have been perturbed or upset as deeply by Goya's hallucinative visions, engendered by the "dream of reason," as were later generations from Baudelaire to Malraux, but their writings do testify to the impact of Goya's images. These were indeed the years when the "Romantic agony" reached a new climax. Writers and artists found in horror-laden themes new sources of literary

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The Flowering of Romanticism: 1830-1838 inspirations, and yet they were not overly anguished by them, but seemed almost to delight in exploiting their visual and emotional impact to the utmost. Sir Walter Scott effectively analyzed this attraction to the horrible when he observed in Ann Radcliffe's gothic novels "the author's primary object, of moving the reader by ideas of impending danger, hidden guilt, supernatural visitings,—by all that is terrible, in short, combined with much that is wonderful." 34 Numerous were the examples, from printed page to painted canvas, from the Scottish north to the Mediterranean south, in which French Romantic poets found their romantisme noir already expressed. The British Gothic novel, le roman noir et terrifiant, as the French refer to it, 35 had provided Romantic imagination with settings of haunted castles, storms brewing over somber cemeteries, ghostly shapes terrorizing the unsuspecting, and nightmarish apparitions, not to mention a goodly number of witches and gnomes. In Ε. T. A. Hoffmann's fantastic tales unreal creatures of dreams become endowed with lives of their own. In Gottfried August Bürger's Ballade Lenore takes a stormy midnight ride with her dead lover on his phantom horse. Nature became a menacing curtain, its whispered secrets haunting the desperate rider in Goethe's Erlkönig; his Faust, above all, was the work treasured by the generation of the 1830's. 3 6 Within five years it was translated three times: awkwardly by Saint-Aulaire in 1823, competently by Charles Nodier in 1828, and in a poetic version in the same year by Gérard de Nerval. In Part One, Romantic poets found not only a dangerously seductive Mephistopheles, but also an entire host of witches, monsters, and creatures of hell. The Hexenküche became the model for many subsequent sorcerers' dens, and the demoniac revelries of the Walpurgisnacht set the pattern for witches' sabbaths in French literature, painting, and even music. A ronde of monsters, ghouls, dragons, and genies wove its way in and out of French literature for over a decade, in the works of such major poets as Victor Hugo and in the writings of the most obscure minor literati, such as Joseph Méry. Hugo exploits the theme of gruesome horror in detail in his "Ronde du Sabbat" of 1825, and he continues it a few years later in such poems as "Les Fantômes" and "Les Djinns" of the Orientales (1828). The Marseillais poet Joseph Méry, all but forgotten today, graphically describes in "L'Assault du Pinde" (1831) a frantic assault of Mount Pindus: Le vampire au teint vert, la dévorante goule Lancent aux assiégés sur les ailes du vent

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Ut pictura poesis Des têtes de cadavres avec des yeux vivants L'âme des enfants morts avant le baptême, Et les corps de noyés, de bleus sillons couverts.37 Théophile Dondey, with his exotic Irish pen name Philotée O'Neddy, a true incarnation of a jeune France, revels in the demoniac chaos of a banquet satanique in his F eu et flamme. In this collection of macabre poems "le gobelin, le djinn, le dragon, le vampire" once more enter into their frenzied dance: "La ronde s'organise et s'ébranle et tournoie." 38 Where are these themes more hauntingly translated into visual reality than in Goya's oeuvre? His fearsome spectres and their

LES

ORIENTALES, PAR V I C T O R HUGO. CINQUIÈME ÉDITION.

TOME III.

PARIS c m l i l . F . S G D S s r X t R , I.I JUt AIH F. H t D I O a

B 0 3 S A N C E ,

ι IH

Louis Boulanger, illustration for Victor Hugo's "Les Djinns."

The Flowering of Romanticism: 1830-1838 horrible acts left a deep impression indeed on many Romantic writers and artists. Delacroix's illustrations of Faust reflect this melting of certain visual images of Goya's Caprichos with verbal images of the poet: Goya's witches and obsessing demons from the world of nightmares are recaptured (as they had previously been in Delacroix's Scène du Sahbat of 1824). Ghosts take shape akin to Goethe's spiderlegged, toadbellied, winged creatures : Spinnenfuss und Krötenbauch Und Flügelchen dem Wichtchen! 39 It was Louis Boulanger, le peintre-poète, who fused in his work the imagery of the Spanish painter Goya and the French poet Hugo. When he set out in 1828 to illustrate his friend's "La Ronde du Sabbat," his recollection of the Caprichos was vivid: in the poem just as in Boulanger's engraving certain Goyesque affinities are obvious. Hugo's poem, though more Goetheanly vast in concept than are Goya's individual case studies, brings to life some of the very same creatures of the Caprichos' haunted world. All come to his witches' Sabbath: Voilà que de partout, des eaux, des monts, des bois, Les larves, les dragons, les vampires, les gnomes, Des monstres dont l'enfer rêve seul les fantômes, La sorcière, échappée aux sépulcres déserts, Volant sur le bouleau qui siffle dans les airs, Les négromants, parés de tiares mystiques Où brillent flamboyants les mots cabalistiques, Et les graves démons, et les lutins rusés. Entrent dans le vieux cloître où leurs flots tourbillonnent. Venez sans remords, Nains aux pieds de chèvre, Goules, dont la lèvre Jamais ne se sévre Du sang noir des morts! Venez, boucs méchants, Psylles aux corps grêles, Aspioles frêles,

40

The frenzied movement of such a ronde, its sounds, smells, and visual impressions, had already been blended by Goethe into an uncontrollably boiling stream of monsters:

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Ut pictura poesis Das drängt und stösst, das rutscht und klappert! Das zischt und quirlt, das zieht und plappert! Das leuchtet, sprüht und stinkt und brennt! Ein wahres Hexenelement! Der ganze Strudel strebt nach oben; Du glaubst zu schieben, und du wirst geschoben. 41 Now Hugo does to Goethe what Boulanger had done to Goya: the French, Cartesian in spirit in spite of their romantisme effrené,

The Flowering of Romanticism: 1 8 3 0 - 1 8 3 8 introduce a certain measure of organization, of equilibrium, into the German poet's "wahre Hexenelement." Goethe's infernal turmoil becomes a controlled circle dance, in which the participants, however demoniac, maintain a sense of controlled rhythm while respectfully circling their master-demon:

Francisco de Goya, Caprichos: Devota profesion, no. 70. Louis Boulanger, illustration for Victor Hugo's La Ronde du Sabbat (on facing page).

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Ut pictura poesis Venez en cadence Elargir la danse. 42 But even though Hugo probably knew Goya's work, he does not mention his name here, as he did Albrecht Diirer's, for instance, in several of his later poems ("A Albert Dürer," in Voix intérieures, or "Melancholia" in Les Contemplations). The French poet who did openly avow his indebtedness to Goya's imagery was—not astonishingly—Gautier. In Albertus, ou l'âme et le péché (1831), his légende semi-diabolique, semi-fashionable," Gautier seems to delight in a ghoulish "idéal de cauchemar," and he will strike a cervantine deathblow to this love of the macabre with his at times rather tongue in cheek depiction of horror. Describing the inside of La Véronique's witches' den, he paints a pandemonium perhaps less emotionally perturbing than one of Goya's, but more visually repulsive : Maigres chauve-souris aux diaphanes ailes, Se cramponnant au mur de leurs quatre ongles frêles, Bouteilles sans goulot, plats de terre fêlés ; Crocodiles, serpents empaillés, plantes rares, Alambics contournés en spirales bizarres, Vieux manuscrits ouverts sur un fauteuil bancal. Foetus mal conservés saisissant d'une lieue L'odorat, et collant leur face jaune et bleue Contre le verre du bocal! And at the very paroxysm of horror Gautier explicitly recalls Goya: Dans l'ombre, au pied du lit, grouillaient d'étranges formes Incubes, cauchemars, spectres lourds et difformes, Un recueil de Goya et de Callot complet! 43 Gautier's linking of Goya and Callot here is, to my knowledge, the first occurrence of what remained throughout the Romantic period a frequent coupling of names. These two artists were almost automatically placed in the same famille d'esprits, owing to their often common subject matter—the fantastic; and their common technique—the etching. And indeed, are Callot's Caprices not one of the definite sources of Goya's Caprichos? Yet Jacques Callot's apparently impartial approach to life remains almost detached: nothing of the obsessive qualities of Goya's similar themes haunts his precisely detailed work. And here again the Romantic writer

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The Flowering of Romanticism: 1830-1838 searched the work of art for its illustrative features, to mirror his verbal imagery. Similar elaborations upon haunting Goyesque visions are found in Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris, of the same year as "Albertus." Does Quasimodo himself not appear to have stepped out of Goya's oeuvre? As a matter of fact, there seems to be a close pictorial pattern for the grotesquely deformed Quasimodo in the winged demon of the Capricho number 64, Buen Viage, which was known to Hugo and even quoted by him in a poem dated May 1830—the very time at which he was working on the manuscript of the novel. 44 Goya's demon, with his heavy cheekbones, receding jaws, bulbous, almost leprous nose, his mouth twisted into a screaming rictus, neckless and hunchbacked, indeed foreshadows Quasimodo, the "chimère vivante, accroupie, renfrognée," as he rings the bells of Notre-Dame—his "tête énorme, et un paquet de membres désordonnés, se balançant avec fureur au bout d'une corde." (See plate 53.) Again, the beggars' meeting place, the cour des miracles, presents as varied an assortment of repulsively ugly, grotesque human beings, swarming about in confusedly purposeful patterns, as any of Goya's etchings. And Hugo's description of the recluse. La Sachette, a dejected figure walled in forever in a narrow cell, huddled on the bare stone floor and wrapped in the large folds of a sack, is a literary transposition of Goya's portrayals of women prisoners abandoned to their lonely despair. In Capricho number 32 (Por que fue sensible) and, even more, in 34 (Las rinde el Sueño), a source for Hugo's description of his recluse is quite recognizable : La cellule était étroite, plus large que profonde, voûtée en ogive, et vue à l'intérieur ressemblait assez à l'alvéole d'une grande mitre d'évêque. Sur la dalle nue gui en formait le sol, dans un angle, une femme était assise ou plutôt accroupie. Son menton était appuyé sur ses genoux, que ses deux bras croisés serraient fortement contre sa poitrine. Ainsi ramassée sur elle-même, vêtue d'un sac brun qui l'enveloppait toute entière à larges plis, ses longs cheveux gris rabattus par devant tombant sur son visage le long de ses jambes jusqu'à ses pieds, elle ne présentait au premier aspect qu'une forme étrange. What had been a small overhead lantern in Goya (number 32) here becomes a tiny, forbidding, vent-like window, cutting her off from the outside world rather than allowing her to communicate with it. And now, Hugo, poet of violent contrasts, captures in his description the same quality of brusque, pitiless lighting as in the

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Ut pictura poesis Goya etchings : a ray of light pours through the small vent and harshly delineates two areas, one of deep shadows, the other of stark brightness. U p o n this harsh backdrop the figure of La Sachette profiles itself, a "half-real, half-fantastic vision" seen "découpée sur le f o n d ténébreux de la cellule, u n espèce de triangle noirâtre, que le rayon de jour venant de la lucarne tranchait crûment en deux nuances, l'une sombre, l'autre éclairée." 45 Inevitably, H u g o n o w recalls Goya's "sinister" specters of w o m e n : "C'était u n de ces spectres mi-partis d'ombre, comme on en voit

Francisco de Goya, Caprichos: Las rinde el Sueño, no. 34. Francisco de Goya, Caprichos: Por que fue sensible, no. 32 (on facing page).

The Flowering of Romanticism: 1 8 3 0 - 1 8 3 8 dans les rêves et dans l'oeuvre extraordinaire de Goya, pâles, immobiles, sinistres, accroupis sur une tombe ou adossés à la grille d'un cachot." Hugo had originally used the by then common qualification of "fantastique" for Goya's oeuvre, as a variant of the manuscript reveals; since the character Hugo was trying to evoke was not, however, of a fantastic nature, he changed his adjective to "extraordinaire." 4 6

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Ut pictura poesis

Victor Hugo, Autograph pages for Notre-Dame

de Paris.

Condemned by the neoclassics, fervently praised by the Romantics, the essentially Romantic characteristics of Spanish painting were recognized by all who spoke of it. Théophile Gautier, on-the-scene historian of the facts and ideas of his times, recalled many years later the fascination Spain had held for such writers as Victor Hugo, Musset, and Mérimée. Spanish poetry and drama were not alone in fixing new images: Spanish painting brought a precise pictorial reality to the more diffuse literary espagnolisme, and it even offered all the non-classic characteristics these writers sought in " t h e i r " Spain : Le silence s'était fait sur ce beau pays que l'école romantique remit à la mode par les Orientales de Victor Hugo, les Contes d'Alfred de Musset, le Théâtre de Clara Cazul et les Nouvelles de Mérimée. On étudia le romancero, les pièces de Calderón, et le mouvement des esprits passant bientôt de la poésie aux autres arts, on s'enquit de la peinture espagnole, dont quelques sérieux échantil-

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The Flowering oí Romanticism: 1 8 3 0 - 1 8 3 8 Ions épars dans les musées du reste de l'Europe, ou rapportés dans les fourgons de l'armée impériale, donnaient une haute idée, et surtout une idée analogue au sentiment de l'époque. Par une réaction bien concevable contre le goût pseudo-classique qui régnait alors en peinture comme en poésie, on s'était tourné vers le moyen âge, les cathédrales, les barons bardés de fer, les moines ensevelis dans leurs frocs et nul pays mieux que l'Espagne ne réalisait cet idéal chevaleresque et catholique. . . . L'Espagne est le pays romantique par excellence, aucune autre nation n'a moins emprunté à l'antiquité. . . . Les peintres de Séville n'ont guère d'autres maîtres que la nature; la plupart ignorent les statues et les fragments antiques, et leur robuste amour de la réalité, auquel se mêle le plus effréné idéalisme chrétien, leur constitue une originalité. 47 Indeed, is Spanish painting as a whole not the perfect pictorial confirmation of the manifesto of French Romantic theories, the Préface de Cromwell? There, Hugo resoundingly formulates the two essential principles of his school: total acceptance of nature with no attempt at idealization; and, the logical consequence, faithful representation of life, with its inherent dualism. Le grotesque et le sublime must co-exist in the work of art as they do in life—realism and idealism are no longer two opposite esthetic aims, but become an organic unity revealing of life itself. And, indeed, these are the most striking characteristics of all Spanish painting: nothing is too low, too ugly to be portrayed by the same brush—and even on the same canvas—with the most divine, the most beautiful subject. Hugo's "tout ce qui est dans la nature est dans l'art" is a leitmotif that runs throughout French Romantic writing : it has been noted above how strongly French critics reacted—both positively and negatively—to this very realism in Velázquez' true-to-life portraits. They again faced the principle of faithful, non-idealizing representation with Murillo, in whose work angels descend from heaven to busy themselves at the lowliest kitchen tasks, queens take care of diseased old men, and ragged beggarboys vie in appeal with princes of royal blood. Mérimée was among the first to see the "originality" of Murillo—his independence from the neoclassic principle of idealizing representation, and, in a contrary direction, his realistically faithful portrayal of "la nature qu'il avait sous les yeux." His models, after all, are deeply rooted in the very earth of Spain: "Il a cherché ses modèles dans la nature qu'il avait sous les yeux, et aucun peintre, je crois, n'est plus original et plus exempt de manière que l u i . . . . Il a peu idéalisé. A la première époque de

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U t pictura poesis

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Beggarboy.

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The Flowering of Romanticism: 1830-1838 son talent, il ne choisissait pas ses modèles pour la beauté; on disait même qu'il avait une prédilection pour les physionomies sauvages et farouches qui se rencontrent si fréquemment parmi les hommes du peuple dans le midi de l'Espagne." 48 In his Dictionary of Spanish Painters of 1833, widely reviewed in France, A. O'Neil was among the early commentators to apply Victor Hugo's terminology to Spanish painting, and thus to underscore the close relation between Spanish works of art and the new French literary theories. It was Murillo's wide range of subjects that occasioned O'Neil's remark that "he certainly exhibited by his powerful pencil varied characteristics from the low to the sublime."*9 One of the important manifestos of Romantic writing, Gautier's "Préface" to Mademoiselle de Maupin (1834), cited the neoclassic critics' negative reaction to Goya's work as a typical example of their lack of artistic perception. Their condemnation of the artist's violent contrasts was denounced by Gautier as a blind and prejudiced approach to artistic criticism: "Ni les grands traits à la Michel-Ange, ni les curiosités dignes de Callot, ni les effets d'ombre et de clair à la façon de Goya, rien n'a pu trouver grâce devant eux." 50 Viardot, too, in his Etudes sur l'Espagne of 1835, noticed that Spanish painting had given concrete visual expression to the Romantic principle of representing opposite extremes within a single work of art. He did not limit his remarks to vague or generalizing comments, but gave specific examples in his analysis of Spanish paintings. It was obviously in Murillo's work that he found the most striking illustrations of the close contact of the sublime and the ridiculous. In innumerable canvases of Murillo a celestial vision shares the spectator's attention with the most prosaic details of everyday life, and the extremes touch and complement each other. The best known illustrations, at the time, of this dual aspect were the Angels' Kitchen and the famous Saint Elizabeth Nursing the Sick, both brought to France by Soult, who kept the former until his death. The latter, exposed for two years to the Parisian public in the Musée Napoléon before it was given back to Spain, left a deep imprint on the French imagination. 51 In it Viardot, like many of his contemporaries, saw the perfect expression "avant la lettre" of the Romantic esthetics of opposing extremes : a young and beautiful woman, a saint, dresses with her delicate hands the running sores of a beggarboy plagued with ringworm. Contrast again is evident in the two groups portrayed : to one side young noblewomen, richly clothed and of regal posture,

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Ut pictura poesis who are at home in the columnated patio of a palace, to the other side are the poorest of the poor, in tattered rags, leaning on crutches and unable to stand, sick, scratching their vermin-infected skin. Viardot pointed out that even the linear composition of this painting is in absolute contradiction to the classic principle of harmonious equilibrium: it is organized along an oblique line, with the major grouping of characters pushed to almost a corner of the canvas—a composition often sought by French Romantic painters. 52 In 1836 an article by S.-C. in L'Artiste about Soult's gallery again underlined the kinship between Romantic esthetic theories and Murillo's oeuvre: the extremes of sublime and ridiculous are reached in the portrayal of divine beauty together with almost repulsive realism. This duality is most strikingly expressed in Murillo's Saint Elizabeth, where this critic sees an artistic combination of the essential "contradiction" in the painter's search for "des sujets qui le transportaient hors de la vie commune" together with those that reproduce "le spectacle du vice et de la misère." He finds that Murillo's "meilleurs ouvrages sont empruntés à ces deux sphères si opposées. Il y a plus, son chef-d'oeuvre est la réunion de ces deux genres extrêmes, je veux parler de Sainte Elisabeth de Hongrie . . . à l'Académie de Madrid." But he searches Murillo's oeuvre for more than mere pictorial transposition of Romantic theories. W h y had the French Romantics failed where Murillo had succeeded? To him the answer lies in the Spaniard's all-encompassing religious spirit; and his article is one of

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, The Angels' Kitchen.

The Flowering of Romanticism: 1830-1838 the few prior to the opening of the Musée espagnol in which any questioning analysis of the religious spirit of Spanish painting was attempted. Generalized considerations of this religious character were not uncommon; but almost never have I found comments occasioned by specific canvases, or reflections on the motivating religious feeling of any individual artist. This critic finds in Murillo's work the embodiment of the very nature of Christian art: in his humble love and deep respect for all things created, the Spanish painter embraces the most rejected of people and the most insignificant of things—and he does so not out of theoretical calculations, but out of the innermost convictions of the deeply religious artist. Permettez-moi ici une observation. L'école de M. Victor Hugo a fait consister la beauté de l'art dans le contraste du sublime et du grotesque, du vice et de la vertu, de la vérité et de l'erreur, pourquoi les oeuvres qui ont été la pratique des théories de cette école ont-elles avorté, ont-elles excité tant de dégoût pour la crudité, l'immoralité ou la difformité repoussante des scènes, des sujets, des personnages? C'est qu'elles n'avaient pas cette inspiration religieuse, morale, qui donne aux mendians, aux pouilleux, aux paralytiques, aux enfans prodigues de Murillo ce caractère qui les relève, les anoblit, les rend attachans, vous les fait aimer, au lieu de soulever cette répugnance invincible qui s'empare de l'homme à la vue de toute dégradation humaine. 53 Years later, Gautier too returned to the Saint Elizabeth to analyze once again the great attraction exerted by this painting on the French Romantics, who saw in it a pictorial expression of their own literary theories, justified by the very principles of Christian religion: "Avec la Sainte Elisabeth nous redescendons dans la réalité la plus triviale. Des anges nous descendons aux teigneux, mais l'art comme la charité chrétienne, ne se dégoûte de rien. Tout ce qu'il touche devient pur, noble, divin, et avec ce sujet rebutant Murillo a fait un chef-d'oeuvre." 54 Thus, on the eve of the opening of the Musée espagnol the Romantic group had already recognized the kinship of its own esthetics with that of the Spanish masters. In their canvases, the French had found a pictorial illustration, and therewith a sort of ultimate justification, of much of their own imagery and even some of their loudly proclaimed artistic theories. Will their momentous discovery of Louis Philippe's 446 Spanish paintings change this impression, or will it but amplify the by then generally accepted images and opinions?

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7

Response to the Musée espagnol

The literary espagnolisme of the 1830's found its pictorial confirmation in the 446 paintings of Louis Philippe's Musée espagnol: a profusion of articles and comments would flow throughout the decade of its existence, testifying to the momentous impact it had on French imagination. Some of these articles were of purely didactic or historical content; some combined "factual information with attempted value judgments; others regarded the canvases as a mirror reflecting the spirit of Spain; still others became a pretext for formulating their authors' and their groups' theories on general questions of esthetics. 1 Critics of all camps agreed on one point: it was now possible to recognize certain principles and, even more, a general spirit common to all the Spanish masters. From the most enthusiastic partisan of the Romantic school like Théophile Gautier to the most controlled neoclassic like Etienne Delécluze, all critics were sensitive to an overall unifying atmosphere that pervaded the exposition rooms. Understanding of the character and ideas of the Spanish, their history, and even their literary tradition through the Musée's canvases was a goal sought by critics like Benoist de Matougues and Baron Taylor. Matougues, in his important article in Le Lithographe, voiced this preoccupation: "L'étude des différentes écoles est d'une haute importance pour l'intelligence de l'histoire et des moeurs de chaque peuple. En étudiant un peu l'école de l'Espagne, on comprend de suite le caractère et les idées du peuple espagnol, ce peuple mystérieux, si peu compris de nos jours." 2 Taylor's comments on Goya, in his Voyage, should be recalled here. He sought in this master's work, as represented in the Musée and seen during his journeys through Spain, rather generalized national characteristics; moreover, he even recognized therein the moods of Spain's great literary tradition, recently discovered and fervently praised by the younger generation of French Romantics. This literarisation of a painter's work is again striking : in such comments the work of art disappears almost completely under the literary reminiscences or overtones that the writer tries to see and feel in it. "Aucun peintre n'a porté plus loin que Goya le caractère de l'individualité. Sa manière et son génie sont également excentriques . . . ce sont les moeurs de la Célestine, de Lazarille de Tormès et de

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Response to the Musée espagnol l'aventurier Buscón; c'est Cervantes. Cependant, il n'a pas du célèbre romancier d'Espagne, l'atticisme, la finesse et la grâce. C'est Cervantès triste, mélancolique et quelque fois furieux; c'est Cervantès sceptique, devenu Voltairien." 3 One might question the absence of "finesse et grâce" for which Taylor reproaches Goya (he seems not to know or to disregard all of Goya's early works), but his comment on Goya's lack of "atticisme" is certainly valid. What painter in Goya's time is more alien to the purity of the Greek tradition than this "génie sombre et fantasque"? Besides the general spirit of Spain that emanated from these paintings, the French found in them a pictorial expression of new values in subject matter, and even in execution, often coinciding with those claimed by the young Romantic school. Most of these canvases were characterized above all by truthful, lifelike portrayal and by a general lack of idealized representation; traits recognized earlier in individual works were now confirmed in innumerable paintings by great Spanish masters from all periods and of all tendencies. Re-creation of nature, portrayal without discrimination of all things existing, absence of a preconceived hierarchy of values : these were obviously among the common denominators of the Museum's canvases. Murillo's Virgins were women of Seville, Ribera's martyrs were cruelly and at times repulsively tortured old men, Zurbarán's saints were noble ladies or common women dressed in costumes typical of their regions and their times—none were transfigured into divine creatures, but they remained human beings, with their roots in the land. Neoclassic critics were surprised and shocked, for example, to find that Velazquez' portrait of an old man, which they commonly called a Vieux mendiant, presumed to represent no less than the Penitent Saint Peter, and that it was listed thus in the Museum's catalogue (number 284). 4 Again, an anonymous article in Le Charivari takes issue with Zurbarán, perhaps the "purest" of Spain's monastic painters, for his representation of women saints.

Zurbaran en prenait les modèles autour de lui. Cette méthode était excellente pour les moines; les couvents espagnols lui fournissaient tout ce qu'il pouvait désirer de mieux en fait de physionomies tristes, ascétiques, sévères. Quant aux saintes, comme il n'est pas probable qu'il eut ses entrées dans les couvents de femmes, il était bien forcé de choisir ses originaux au Prado, au théâtre, à l'amphithéâtre. C'est ce qui fait que les bienheureuses de Zurbaran ont un air si étrangement mondain; nous ne connaissons rien de plus agaçant et de moins évangelique que leurs tailles cambrées comme

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Ut pictura poesis

Francisco de Zurbarán, Saint with an Arrow (Saint Ursula or Saint Christine), in Journal des artistes. un arc tendu, leurs hanches démesurées, leurs bras qui se tordent, leurs yeux qui regardent derrière elles pour voir si personne ne les suit. Ce sont de franches espagnoles, très charmantes et très appétissantes; si elles habitaient réellement le paradis, nous croyons qui les bienheureux sont soumis à de plus rudes tentations que les hommes. . . . Zurbaran fait l'effet d'un fieffé libertin. 5 Earthy, lifelike qualities were found not only in the representation of the central figures of Spanish paintings, but even in the meanest details : saints, no longer clad in the conventional flowing robes, now wear the frocks of their orders, or the regional costumes of Spain; biblical shepherds bringing gifts to the Christ child are clad in rough and patched burlap and furry sheepskin vests and shod in peasants' alpargatas. On seeing these canvases, most critics reopened the dialogue on the very nature of art, actively and often violently debated during the 1830's. The comments of only a few representative critics from each of the two opposing schools, Neoclassic and Romantic, will be mentioned here.

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José de Ribera, Adoration of the

Shepherds.

Ut pictura poesis Delécluze, refined and atticizing in his taste as usual, took little pleasure in the Museum's paintings. He reproached them for not pursuing the expression of ideal beauty, as did the ancient Greek, early Italian, and even the old German schools, and he recognized but the "naturalist" qualities of truthful "imitation of nature" in them: "cette Ecole a toujours considéré l'imitation de la nature comme le but de l'art, contradictoirement aux principes des Ecoles de la Grèce antique, de la vieille Ecole allemande et de celle des Italiens, jusqu'au seizième siècle, où le développement du beau et de la pensée était la fin véritable de l'art, tandis que l'imitation n'était pour elle qu'un moyen." 6 While he found "une énergie et une vérité inconcevables" in Ribera's Struggle of Hercules with a Centaur,7 he deplored its lack of "elevation," and of taste : "C'est une imitation sans choix, sans goût," and he accused it of being "de la peinture matérielle." He again decried the base materialism of the same artist's Saint Mary of Egypt, a subject that, to him, might so well have lent itself to an idealized interpretation: " O n doit y critiquer l'appareil matériel d'un personnage, la Sainte-Marie, qui prêtait à faire quelque chose de si idéal et de si élevé." 8 When discussing Ribera's Saint Bartholomew, Delécluze begrudgingly and almost accusingly agreed that "il est difficile que l'imitation de la nature soit portée plus loin." 9 And though he admitted to a certain "distinction" in Velázquez' work, he objected to an utter absence of "noblesse" in this master's portraits and religious paintings. Delécluze was but one of many critics to point out these anticlassic aspects of the esthetics of Spanish painting. His complaints were echoed, for instance, by the Moniteur's objections to the lack of idealization in most Spanish works.10 In Alonso Cano's Ass of Balaam,11 the Moniteur's critic F. P. admitted to seeing undeniable pictorial qualities, but he found fault with the earthy, nonspiritualized rendering of the model—particularly since it was transfigured into an angel on the canvas : "Peut-être l'ange qui s'oppose au passage de Balaam est-il d'une nature un peu trop corporelle pour un esprit céleste que le prophète ne doit pas voir. Celui-ci même pourrait être d'une corpulence moins triviale." For this critic, too, the impression of total realism that was borne out by most of the canvases of the Musée confirmed the non-idealizing esthetics of the Spanish masters : "Les peintres espagnols, à peu d'exceptions près, ne cherchent point le beau idéal." 12 Mirror perfect reproduction of the material aspects of things is what all critics of neoclassic leaning sought, and found, in the Spanish canvases. It is quite revealing that, when faced with what they termed Spanish "naturalism," they themselves rephrased and reaffirmed their own esthetic theories on idealized representation.

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Response to the Musée espagnol On the other side, the Romantics enthusiastically discovered confirmation of their own esthetic theories in these qualities of realism. Léon Gozlan, fervent partisan of the Romantic movement, enlarged upon this artistic question du jour of the validity of idealized representation in two lengthy, searching articles on the Musée espagnol, published in the Revue de Paris. "L'idéal nous semble de la famille du fantastique. Comme il échappe à la ressemblance exacte avec les choses de la terre, il ne relève pas, à la rigueur, du jugement des hommes." He concluded that artistic creation is a personal expression of the artist's concepts, of his "ideal," and therefore any application of preconceived norms, any José de Ribera, Saint Mary Magdalen of Egypt.

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Ut pictura poesis moral terminology, becomes meaningless: "l'idéal est ni bien, ni mal; il est l'idéal." He also answered the neoclassics' objection to what they termed lack of discrimination in the Spanish paintings : how could any work of art be created without conscious selection on the part of its creator? Is not even integral reproduction a result of the artist's calculated decision? He concludes with Vigny that "L'art est la vérité choisie." Indeed, though he does not aim at an ideal representation, the Spanish master does not uncritically mirror whatever he sees; the element of choice is as important for him as for the most pure neoclassic. Thus Gozlan penetratingly analyzed the very nature of Spanish art: the portrayal of actual reality is as beautiful and desirable, and above all as valid artistically, as the pursuit of an inaccessible Platonic beauty. In Spanish painting he found "la recherche continue du beau à travers ses types réels, l'excellence d'une certaine élévation dans la coupe d'un visage, dans la dignité de la physionomie, dans la majesté ou la simplicité des poses, et dans la beauté des draperies." His conclusion on the nature of Spanish art is as perfect a phrasing of Romantic principles as any of Victor Hugo's more resounding statements on the sublime and the ridiculous, and a more modestly restrained one at that: "Le beau n'est pas seulement avec ce qui n'est pas vrai, contrairement aux traditions de quelques écoles italiennes; il s'allie quelquefois à ce qui est vrai." 13 Even before the full revelation of the treasures of the Spanish Museum, the kinship between the principles of the Spanish schools of painting and those of the French Romantic writers and painters had been observed by isolated critics, as noted earlier. But now, on actually seeing the Spanish paintings at the museum, everyone— neoclassics, Romantics, and "neutrals" alike—concurred in recognizing the essentially "Romantic" spirit of Spanish art. Even the Moniteur's critic, on the whole quite unfavorable toward the Romantic school, could not but admire what he considered the typically Romantic qualities of Zurbarán's Saint François avec les stigmates:14 "Ce dernier tableau, dont la composition est romantique, en ce sens qu'elle présente un mystérieux effet de clairobscur, et qu'elle dispose l'âme à la méditation, me p a r a î t . . . un des chefs-d'oeuvre de l'école espagnole."15 Not only in general principles and in the formulation of esthetics did this showing of Spanish paintings reaffirm values that had been under constant discussion in France throughout the past decade: the very execution of the paintings, too, confirmed these principles. The facture of almost all of them was in open and, to many critics, shocking contradiction to the Académie's established

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Response to the Musée espagnol rules. The intellectually controlled palette of David and his school and their approach to painting—sculptural and of painstaking design—had nothing in common with the technique, coloring, violent movement, or emotional impact of many of the Spanish paintings.16 Even the most casual visitor to the Museum was impressed by what seemed at first a dark and rather gloomy color scale, accentuated by strong highlights in many paintings ; an unfavorable and insufficient ceiling lighting enhanced this general impression, which was denounced by all critics. But it was precisely in this unconventional color scheme that the artists found fresh inspiration and justification for their rebellion against academic principles. Gautier, in his retrospective article of 1850 on the Museum, recalls the young painters' enthusiasm at discovering these canvases : "Le bitume, d'ailleurs, était à la mode en haine des tons fades et roses dont avait abusé l'école précédente; et tout cela ne manquait pas d'une certaine sauvagerie d'aspect et d'une férocité d'exécution assez ragoûtante. Les jeunes peintres se précipitèrent en foule à la nouvelle galerie et copièrent à qui mieux mieux, les plus barbares et les plus carbonisés de ces tableaux." 17 Like Gautier's avant-garde young painters, his jeunes rapine, all partisans of the Romantic school noted with admiration the heralding of their own new principles of coloring in these paintings of long established fame. Henri Blaze, art critic of the Revue des deux mondes and a man favorable to the Romantic movement, commented enthusiastically on the vitality and strength of the Spanish paintings, largely because of their often unorthodox use of color.18 The neoclassics were also struck by this color scheme; but what had appealed to the Romantics as a capturing of life in its motion and reality they condemned for conveying a gloomily depressing atmosphere. The Moniteur's conservative critic only found fault with the very techniques that had been praised by the Romantics. He objected not only to the Spaniards' handling of chiaroscuros but also to their overuse of blacks: "La plupart des tableaux dont se compose la galerie sont eux-mêmes d'un ton un peu noir, en raison des grandes masses d'ombre dont les peintres espagnols font un usage presque abusif." 19 Ribera, apparently this critic's bête noire, was denounced at every instance and more than any other master for his bleak coloring and his use of easily obtained chiaroscuro effects. Even his Assumption of the Virgin,20 of generally light and, by its very nature, more joyous coloring, "sujet aérien s'il en fût," was criticized: "Les carnations . . . sont d'un ton lacqueux ou vineux." Zurbarán found approval as "un grand peintre d'histoire"—rather

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Ut pictura poesis surprisingly in view of the exceedingly small proportion of what might be considered historical paintings in his oeuvre. But the Moniteur's critic voices regret that even this master, whom he likes, could not escape the influence of the color scale typical of all Spanish painting: "sans doute il n'a pu s'affranchir entièrement du goût que ses concitoyens ont toujours eu pour la peinture lugubre et fantasmagorique." 21 Delécluze, perhaps the most acutely intelligent critic in the neoclassics' camp, was, like all others of his group, struck by "une impression qui n'est pas toujours favorable . . . à observer avec attention ces peintures où l'intensité des ombres est ordinairement poussée à l'extrême." He too saw in the exaggeratedly dark coloring of the Spanish paintings the major cause of their "monotonous and gloomy" impact. "L'intensité exagérée des ombres et des fonds est encore un caractère sensible de leur manière de peindre, en sorte qu'il en somme y règne, sur toutes ces premières productions de l'Ecole espagnole une teinte de monotonie et de tristesse." 22 Parisian critics, accustomed to their city's gentle and diffused light, to its more northern sun that buffs outlines and subdues shapes, were quite unaware of the great element of realism in the stark lighting of the Spanish canvases—typical, indeed, of a country where the southern sun creates brusque shocks of light and shade, clearly delineates outlines, and enhances contrasts. Most French critics had little or no firsthand acquaintance with Spain, and thus they judged even the color scheme of paintings after their own climate. Once again the preconceived notion of a romanticized Spain prevailed in the critics' imagination: the shock of extremes, in execution here as much as in subject matter, only confirmed the already fixed image of the country. Besides their common spirit and common execution, the Spanish paintings were characterized by a virtually common subject matter. As noted earlier, most of the 446 paintings were of religious inspiration; to the French public and critics, Spanish painting became synonymous with religious painting. General statements about this predominant religious character had been made prior to the Spanish Museum, but the actual paintings available to substantiate this impression had been few and isolated. It is true that Murillo's work, largely religious, had been well known in France before the Museum; but for the French critics his name almost automatically evoked an image of the Spanish woman as seen in his Virgins, while they were not particularly touched by the gently reassuring religious feeling that emanates from the same canvases. The Museum's overwhelming proportion of paintings

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Response to the Musée espagnol devoted ad majorem Dei gloriam confirmed the previously unsubstantiated impression: some compositions recorded biblical events or retold happenings of the legenda aurea, and others portrayed the Holy Trinity, Christ, the Virgin, saints and martyrs, monks and nuns. These canvases collectively formed an allembracing image of Spain's religion, with the gentle and smiling protectiveness of its Virgins, the mystic fervor of its monks, and even the unrelenting fanaticism of the Inquisition. "Ces rares chefsd'oeuvre, qui nous avaient frappés dans leur isolement, bien loin de n'être autre chose que le jet d'une fantaisie indépendante et capricieuse, puisent tous leur loi d'existence dans une unité profonde et catholique." 23 The showing of these paintings occurred at a time when the French public was most susceptible to the evocative power of their religious subjects. Since the beginning of the century a Catholic renaissance had gained strength and spread widely through France, and in the 1830's this movement showed a marked renewal. To mention but a few notable dates : Félicité de Lamennais's Paroles d'un croyant was published in 1834, Henri Lacordaire was named to the pulpit of Notre-Dame of Paris in 1835, Charles René F. Montalembert's Histoire de Sainte Elisabeth de Hongrie (the same saint as Murillo's) was published in 1836, and A. Frédéric Ozanam's important Dante et la philosophie catholique au XIIIe siècle appeared in 1839. But it was not the theological or even the spiritual and abstract aspects of Catholicism that attracted Romantic interest toward the religion of Spain. Romantic sensibility was moved by the mystic absorption, and, still more, Romantic imagination was kindled by the picturesque and dramatic aspects of Spanish Catholicism—not only the unrelenting violence of its Inquisition but also the absolute, severe fervor of its saints and martyrs. No written word had ever evoked these aspects of Spanish Catholicism with more oppressive strength and more haunting immediacy than the Museum's canvases : "C'était comme un rêve plein d'effrayant mystère, d'extases farouches, de noirceurs pieuses et d'éclairs fulgurants. Cela sentait le cloître et l'Inquisition." 24 In the Spanish artist the French found not only the painter dutifully perfecting a commissioned canvas, but the man profoundly engaged by his own beliefs in the work of art which was also an act of faith. An article in the Magasin pittoresque, for instance, tells admiringly how Juan de Juanes not only refused to paint anything but religious subjects, but prepared himself for painting by first taking Communion. 25 Huard, in the Journal des artistes, also pointed out the emotional impact of the deep religious feeling of Spanish painting : no longer

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Ut pictura poesis would the critic's artistic judgment or even the dilettante's taste determine the canons for appreciation of a work of art, but in order truly to appreciate this school of painting the onlooker must become personally involved, through his own religious feelings, in a total experience : "L'homme mondain, l'artiste poétique préféreront l'école italienne, l'artiste croyant admirera davantage l'école espagnole." 26 The anticlericals, still in the spirit of Voltaire, were eager to blame the intolerance of an ignorant clergy for having imposed a range of exclusively religious subjects upon the Spanish masters: Quant au reproche fait aux artistes castillans, de n'avoir point puisé dans l'histoire, d'avoir dédaigné les riantes fictions de la mythologie pour ne s'attacher qu'à reproduire une fatigante uniformité de sujets religieux, il leur fallut bien subir les nécessités de l'époque. Au milieu d'une population ignorante qui ne pouvait ni apprécier ni encourager les arts, l'imagination du poète, les pinceaux et le ciseau des artistes étaient enchaînés par l'intolérance d'un clergé ombrageux, seul juge des talens, seul dispensateur des récompenses. Les sujets religieux puisés dans la Bible et dans l'Evangile, ont été, pour la plupart des peintres, une source féconde des plus belles inspirations; mais malheureusement il leur fallut céder aux idées mystiques de quelques moines ignorane et superstitieux qui les jetèrent dans toutes les puérilités des anciennes légendes. 27 Benoist de Matougues, in Le Lithographe's long and detailed (though at times rather confused) article on the Spanish Museum, found in its religious paintings more historical and descriptive information than purely artistic value. The author grouped and numbered the paintings by subject regardless of artist, period, or regional school—strange procedure in an article of art criticism. So Matougues enumerates seven each of Birth of Christ and St. John the Baptist, five each of Ecce homo and St. Jerome, four each of the Last Supper, Adoration of the Magi, Holy Family, and the Immaculate Conception, and so on: the work of art has lost all individual and esthetic value in its conversion into an exclusive means of categorizing the religious spirit of its country. After praising the "services rendus aux arts" by Catholicism in inspiring the masters of the Spanish school, Matougues spends the better part of his article in analyzing and denouncing the survival of Voltaire's myth of a " b l a c k " Spain; and yet he does nothing to rectify it: "Mais malheureusement l'Espagne a une réputation d'ignorance et de moinerie à faire reculer les plus intrépides. Cette affreuse réputation, à qui la doit-elle? à l'école voltairienne. Le maître un

200

R e s p o n s e to the M u s é e e s p a g n o l

Francisco de Zurbarán, Martyrs

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Saint

Serapio.

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Ut pictura poesis jour maudit l'Espagne qui s'obstinait à être moinesse et ignorante, et alors tout fut dit." 2 8 It is true that paintings like Ribera's Saint Bartholomew about to be Martyred or even Zurbarán's series of the martyrs of the Indies 29 did little to change the image of ferocious violence in Spanish Catholicism. Byron, the idol of French Romantic poets, had been struck by the violence of Ribera's paintings, and Henri Blaze in the influential Revue des deux mondes admiringly translated these lines from Don Juan: . . . the stories O f martyrs awed, as Spagnoletto tainted His brush with all the blood of all the Sainted. 3 0 Most Romantic commentators on the Museum's paintings revelled with Blaze in what Gautier called these "remarquables barbaries." Not without tongue in cheek did Gautier suggest that " u n bourreau amateur . . . pourrait vraiment se monter une fort belle galerie dans le Musée espagnol." 3 1

José de Ribera, Saint Bartholomew

202

About To Be

Martyred.

Response to the Musée espagnol That the more traditionalist critics were rather perturbed by these canvases could only have been expected. F.P. in the Moniteur, f o r instance, w a s anxious about the influence of such w o r k s upon public morality, and even upon the health of pregnant women and their unborn infants : a Dutch woman, a M a d a m e D u f e l , w a s said to have given birth to a monstrously deformed child soon after seeing Ribera's tortured creatures. F.P. chides the painter, " q u i s'est attaché à peindre si exactement et avec une si cruelle patience de pareilles horreurs." 3 2 This impression of raw violence and even ferocity that so struck the Parisian critics reveals again their forced, romanticized interpretation of the spirit of the Spanish canvases.

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Ut pictura poesis Well before the Musée espagnol, Mérimée, in his Ames du Purgatoire (1834), had attributed to Morales a canvas that, in its graphic description of the tortures endured by the souls in Purgatory, omitted none of the blood-curdling details of some of the Museum's Riberas: "Surtout il ne pouvait détacher ses yeux d'un homme dont un serpent paraissait ronger les entrailles pendant qu'il était suspendu au-dessus d'un brasier ardent au moyen d'hameçons de fer qui l'accrochaient par les côtes." 3 3 The same image of the violence of Spanish catholicism would still be quite evident in Gauthier's España. Even this writer, who was so sensitive to all things Spanish, still saw Spain through images he had already formed when he undertook his journey " T r a los montes" in 1840. He, too, like Mérimée or the Museum's visitors, sought in Spanish painting the illustration of a somber,

José de Ribera, Struggle of Hercules with the Centaur

Nessus.

Response to the Musée espagnol austere, and violent religion, to the exclusion of all its other aspects. An unusually large number of poems in España are directly inspired by works of the Spanish masters, each characterized by the apreté feroce of its religious feeling. In "Deux Tableaux de Valdès Léal" Gautier is deeply stirred by his master's realistic portrayal of the vanity of all human life, implacably and even repulsively destroyed by death; in "Madrid" and "Sainte Casilda" he evokes the cruel realism of Spanish painters' portrayal of mutilated martyrs, "Les Affres de la mort" and " A Zurbaran" bring alive the concept of monks as the living dead; in "Ribeira" and "Le Prométhée du Musée de Madrid" Gautier is once more impressed by "le triste amour du laid" of the "cruel Ribeira"; his "sujets sombres et violents" are now described by the poet in terms almost identical to those used by the art critics of the Musée: Comme un autre le beau, tu cherches ce qui choque : Les martyrs, les bourreaux, les gitanos, les gueux, Étalant un ulcère à côté d'une loque; Et tu sais revêtir d'une étrange beauté Ces trois monstres abjects,- effroi de l'art antique, La Douleur, la Misère et la Caducité. 34 Gautier's visit to Spain and his direct personal experience of this country did not change his image of her true spirit, but only confirmed it. However, its passionate abnegation was not the only aspect of Spanish Catholicism that French Romantics found illustrated on the Museum's canvases. The faith that had made saints and martyrs had also provided an almost symbolic figure : the monk, quietly engulfed in his mystic contemplation, portrayed to perfection in Zurbarán's work. His Franciscan monks left a deeper impression on all who saw the exhibition than any of Ribera's tortured martyrs, Murillo's serene Virgins, or the subjects of other canvases. The Spanish monk had played an important role in French imagination, as the target of ironic and even violently polemic attack from one side and admiring respect from the other. His somberly picturesque figure appeared in innumerable literary works of the early nineteenth century : Lewis's Ambrosio found his French counterpart in Mérimée's grotesquely zealous Fray Antonio, Fray Rafael, and Fray Domingo of La Femme est un diable; in Victor Hugo's sinister Claude Frollo; or in Balzac's Abbé Herrera—to mention but a few of the Spanish monks in French Romantic writings. The

205

Francisco de Zurbarán, Saint

Francis.

Response to the Musée espagnol contemporary French traveler to the Peninsula naturally sought there a reflection of his own image of the Spanish monk, patterned after Murillo's and Zurbarán's monastic paintings. Antoine Fontaney, for instance, on visiting the Escorial in 1831, was struck by the ascetic qualities of its inhabitants. One monk in particular impressed him, "un homme d'environ trente ans, plein de cette santé maladive, de cette force réprimée qui prêtent un si saisissant caractère à l'apparence de certains moines; une de ces belles têtes de cloître telles que se plaisent à les peindre Zurbaran et Murillo, à l'oeil pieux et ardent, au visage chaudement pâle, au vaste front élargi encore par les tempes rasées, et ressortant plus expressif sous une épaisse couronne de cheveux noirs." 35 Zurbarán's work confirmed a precise literary image of the absolute, sometimes fierce, often mystic character of Spanish Catholicism as seen through its legendary figure, the monk. Though the range of his work was well represented with eighty-two paintings of various subjects—the most important one-man show of the Museum—critics and the public were most impressed by the solitary figure of his Franciscan monk, praying, in ecstasy, stigmatized, or (as in the famous Moine en prière, listed as number 346 3 6 ) lost in meditation over a skull. Every criticism of the Museum, favorable or unfavorable, singled out this monk in Zurbarán's work and ignored almost all his other paintings. Delécluze, for instance, sees a summary of all of Zurbarán's paintings in the figure of this monk: Le nombre de ses tableaux est considérable au Louvre, et il serait difficile de les énumérer. Outre une Annonciation, L'Adoration des bergers, La Circoncision et d'autres morceaux capitaux il y a de lui une collection de saints et de saintes dont on aurait sans doute pu restreindre le nombre; car, toutes ces figures, dont chacune a son mérite, sont résumées en quelque sorte dans la personne d'un saint François à genoux et en extase, dont l'expression, l'effet et le coloris forment un ensemble admirable. Cette composition vraie, touchante et énergique est l'ouvrage de Zurbaran qui, avec raison, attire le plus l'attention des artistes et du public. 37 This monk kneels, completely enveloped by his torn and patched frock, clutching a skull in his clasped hands, his face almost completely hidden by his hood. But he no longer contemplates the memento mori in his hands; his eyes are directed upward, toward his God. For him the exterior world has ceased to exist. Zurbarán enhances this impression by the very coloring of the painting, a

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Ut pictura poesis range of dark browns and grays in which only the monk's hands, crossed in prayer, are highlighted by the single beam of light on the canvas ; nor does the neutral grayish-brown background of the painting distract from the subject's mystic absorption. This monk who has reached "les limites de la pauvreté monacale et du dénuement catholique," is oblivious to all worldly happenings, and, engulfed in mystic contemplation, he has found communion with his God. Gautier, in his La Presse feuilleton, was among the first to phrase what had been everyone's impression on seeing this haunting canvas: Son pinceau se plaît à rendre ces fronts dépouillés plus polis et plus luisans que l'ivoire du crâne des morts, ces yeux meurtris aux paupières bleuâtres, profondément enfoncés dans les cavernes de leurs orbites, qui, éteints pour la terre, n'ont plus de flamme que pour les cieux, et ne s'ouvrent qu'aux visions mystiques; ces bouches violettes que le jeûne et la fièvre ont écaillé de pellicules lamelleuses, et dont l'hiatus livide ressemble plutôt à la blessure béante du flanc du Christ qu'à des lèvres humaines faites pour la parole et le baiser; ces pommettes aux méplats savans, anatomisées par la maigreur, et d'où les couleurs de la vie ont disparu depuis long-temps; ces mains éternellement jointes, comme celles des statues couchées sur les tombeaux gothiques; cette chair maladive et plombée, qui n'a besoin que d'une teinte de plus pour tourner au cadavéreux, et qui donne au froc qui l'avoisine d'inquiétantes apparences de linceul: toute cette poésie sinistre du renoncement, de la mortification et de l'anéantissement, que personne n'a comprise à un si haut degré que lui. Il y a surtout un tableau de moine en prière qui est d'un effet saisissant; le moine est à genoux, la tête renversée en arrière par un spasme extatique ; son capuchon a glissé sur ses yeux et lui cache la moitié de la figure, mais l'épaisseur de la grossière étoffe ne lui dérobe pas la vue du ciel; sa bouche entrouverte et la tension de son cou indiquent une ardeur et une foi singulières. Je ne connais rien de plus ascétique et de plus profondément chrétien. 38 This monk is, indeed, far from an evocation of the reassuring, idealized aspects of a serene Catholicism; he brings perturbingly close this religion's concrete, human elements in that he is not a detached saint, but a mere man in a difficult struggle to overcome his human limits, a man reaching toward God in anguished search for religious communion. Blaze saw in the characteristic lack of idealization of Spanish painting the reason for the obsessive strength of the monk:

208

Francisco de Zurbarán, Saint

Francis.

Ut pictura poesis Pour faire d'une femme de sang et de chair, qui pose devant vous, la mère du fils de Dieu, il faut idéaliser, quoi que l'on puisse en dire. Or, il n'en est plus de même lorsqu'il s'agit de reproduire des têtes sur lesquelles les pratiques austères de la règle et l'habitude de l'extase ont gravé une expression qui n'est déjà plus celle de la vie humaine. En ces temps admirables de la peinture et de la poésie, le dogme catholique enserrait toutes choses, la nature se travaillait elle-même pour l'art. The poetry "of cold and silent cloisters" that haunted the generation of French poets from Nodier through Vigny, Lamartine, and Hugo was finally given pictorial expression in Zurbarán's monks, who bring close, in Gautier's words, "toute cette poésie sinistre du renoncement, de la mortification et de l'anéantissement, que personne n'a comprise à un si haut degré que lui." Blaze expressed the same rapture over Zurbarán's translation of this poésie du cloître in almost the same terms : Zurbaran affectionne les sujets empruntés à la vie des cloîtres; mais non point à cette vie rose, épanouie, et telle qu'il est convenu de la reproduire depuis Voltaire. Zurbaran est le peintre de la règle inexorable et de la pénitence; nul ne sait mieux que lui les mystères de ces âmes désolées par l'excès da la foi; nul ne sait mieux que lui vêtir d'un suaire claustral ces corps épuisés par le jeûne et la prière, et rendre avec une plus effrayante vérité ces orbites qui se creusent, ces tempes livides, ces maims décharnées, et ces pauvres pieds qui se sont usés à fouler un sol pétri de larmes et d'ossemens. He too saw all these traits incarnated by the now famous monk: "Il faut voir ce moine recueilli qui tient entre ses mains une tête de mort, et semble l'interroger, non pas comme Hamlet, le sourire sur les lèvres, mais avec une gravité solennelle, et comme pour s'inspirer quelque salutaire terreur." 39 For many years the French perceived the Spanish monk through Zurbarán's interpretation of him. Even after his journey to Spain Gautier saw this figure through the familiar canvases of the Spanish Museum rather than through his own direct observation, as is shown by his poem " A Zurbaran," in España. Almost all details of his previous article on the Museum are found again in this poetic evocation of the monk, such as "l'ivoire du crâne des morts," or "ces yeux meurtris . . . qui, éteints pour la terre, n'ont plus de flamme que pour les deux, et ne s'ouvrent qu'aux visions mystiques," or again "cette chaire maladive et plombée, qui n'a besoin que d'une teinte de plus pour tourner au cadavéreux, et qui

210

Response to the Musée espagnol donne au froc qui l'avoisine d'inquiétantes apparences de linceul" and others : Cette tête de mort entre vos doigts jaunie, Pour ne plus en sortir qu'elle rentre au charnier, Tes moines, Lesueur, près de ceux-là sont fades. Zurbaran de Séville a mieux rendu que toi Leurs yeux plombés d'extase, et leurs têtes malades, Le vertige divin, l'enivrement de foi Qui les fait rayonner d'une clarté fiévreuse, Et leur aspect étrange, à vous donner l'effroi. Comme son dur pinceau les laboure et les creuse ! Aux pleurs du repentir comme il ouvre des lits Dans les rides sans fond de leur face terreuse! Comme du froc sinistre il allonge les plis; Comme il sait lui donner les pâleurs du suaire, Si bien que l'on dirait des morts ensevelis ! Deux teintes seulement, clair livide, ombre noire; Deux poses, l'une droite et l'autre à deux genoux, A l'artiste ont suffi pour peindre votre histoire.40 It is interesting to note that the serene and even reassuring aspects of Zurbarán's Christianity, expressed in his many portrayals of calm and peacefully contented Dominicans, were recognized only by non-Romantic critics, such as Matougues in Le Lithographe: "Zurbaran est le peintre de l'âme, mais de l'âme calme, tranquille et pure; il semble s'être consacré particulièrement aux religieux. Ces figures méthodiques, ce regard simple, ce front grave, mais ouvert, tout cela annonce une tranquillité habituelle de conscience, une sorte de repos moral qui fait plaisir." 41 Yet French Romantics apparently sought in Spanish painting not a representation of Catholicism as "une sorte de repos moral qui fait plaisir," but a mere confirmation of their own predetermined image of the Spanish monk and his anguished religion. With the advent of the Musée espagnol, new and concrete contributions were made to the Spanish imagery of the French. The monk, along with the many other archetypes found earlier in the works of the Spanish masters, had now assumed pictorial form; but he was more than the mere abstract personification of Spain's

211

Ut pictura poesis religion—absolute, mystic, and at times still fanatic—pictured by all French Romantics, artists, writers, and the public at large. Moreover, the very principles of French Romanticism were reaffirmed by the Museum's Spanish paintings : the same esthetic approach characterizes the Spanish work of art and the French written page. The lowliest, most shockingly earthy subject had gained admission to the realm of art with the same title as the most idealized beauty. Isolated and relatively unimportant remarks had pointed out this parallelism of theory and practice before 1838, but now these principles were widely discussed by almost all who saw the momentous exhibition, and were undisputably confirmed by the paintings themselves. With Louis Philippe's Museum, Spanish painting finally and fully came into its own in France—in less than three decades from the time of the Napoleonic campaigns. By the 1830's the names of the Spanish masters had become bywords among artists, writers, critics, and Frenchmen with even the faintest interest in the arts. It is revealing, though, that during this period the influence of Spanish canvases exerted itself mostly upon French literary imagination and esthetics : examination of the works of French painters of the 1820's and 1830's and of the livrets of the Salons show little evidence of immediate influence. In addition, after the Museum's opening the critics of painting became more sensitive to the transcendental values of the work of art: Baudelaire's penetrating essay on Goya in his Curiosités esthétiques opened a new era, in which a painting was no longer considered for its superficial, anecdotic values, but for its inherent beauty that transcends time and space. Thenceforth the impact of Spanish painting on French artists and writers was deep and lasting. From Gautier, Baudelaire, Flaubert, Zola (who was portrayed by his friend Manet seated in front of Velázquez' Borrachos), the Goncourt brothers, Huysmans, and Barrés, to Malraux in our days, all have found a rich and inexhaustible source of inspiration and kinship of vision in the works of the Spanish masters.

212

Appendices Bibliography Notes Index

Appendices

A

Spanish Paintings Listed in the Official Catalogues of the Musée du Louvre

Β

Spanish Paintings Listed in Private French Collections

C

Movement of Art Works during the Napoleonic Period

I do not, in any of the catalogues reproduced here, intend a critical evaluation : this is a mere inventory of Spanish, or supposedly Spanish, w o r k s on the nineteenth-century Parisian art scene. Because the focus of this study is on the history of ideas rather than on iconography, it is more important to know w h a t these paintings were believed to have been than what they actually were. Some descriptive titles have been shortened in these appendices.

215

Appendix A

Spanish Paintings Listed in the Official Catalogues of the Musée du Louvre Catalogue of 1810 Catalogues of 1814 Catalogue of 1816 Catalogue of 1836 Catalogue of 1838 "Le Musée espagnol" Collection of F. H. Standish 1810 Notice des tableaux exposés dans la galerie Napoléon. Paris: P.-L. Dubray, 1810. [All Spanish paintings are listed under the Italian schools in this and subsequent catalogues.] Espagnolet (Guiseppe Ribera, dit I'). 930 L'adoration des bergers. 931 La mère de douleur. Murillo (don Bartholome Esteban), Ecole espagnole. 1055 Le Père Eternel et l'Esprit-Saint contemplent l'enfant Jésus, qui, assis sur les genoux de la Vierge, reçoit une croix de jonc que lui présente saint Jean, accompagné de Sainte Elisabeth.

1056 Jésus assis sur les genoux de sa mère joue avec un chapelet. 1057 Sur la Montagne des Oliviers, un ange présente à Jésus le calice et la croix. . . . 1058 Saint Pierre . . . demande pardon à Jésus flagellé attaché à la colonne. 1059 Un jeune mendiant. Velasquez, de Silva (don Diego), Ecole espagnole. 1213 La famille de Velasquez.

1814 Notice des tableaux exposés dans la galerie Napoléon. Paris: P.-L. Dubray, 1814. [The only Spanish items listed are those of the catalogue of 1810.] 1814 Notice des tableaux des écoles primitives de l'Italie, de l'Allemagne et de plusieurs autres tableaux de différentes écoles, exposés dans le grand Salon du Musée Royal, ouvert le 25 juillet,

217

Appendix A 1814. Paris: P.-L. Dubray, 1814. [Many items of this special exhibition seem to have been among the art treasures taken from Italy and Spain during the Napoleonic campaigns: see nos. 82-85.] Carreno (don Juan), peintre espagnol. 30 Madeleine.

82 83

Caxes (Eugenio), peintre espagnol. 34 Saint Joachim. Collantes (Francisco), peintre espagnol. 36 Ezechiel. 37 Paysage. 38 Le Buisson ardent.

84

85

Espagnolet (Giuseppe di Ribera, surnommé Γ), peintre espagnol. 49 Madeleine Ventura d'Acumoli.

Murillo (Don Bartholomé Estevan), peintre espagnol. L'adoration des Bergers.. . . Apparition de la Vierge et de l'Enfant Jésus de Jean Patrice et son épouse de Rome, leur ordonnant de construire une église sur le mont Esquilin. . . . Le Pape libéré, entouré, de membres du clergé et du peuple, trace le plan d'un édifice. . . . Les occupations charitables de sainte Elisabeth.

Pereda (don Antonio), peintre espagnol. 90 Le néant des vanités humaines.

Morales (Christoforo Peres), peintre espagnol. 78 Jésus-Christ.

Zurbaran (Francesco), peintre espagnol. 114 Apothéose de saint Thomas d'Aquin. 115 L'adoration des Rois. 116 La Circoncision.

Muños (don Sébastien), peintre espagnol. 80 Le Martyre de saint Sébastien. Mudo (Juan Fernandez Ximenes de Navarrete, surnommé el,) peintre espagnol. 81 La Décollation de saint Jacques.

1816 Notice des tableaux és dans la galerie du Musée Paris : Hérissant-Le Doux, 1816. Collantes (Francesco), Ecole espagnole. 813 Le Buisson ardent.

Royal.

Espagnolet (Josef ou Jusepe de Ribera, dit 1'), Ecole espagnole. 849 L'adoration des Bergers.

964 Le Père Eternel et l'Esprit-Saint contemplant l'Enfant Jésus. 965 Jésus sur la montagne des oliviers. 966 Saint-Pierre et le Christ à la colonne. 967 Un jeune mendiant.

Murillo (Don Bartholomé Esteban), E cole espagnole. 963 Jésus assis sur les genoux de sa Mère joue avec un chapelet.

Velasquez, de Silva (Don Diego), Ecole espagnole. 1101 Portrait de l'Infante Marguerite Thérèse.

218

Paintings in the Louvre 1836 Notice des tableaux Vinchon, 1836. Collantes (Francesco), espagnole.) 952 Le buisson ardent.

exposés dans le Musée

(Ecole

Espagnolet (Josef ou Jusepe de Ribera, dit L'), (Ecole espagnole.) 997 L'adoration des bergers Esteban, voir Murillo.

Royal.

Paris:

1125 La Vierge au Chapelet. 1126 Le Père Eternel et l'Esprit-Saint contemplent l'Enfant-Jésus. 1127 Jésus sur la montagne des oliviers. 1128 Le Christ à la Colonne. 1129 Un saint personnage inspiré du ciel. 1130 Un jeune mendiant assis.

Morales 1123 Jésus-Christ portant sa croix.

Murillo (Ecole de) 1131 Saint Jean-Baptiste enfant.

Murillo (Bartholome) ou plutôt Estéban-Murillo, Ecole espagnole. 1124 Le Mystère de la conception de la Vierge Marie.

Velasquez (Don Diego Rodriguez de Silvay), Ecole espagnole. 1277 Portrait de l'Infante MargueriteThérèse.

1838 : Le Musée espagnol Notice des tableaux de la Galerie espagnole exposés dans les salles du Musée Royal au Louvre. Paris: Crapelet, 1838. Ecoles Espagnoles Alfaro y Camez (Don Juan). 1 Extase de saint Jérôme. 2 Répétition du tableau précedént. Antolinez y Sarabia (Don Francisco). 3 Saint Jean baptisant le Christ. 4 Assomption de la Vierge. Arco (Alfonso del). 5 Portrait de don Manuel de Saint Martin. Ayala (Barnabé de). 6 Saint François d'Assise en prière. 7 Saint François d'Assise en méditation. Bocanegra (Don Pedro Atanasio). 8 Le Jugement dernier. Camilo (Francisco). 9 Adoration des bergers. 10 Un Martyr.

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

Cano (Alonso). L'Ane de Balaam. David portant la tête de Goliath. Saint Joachim. Sainte Anne. La Sainte-Vierge et l'Enfant Jésus. Répétition du même sujet. L'Enfant Jésus endormi. Descente de la croix. Saint Jean-Baptiste. Saint Jean-Baptiste. Sainte Madeleine. Saint Pierre apôtre. Saint Paul apôtre. Sainte Thérèse percée d'une flèche. Sainte Thérèse en prière. Sainte Thérèse recueillant un pauvre enfant malade. Saint Louis. Tête de Vieillard.

219

Appendix A 29 Portrait de don Pedro Calderón de la Barca. 30 Portrait d'Alonso Cano (jeunesse). 31 Portrait d'Alonso Cano (âge avancé). 32 Portrait d'Alonso Cano (vieillesse). Carmona. 33 Les Vierges folles. 34 Les Vierges sages.

(attribué à

Castillo (Agustino del). 41 Saint François avec les mates.

stig-

50

Castillo (Juan del). David portant la tête de Goliath. Assomption de la Vierge. Saint Paul. Saint Jérôme. Saint Dominique et saint François aux pieds de la Vierge. Un pape, saint Augustin et saint Dominique. Un evèque, saint Jérôme et saint François. Saint François avec le chapeau de cardinal. Saint François.

51 52 53 54

Castillo y Saavedra (Antonio del). Saint Pierre après sa faute. Sainte Lucie. Un Franciscain. Un Dominicain martyr.

42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

Cespedes (Pablo de). 61 Portrait de Cespedes. Chavarito (Dominico). 62 Adoration des Rois.

Carreno de Miranda (Don Juan). 35 L'Elévation. 36 Saint Bernard. 37 Saint Jacques combattant avec les Espagnols contre les Maures. 38 Portrait de Charles II, enfant. 39 Portrait de Charles II. Carretto de Miranda Don Juan). 40 Portrait d'homme.

57 La Sainte Vierge et saint Joseph contemplant l'Enfant-Jésus. 58 La Sainte Vierge et l'EnfantJésus. 59 Saint Martin. 60 Saint Thomas de Villanueva.

Cieza (Vicente de). 63 Saint Ambroise, évêque Milan. Coello (Claudio). 64 Apparition de l'Enfant-Jésus saint François.

à

Coello (Alonso Sanchez). 65 Portrait de la princesse Jeanne d'Autriche. 66 Répétition du portrait précédent. 67 Portrait de la princesse Marie d'Autriche. 68 Portrait de Mme. Marguerite, gouvernante de Flandres. 69 Don Juan d'Autriche. 70 Rodolphe, prince de Hongrie. 71 Ernest deuxième, prince de Hongrie. 72 L'Infant Fernando, fils de Philippe II. 73 Wenceslas, frère de l'empereur Maximilien II. Coello (Alonso Sanchez) (Ecole de). 74 Virginie Centurioni. Collantes (Francisco). 75 La pénitence de saint Jérôme. Conca. 76 Figure d'étude. 77 Figure d'étude.

Caxes (Eugenio). 55 Saint Ildefonse.

Cordova (Pedro de). 78 La flagellation. 79 Mort de saint Jérôme.

Cerezo (Matteo). 56 Visite de saint Joachim à sainte Anne.

Correa. 80 La visite de saint Joachim sainte Anne.

220

de

à

Paintings in the Louvre 81 Saint Jean-Baptiste et la SainteVierge au pied de la croix. 82 La résurrection. 84 Saint Jean-Baptiste et saint Sébastien. 84 Sainte Lucie et sainte Catherine. 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92

Espinosa (Jacinto Jeronimo de). L'Ange et Tobie. La Sainte-Famille. Jésus portant sa croix. Le Christ sur la Voie Douloureuse. Apparition de la Sainte-Vierge et de l'Enfant Jésus à saint François. Saint François en prière. Deux Dominicains. Un martyr.

Gasull (Agustín). 93 Jésus apparaît femmes.

aux

saintes

Cornez (Juan). 94 Méditation de saint Jérôme. Cornez (Sebastian). 95 Saint Jérôme étudiant l'hébreu. Gomez de Valencia (Francisco). 96 Saint Jérôme en prière.

101 102 103 104

Goya (Don Francisco). Un enterrement. Dernière prière d'un condamné. Manolas au balcon. Femmes de Madrid en costume de Majas. Forgerons. Lazarille de Tormes. Portrait de la duchesse d'Albe. Portrait de Goya.

105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113

Herrera (Francisco) surnommé el Viejo. Miracle des cailles au désert. Job sur le fumier. La nativité. Jésus sur la voie Douloureuse. Famille noble de Séville. Saint Pierre. Un religieux. Trois têtes de vieillards. 5aint Isidore.

97 98 99 100

114 115 116 117

Saint Léandre. Deux pauvres. Ruines romaines. Paysage.

Herrera (Francisco) El Mozo. 118 L'archange Raphaël. 119 L'Ange Gardien. Hispano (Le frère Marc). 120 Tète de religieux. Iriarte (Ignacio). 121 Paysage. Echelle de Jacob. 122 Fleurs et fruits.

123 124 125 126 127 128

Joanes (Vicente), dit Juan de Joanes. Dieu le père et le Christ. La résurrection. La Madeleine. Saint Jérôme et saint François. Christ en méditation. Tête de moine.

Joanes (Ecole de Vicente). 129 Saint Jérôme au désert. Joanes (Juan Vicente). 130 La flagellation et le repentir de saint Pierre. Leonardo (José). 131 Saint Jean précurseur. March (Esteban). 132 Le passage de la mer rouge. Mazo Martinez (Juan Bautista del). 133 Portrait de Charles II, cité par Palomino dans la Vie de Mazo Martinez. Menendez (Don Francisco tonio). 134 Portrait de Philippe V. 135 Portrait de Maria-Luisa Savoie.

An-

de

Menendez (Don Miguel Jacinto). 136 Portrait de Isabel Farnesia. Meneses Osorio (Francisco). 137 Saint Ildefonse.

221

Appendix A Miranda (Rodriguez de). 138 Le Sauveur. Morales (Luis de) surnommé Le Divin. 139 Portement de Croix. 140 L'Ecce homo. 141 La Sainte-Vierge soutenant le Christ mort. Morales (Ecole de Luis de). 142 La Sainte Vierge soutenant le Christ mort. Moreno (José). 143 La Sainte-Famille. Moya (Pedro de). 144 Adoration des bergers. 145 Saint Sébastien. Murillo (Bartolomé Esteban). 146 Jacob mettant des branches dans la fontaine. 147 L'annonciation. 148 La conception. 149 même sujet. 150 La nativité. 151 La Vierge et l'Enfant Jésus. 152 Saint Joseph et l'Enfant Jésus. 153 Répétition. 154 Même sujet. 155 Sommeil de l'Enfant Jésus sur une croix. 156 La Vierge à la ceinture. 157 Saint Jean précurseur. 158 Christ et saint Jean-Baptiste. 159 La Madeleine. 160 La Reine des anges. 161 Le Sauveur. 162 L'Ecce homo. 163 Christ avec couronne d'épines. 164 Repentir de saint Pierre. 165 Tête de saint Pierre. 166 Saint François en prière. 167 Saint François reçoit le Christ dans ses bras. 168 Saint François portant la croix. 169 Saint Augustin à Hippone. 170 Saint Antoine de Padoue et l'Enfant Jésus. 171 Saint Thomas de Villanueva. 172 Saint Bonaventure écrivant ses Mémoires après sa mort.

222

173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182

Saint Félix de Cantalicio. Sainte Catherine. Mort de sainte Claire. Saint Rodrigue. Saint Diego d'Alcalá. L'enfant prodigue. Jeune homme jouant la harpe. Servante de Murillo. Paysage. Portrait en pied de don Andreas de Andrade. 183 Portrait de Murillo. Murillo (Bartolomé Esteban) Ecole de. 184 Des moines, agenouillés en cercle. 185 Portrait de Murillo, âgé. 186 Un Père de l'église. Navaretto (Juan Fernandez), surnommé El Mudo. 187 La flagellation. Orrente (Pedro). 188 Jacob lève la pierre pour faire abreuver les troupeaux. 189 Saint Jean précurseur. 190 Noces de Cana. 191 Jésus au jardin des Oliviers. 192 Christ en croix. 193 Un évangéliste. 194 Un Franciscain en prière. 195 Portrait d'Orrente. Pacheco (Francisco). 196 Sainte Famille. 197 La Sainte-Vierge et Jésus. 198 Portrait de Pacheco. Palomino y Velasco tonio). 199 Sainte Anne. 200 Un franciscain.

l'Enfant-

(Acisclo An-

Pantoja de la Cruz (Juan). 201 Portrait d'un gentilhomme de la cour de Philippe IV. 202 Portrait d'une dame de la cour de Philippe IV. Pantoja de la Cruz (Ecole de Juan). 203 Portrait d'une princesse.

Paintings in the Louvre Pareja (Juan de) 204 Ensévelissement de Jésus-Christ par Joseph d'Arimathie. 205 Les saintes femmes au tombeau du Christ. Pereda (Antonio) 206 Saint Jean évangéliste. 207 Saint Ildefonse. Pereyra (Vasco). 208 L'Ecce homo. Perez (Andres). 209 Fruits. Polatico. 210 Saint François en lecture. Prado (Bias del), 211 Saint François adorant la SainteVierge et l'Enfant-Jésus. Ribalta (Francisco). 212 La Madeleine. 213 Même sujet. 214 Portement de croix. Ribalta (Ecole de Francisco). 215 Le Martyre de saint Barthélémy. Ribalta (Juan de). 216 Christ sur la croix. 217 Une messe. 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235

Ribera (José) dit L'Espagnolet. David. Adoration des bergers. (Effet de nuit) Adoration des bergers. Adoration des bergers. Sainte Marie l'Egyptienne. Saint Jean enfant. L'Assomption de la Madeleine. Saint André le pêcheur. Saint Paul évangéliste. Saint Pierre en pleurs. Extase de saint Pierre. Saint Pierre en méditation. Même sujet. Même sujet. Saint Paul Ermite. Saint Jérôme. Méditation de saint Jérôme. Saint Onuphre.

236 237 238 239 240

Le martyre de saint Barthélémy. Tête de saint Barthélémy. Un martyr. La Madeleine. Combat d'Hercule et d'un Centaure. 241 Caton se déchirant les entrailles. 242 Le philosophe. Ribera (Imitation de José) 243 Saint Louis de Borgia.

Rincón (Antonio del). 244 La Sainte-Vierge et Jésus.

l'Enfant-

Rizi (Don Francisco). 245 Tête de saint Pierre. 246 L'enfant prodigue. Roelas (Juan de las). 247 La Conception. 248 L'Enfant Jésus et saint Jean Baptiste. 249 Portrait de Roelas. Ruiz Gonzalez (Pedro). 250 La Flagellation. 251 Portement de Croix. Sarabia (José de). 252 Franciscain en prière.

253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260

Théotocopuli (Dominico) dit Le Greco. L'Adoration des bergers. Christ et le portrait des deux donataires. Mort de saint François. Le Jugement dernier. Pompeo Leoni. Gentilhomme. Portrait de la fille du Gréco. Portrait du Gréco.

Tobar (Don Alonso Miguel de). 261 Saint Jean-Baptiste. 262 263 264 265 266 267

Tristan (Luis de). L'Adoration des bergers. L'Adoration des mages. L'Adoration des mages. Descente du Saint-Esprit. Christ en croix. La Résurrection.

223

Appendix A Vaides-Leal (don Juan de). 268 Saint Jérôme. 269 Un Dominicain en contemplation. 270 Saint Jérôme avec les rabbins. 271 Saint Jérôme avec les docteurs. 272 Tête de saint Jean-Baptiste. 273 Un Dominicain. 274 Un Dominicain martyr. 275 Tête de martyr. 276 Tête de martyr. 277 Tête de martyr.

304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312

Valdes (don Lucas de). 278 La Vierge et l'Enfant Jésus. 279 Christ.

Vicente (Juan). 314 La Conception.

Vargas (Andrés de). 280 La Sainte-Vierge, conception. Vargas (Luis de). 281 La Sainte-Vierge, saint terrassant le diable.

282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300

Michel

Velazquez de Silva (Don Diego de). Adoration des bergers. Jésus et les Disciples d'Emmaiis. Repentir de saint Pierre. Saint Pierre. Saint Paul ermite et saint Antoine abbé. Saint Jean. Saint Isidore. Paysage. L'Alameda vieja. Portrait du comte duc d'Olivarès. Portrait de Philippe IV. Tête de Philippe IV (Etude). Tête d'un inquisiteur. Portrait d'Isabelle de Bourbon. Portrait d'Isabelle de Bourbon. Portrait de Marie d'Autriche. Portrait de dona Juana Eminente. Portraits de deux nains. Portrait de Vélazquez.

Vélazquez Silva (Ecole de Don Diégo). 301 Un Capitaine. 302 Copie du portrait de Vélazquez par lui-même. 303 Comte de Tilly.

224

Gentilhomme vêtu de noir. Gentilhomme vêtu de noir. Dame vêtue de rouge. Dame de la cour de Philippe II. Dame de la cour de Philippe IV. Gentilhomme. Cardinal. Ex voto. Palais de l'Escurial.

Ver gara (Don José de). 313 Saint Sébastien.

Villadomat (Don Antonio). 315 Tête de vieillard. Villegas Marmolejo (Pedro de). 316 La Nativité. 317 Saint François avec les stigmates. 318 Saint Sébastien. Ximénès Donoso (Don Jose). 319 Saint Joseph et l'Enfant-Jésus. Yanez (Hernand, Hernando ou Fernando). 320 Saint Sébastien. 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340

Zurbaran (Francisco). Job. Judith. L'archange Gabriel. L'Annonciation. Même sujet. La Conception. Adoration des bergers. Adoration des rois. La circoncision. La Sainte-Vierge et l'Enfant Jésus sur ses genoux. La Sainte-Vierge avec l'EnfantJésus entouré d'anges. La Sainte-Vierge dans une Gloire. Christ sur la croix. Même sujet. Christ glorieux. La Vierge de la Merci. La Vierge de la Merci. La Madeleine. Saint Jean l'évangéliste. Saint Pierre en prière.

Paintings in the Louvre 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351

Saint Jean. Saint François. Saint André. Saint Jérôme. Saint François avec les stigmates. Même sujet. Saint François en prière. Saint François en méditation. Même sujet. Saint François en extase. Moine tenant une tête de mort, en méditation. 352 Martyre de saint Julien. 353 Saint Ferdinand. 354 Saint Ferdinand. 355 Combat, les Maures et les Chrétiens. 356 San Carmelo. 357 Saint Dominique et saint François. 358 Franciscain en méditation; il tient une tête de mort. 359 Un chartreux. 360 Autre chartreux. 361 Chartreux. 362 Moine de la Merci. 363 Moine de la Merci. 364—379 Premiers missionnaires aux Indes, martyrs. 380 Sainte Cécile.

381 Sainte Catherine. 382 Sainte Catherine. 383 Une sainte tenant un livre et un poignard. 384 Autre sainte avec un livre. 385 Sainte Marina, sur le bras gauche, des alfajas. 386 Sainte Marina. 387 Sainte Barbara. 388 Sainte Barbara. 389 Une Sainte richement vêtue. 390 Sainte tenant une flèche. 391 Sainte Inès. 392 Sainte Lucie. 393 Sainte Justine. 394 Sainte Justine. 395 Sainte Rufine. 396 Sainte Ursule. 397 Légende de la cloche. 398 Même sujet. 399 Chien épagneul. 400 Chien endormi. 401 Portrait de Zurbaran. Zurbaran (Ecole de Francisco). 402 La Sainte-Vierge et l'Enfant Jésus.

[The items numbered 403 through 442 are not by masters of the Spanish school.]

403-442

Supplément Pantoja de la Cruz (Ecole de Juan). 443 Portrait d'une dame de la cour de Philippe IV. Ribera (José), dit L'Espagnolet. 444 Saint Paul Evangéliste.

Theotocopuli (Dominico), dit Le Greco. 445 Un évangéliste. Van Kressel. 446 Portrait de Marie d'Autriche.

Collection of F. H. Standish: added to the Musée espagnol in 1842 Catalogue des tableaux, dessins et gravures de la collection Standish, légués au Roi par M. Franck Hall Standish, Paris: Crapelet, 1842. Ecoles Antolinez cisco). 76 Paysage. 77 Paysage.

y Sarabia

(Don Fran-

espagnoles Arellano 78 Fleurs. 79 Fleurs.

(Juan de),

225

Appendix A

80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89

Becquer (Jean). La Messe. Un baptême. Un mariage. Aumône fait par des moines. Une foire. Une fête. La balançoire. La cachucha. Aveugle mendiant. Espagnol en manteau.

Berruguete, Ecole de. 90 La Vierge donnant la chasuble à saint Ildefonse. Borras (Le Père Nicolas). 91 Mort de la Vierge. Cana (Alonzo). 92 Adam et Eve après leur chute. 93 Jésus annonce à la Vierge ses douleurs futures. 94 Portrait d'homme. Castillo (Juan del). 95 Saint Jean dans le désert. 96 Assomption de la Vierge. Castillo (Joseph del). 97 Sommeil de la Vierge. Cerezo (Matteo). 98 L'Adoration des Rubens.

Rois

d'après

Gonzales. 99 Un moine. Guthierrez. 100 L'Ange gardien, d'après Murillo. 101 Portrait . . . de Franck Hall Standish, en costume espagnol. Herrera (Francisco), surnommé el Viejo. 102 Incrédulité de saint Thomas. 103 Saint Pierre lisant. 104 Saint Paul avec son épée. Herrera (Francisco), surnommé el Mozo. 105 Un Cardinal, un Evêque, des Saints et des Chérubins.

226

¡riarte (Ignacio). 106 Fruits. March (Esteban). 107 Tobie rendant la vue à son père. Morales (Luis de), surnommé le Divin. 108 La Vierge soutenant la tête du Christ. 109 Saint tenant une croix. Murillo (Bartholomeo Esteban). 110 La Nativité. 111 L'Enfant Jésus, endormi sur les genoux de saint Joseph. 112 Jésus faisant l'aumône à saint Augustin. 113 Le Christ après la flagellation. 114 Saint Jean. 115 La Trinité. 116 L'Enfant prodigue reçoit ses comptes. 117 Départ de l'Enfant prodigue. 118 Repas de l'Enfant prodigue avec des courtisanes. 119 L'Enfant prodigue garde les pourceaux. 120 Saint Thomas. 121 Un saint marchant sur la mer. 122 Portrait . . . de la mère de Murillo. 123 Portrait en buste de Murillo. 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137

Murillo (Ecole de). Chérubins. Chérubins portant une mitre. Chérubins tenant un lys. Chérubins. Sainte Anne apprenant à lire à la Vierge. L'Annonciation. L'Adoration des bergers. Présentation de l'Enfant Jésus au temple. La Circoncision. Saint Jean dans le désert. Saint Jean dans le désert. Saint Augustin lavant les pieds du Christ. Mariage mystique de JésusChrist. L'Assomption.

Paintings in the Louvre 138 139 140 141 142

Sainte Catherine. Communion de saint Dominique. Mort de saint Dominique. Sainte Anne. Portrait du fils de dona Juana Teresa de la Farra.

Pereda (Antonio). 143 Saint Jérôme. Pereyra (Vasco). 144 Communion de saint Paul. Ribalta (Francisco). 145 Evêque guérissant un malade. 146 Extase de saint François. Ribera (Ecole L'Espagnolet. 147 Saint Jérôme.

de

José),

dit

Valdès Leal (don Juan de). 148 Judith tenant la tête d'Holopherne. 149 Le martyre de saint André. 150 Le martyre de saint Barthélémy. 151 Un moine tenant un livre enflammé. Vargas (Luis de). 152 La Sainte Famille.

153 154 155 156

Velazquez de Silva (Don Diego de). Apparition des Anges aux Bergers. Ustensils de cuisine, avec figures. Enfant mangeant une pastèque. Portrait de l'Infant Don Balthasar Carlos.

Velazquez de Silva (Attribué à). 157 Jésus et les disciples d'Emmaüs. Velazquez de Silva (Ecole de). 158 Portrait de Marie-Anne d'Autriche. Villegas Marmolejo (Pedro de). 159 La Vierge, l'Enfant Jésus, saint Joachim et le petit saint Jean. Villegas Marmolejo (Ecole de). 160 Mariage de sainte Catherine. Turbaran (Francisco). 161 Saint Dominique et deux religieuses.

162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171

Saint François portant sa croix. Un moine tenant une croix. Légende. . . . Religieux à genoux devant saint Pierre crucifié. Légende. . . . Légende de la cloche. Légende de saint Dominique. Légende. . . . Légende. . . . Portrait d'Ignace de Loyola.

Zurbaran (Ecole de). 172 Saint Jean dans le désert. 173 Figure d'Ange. 174 Figure d'Ange. Inconnu. 175-220 [These paintings, like the other Spanish canvases of this collection, were predominantly portraits and religious subjects. Number 214 was a copy of Velazquez' Hilanderas.] Dessins [Numbers 298-511: I shall not list the detailed description of each drawing but mention only the artist's name and the catalogue numbers of his drawings.] 298 Alborado. 2 9 9 - 3 0 1 Becerra. 3 0 2 - 3 0 3 Ecole de Becerra. 304-309 Berruguete. 310-311 Bocanegra. 312-343 Cano, Alonso. 344-345 Ecole d'Alonso Cano. 346 Castillo, Agustín. 347-371 Castillo, Antonio. 372 Ecole de Castillo (Antonio). 373 Caxes. 374—375 Ecole de Caxes. 376-382 Cespedes. 383 Cincinnato. 384-387 Coello. 388 Escalante. 3 8 9 - 3 9 6 Herrera (Francisco), el Viejo. 397-411 Ecole de Herrera (Francisco). 412—414 Herrera, el Mozo. 415-416 Herrera, Sebastiano Barnuevo. 417-418 IralaYuso.

227

Appendix A 419 Maella, Mariano de. 420 Mazo. 421 Meneses Osorio. 422 Mora, Diego de. 423 Mora/ Jérôme. 424-425 Moya. 426-447 Murillo. 448-450 Ecole de Murillo. 451-452 Nardi. 453-456 Pacheco. 457-459 Ecole de Pacheco. 460-461 Ribalta.

228

462 Rubiales. 463-464 Toledo (Juan de). 465-467 Torres. 468-476 Valdès Leal. 477-482 Valdès (don Lucas de). 483-485 Vargas. 486-489 Velazquez. 490-492 Zurbaran. 493-498 Ecole de Castille. 499-501 Ecole de Madrid. 502-508 Ecole de Seville. 509-511 Ecole de Valence.

Appendix Β

Spanish Paintings Listed in Private French Collections [Sales catalogues are included only through I860 because most collections of importance to a study of the Romantic period had been dispersed by then. I have included a few catalogues of later sales which are particularly significant to this study.] Nogaret (1807) Lebrun (1809) Vente anonyme (1810) Herrenschwand (1810) Vente anonyme (1810) Vente anonyme (1810) Vente anonyme (1810) Vente anonyme (1810) Vente anonyme (1810) Vente anonyme (1812) Solirène (1812) Nogaret (1812) Vente anonyme (1813) M. L. T. (1813) Vente anonyme (1814) Petitjean (1815) Vente anonyme (1816) Vente anonyme (1826) Vente anonyme (1829) Constantin (1830) Meynier (1831) Boursault (1832) Frainays (1833) Vente anonyme (1835) Huard (1835) Vente anonyme (1835) Vente anonyme (1836) P. Carlier and G. le Thière (1837) Réville (1838) Périer (1838) Berre (1839) Sommariva (1839) Huede (1839)

Lucien Bonaparte (1840) Dubois (1840) Yriarte (1841) Vente anonyme (1841) Ravil (1842) Villenave (1842) Vente anonyme (1843) Périer (1843) Aguado (1843) Tardieu (1843) Dubois (1843) M. XXX (1845) Debois (1845) Boucher de Crèvecoêur (1845) Boissy (1846) La Combe (1846) Vente anonyme (1846) Ricketts (1846) Périer (1846) Durand-Duclos (1847) Stevens (1847) Talleyrand and Dup. de G. (1847) Piot (1847) Espagnac (1847) Warneck (1849) Vente anonyme (1849) Audiffert (no date) Janson (1849) Mosselman (1849) Vente anonyme (1849) Vente anonyme (1850) Pinel Grandchamp (1850) Vente anonyme (1850)

229

Appendix Β Cornac (1850) Vente anonyme (1850) Montcalm (1850) Cabre (1850) Malezieu Mannevil (1850) Vente anonyme (1850) B. de C. (1850) Odiot (Père) (1850) Van Os (1851) Prousteau (1851) Jecker (1851) Silvestre (1851) Cottreau (1851) Vente anonyme (1852) Vente anonyme (1852) Vente anonyme (1852) Vente anonyme (1852) Bastonneau (1852) Ch. L. xxx (1852) Ledru (1852) Vente anonyme (1852) Siebel (1852) Godoy (1852) Collot (1852) Varange (1852) Prince P. de Wurtemberg (1852) Vente anonyme (1852) Vente anonyme (1852) Verdié (1852) Vente anonyme (1852) Cavé (1852) Dumesnil (1852) Ribert (1852) Vente anonyme (1853) Dugléré (1853) Delacour (1853) Vigneron (1853) Mundler (1853) Passalagua (1853) Mawson and Farrer (1853) Rollin (1853) Decaisne (1853) Pérignon (1853) Sivry (1853) Vente anonyme (1853) Vente anonyme (1853) Vautier (1853)

230

Vente anonyme (1853) Vente anonyme (1854) Servatius (1854) Vente anonyme (1854) V xxx (1854) Vente anonyme (1854) Comte B. (1855) Vente anonyme (1855) Collot (1855) Bertrand (1855) Vente anonyme (1855) DuFouleur (1856) Vente anonyme (1856) Comte de L.R. (1856) Galerie princière de Rome (1856) Marquise D x x x d'U1™* d'Espagne (1857) Thibaudeau (1857) Busche (1857) Patureau (1857) Delaroche (1857) Thibaudeau (1858) Martelli (1858) Domard (1858) Merighi (1858) Frémy (1859) Kai'eman (1859) David (1859) Scheffer (1859) Schwenberg (1859) Moret (1859) Bausset (1859) Leroux (1859) Houdetot (1859) de C . . . (1859) Pasquier (1859) Vente anonyme (1860) Comte de G xxx (1860) Colin (1860) Comte Hane de Steenhuyse et Leuwerghem (1860) Gase (1860) Saint-Fal (1860) Vente anonyme (1860) Barrouilhet (1860) Vente L™ (1860) Vente anonyme (1860)

Paintings in Private Collections Vente anonyme (1860) Drugulin (1860) de Forest (1860) Comte de M x x x (1860) Vente 6 avril

Delacroix (1864) Pourtalès (1865) Salamanca (1867) Pereire (1872)

du cabinet

de M . Armand

Frédéric

Ernest

Nogaret,

le

1807.

Dessins Murillos. Ribera. 413 Une fuite en Egypte, à la san454 La Mort de Saint François guine. d'Assise, à la plume et à l'encre de Chine. Explication . . . dans Mercredi

de la collection

la maison chaque

semain

134 135 136 137

,

Un guerrier en pied. Un jeune chasseur. Le Portrait d'Innocent X. Le Portrait de Philippe IV. Esteban Murillo. La Conception de la Vierge. Un Rosaire, Composition de deux figures. Le petit saint Jean Baptiste. Le Muletier. Catalogue

d'une

peintre

exposée . . .

publiquement

les Dimanche

et

. . . Paris, 1 8 0 9 .

E cole Joseph de Ribera. 128 La Sainte Famille. _ Don Diego Velasquez de Silva. 129 Elie et Elisee dans le desert. 130 131 132 133

de tableaux,

de M. Lebrun,

vente

espagnole 138 La Vendeuse d'eau. 139 Paysage orné de figures et d'animaux. 14Q Des ^ devant Ieur chaum_

-

iere

Alonso Cano. 141 Un Rosaire, composition de trois figures. Clodia Coello. 1 4 2 S a i n t P i e r r e d e Alcantara. Don Diego Velasquez (non gravé dans l'ouvrage de M. Lebrun) 204 Le portrait de Philippe IV.

anonyme,

le 2 janvier

1810,

Paris, 1 8 1 0 .

F. Ribera, dit l'EspagnoIet. 252 Un philosophe, demi-nature. 22-24

Vente du cabinet janvier 1810.

de M . Herrenschwand,

Morillos. 90 Pâris gardant son troupeau. Catalogue

d'une

vente

anonyme,

de Berne,

à Paris,

le

91 Portrait d'une espagnole vêtue à la mauresque. 92 Deux enfants paysans. le 26 février

1810.

Murillos (Barthélémy). 137 Diane et Endimion. 158 Portrait d'un boucher.

231

Appendix Β Catalogue

d'une vente anonyme,

Murillo. 52 Paysage . . . et Saint Jean. 53 Un enfant tenant un pigeon.

Catalogue

d'une vente anonyme,

Murillo. 91 La Cène. 93 La Vierge et l'enfant Jésus.

Catalogue

le 24 avril

d'une vente anonyme,

Catalogue

d'une vente

1810.

1810.

94 Une femme couchée et surprise par Jupiter.

Murillos. 29 Une adoration de bergers.

1810.

le 9-10 mars

54 Un vieux mendiant se faisant appliquer une [sic] emplâtre par un apothicaire de village.

le 26 novembre

1810.

Velasquez. 145 Sujet d'histoire . . . avec trois demi-figures.

de dessins

anonyme,

le 16

décembre

Dessins

Morillos. 14 Une sainte Famille.

Catalogue

Alonzo Canot. 32 Saint François en extase. 113 20 dessins par . . . Murillo. . . .

d'une vente anonyme,

le 19 janvier

1812.

Ecole espagnole. 69 Saint Jérôme.

Vente Solirène,

le 11 mars

1812.

L'Espagnolet. 95 Vielle femme.

mars

Vente du cabinet de M. Armand Frédéric Ernest Nogaret, 1812.

Murillio (Bartolomeo-Stefano). 45 Le Fuite en Egypte. Dessin à la sanguine.

Catalogue

le 28

Ribera, dit l'Espagnolet (Giuseppe) 57 Saint François mourant. 454 Dessin à la plume et au bistre.

d'une vente anonyme,

le 26 mars

1813.

Vélasquez (Don Diego de Sylva). 89 Portrait d'un religieux. 143 Judith tient la tête d'Holopherne.

Vente du cabinet de M. L. T. Vente d'estampes, Ribera, dit l'Espagnolet, (par Gioseffo de Valence). 148 Saint Pierre pleurant son péché. Trois compositions différentes du sujet de Saint Jérôme.

232

le 5 avril

1813.

Un saint vu à mi-corps et de profil. L'Amour fouettant un satyre. Silène accompagné de deux satyres. Vieillard, vu de profil.

P a i n t i n g s in P r i v a t e C o l l e c t i o n s Catalogue

d'une

vente

anonyme,

le 5 décembre

1814.

L'Espagnolet (Joseph Ribera, dit). 35 Saint Paul vu à mi-corps. Vente

du cabinet

Velasquez (Dom 25 Jésus dans sa d'anges et de paraissant à une Catalogue

de M. Petitjean,

le 30 janvier

Diego). gloire entouré chérubins apsainte à genoux.

d'une

vente

anonyme,

le 17 juin

Ribera (Guiseppe). 35 Saint Jérôme dans sa caverne. Vente

d'estampes

462 5 portraits Vélasquez. Vente ger,

de dessins

1816.

Arellano (Jul. D') Espagnol. 3 Un bouquet de Fleurs.

. . . le 13 novembre

d'après Vandick

le 22 avril

1815.

1826.

et

et d'estampes

provenant

d'un

cabinet

étran-

1829. Dessins

Murillo s. 51 Un moine prêchant au milieu d'une grande assemblée de peuple. Estampes Ribera (dit l'EspagnoIet). 216 Le Corps mort de Jésus Christ pleuré par les saintes femmes. Saint Jérôme lisant. Martyre de Saint Barthélémy. Saint Pierre. Vente

du cabinet

de M. Amédée

Alonzo Cano. 2 Jeune fille consacrée à la Vierge. 6 Clodio Coello. 14 Saint en extase.

Vente

du

cabinet

Constantin,

le 15 février

1830.

23 Saint Jean. _ , Ribera. Portrait d'un philosophe. Philosophe espagnol méditant sur une tête de mort. 52 Buste de Saint Paul, de face, son épée.

5 0 51

Ecole espagnole. 22 Deux tableaux: fruits et gibier. novembre

Combat d'un Centaure et d'un Triton. Satyre fouetté. Silène couché. Don Juan d'Autriche à cheval. Repos en Egypte.

de

M.

Meynier,

peintre

d'histoire,

1831.

107 Deux figures de Saint Jérôme, attribuées l'une à Ribera, l'autre à Jordans.

233

le

25

Appendix Β Vente

de la Galerie

Boursault,

le 7 mai

Murillo. 83 L'Adoration des bergers. Vente

de Mme.

Murillo,

de Frainays,

le 20 août

Bartolomeo, Ecole es-

Vente

anonyme

d'une

1833.

lisant un livre.

„, Pa8no'e· , , 31 Sainte Agnes dans la prison, re, , , ; cevant la couronne du martyre. 32-33 Deux tableaux—Un agne qui tient un lys. Une jeune Vierge avril,

1832.

84 Deux jeunes garçons. 85 L'Enfant Jésus endormi.

Ribera, Joseph, même école. ι 34 Saint Paul, Ribera, dit l'Espagnolet. 86 Une Sybille.

collection

d'estampes

anciennes,

le

6

1835.

Ribera, dit l'Espagnolet (Joseph). 124 Le Corps mort de Jésus Christ. Saint Jérôme. Vente Bourbon)

des

tableaux

. . .

Saint Jérôme. Saint Pierre. Le Satyre.

de la galerie

de M.

Huard

(de

l'île

. . . à c a u s e d u décès de M m e . H u a r d . . . . M . H u a r d quitte

Paris le 6 avril 1 8 3 5 , Paris, 1 8 3 5 . Ecole

espagnole

Coello. 71 La Salutation angélique.

75 La Fuite en Egypte. 76 Eliezer et Rebecca.

Collantes. 72 Portrait d'Enfant.

Ribera. Joueurs de cartes. 78 Le Vendangeur. 79 Portrait du Tasse.

77

Morales. 73 Erigone.

Velasquez 80 La Madeleine dite de Horosa. 81 Portraits d'enfants.

Murillo. 74 Saint Joseph et l'Enfant Jésus. Catalogue

d'une

vente

anonyme,

Cano (Alonzo). 2 Saint François.

Vente

anonyme

Vente

de tableaux

de tableaux,

de P. Carlier

provenant

estampes

et G. le Thière,

Murillo (d'après). 61 La Vierge et l'enfant Jésus.

234

le 22 décembre

1835.

Vazquez-Spagnolo. 12 Jésus entre la Vierge, Saint Joseph et deux autres saints personnages.

Murillo. 2 Saint Jean Baptiste Enfant dans le désert. cabinets

Les

d'Italie,

1836.

49 Une Esquisse, . . . provenant le 12 octobre

d'Espagne 1837.

Ribeira (d'après). 66 L'Adoration des bergers.

et

des

Paintings in Private Collections Henriquez de las Marinas. 77 Pêche à la baleine. 79 Un paysage. Murillo. 87 Saint Jean en prière. 89 Saint Joseph et l'enfant

charpentiers (esquisse attribuée à Murillo). 104 Jésus au jardin des oliviers. 107 Saint Jean. 114 Une grande marine. Jésus

Catalogue de la collection 26 mars 1838. Esteban Murillo attribué à. 68 Saint François.

L'Espagnolet. 115 Jérémie.

d'estampes

de M. Réville,

vente

le

(Barthélémy),

Vente du cabinet de M. Casimir Périer, ancien président du Conseil. Catalogue rédigé par Benou et La Neuville, le 18 avril 1838. E coles espagnole et italienne Murillo. 1 Portrait d'un Pape. Nous ne prétendons pas imposer notre opinion [sur l'authenticité de ce tableau] au public, mais comme elle est consciencieuse et que nous avons quelques prétentions à connaître l'école espagnole, dont nous avons fait une étude

1839.

Vente du cabinet

spécialisée bien avant que l'on ne s'en occupât comme aujourd'hui (depuis quinze ans), nous devons dire toute notre pensée à cet égard. Tolède (Jean de). 2 Bataille entre les Espagnols et les Maures.

de M. Berre, peintre d'animaux,

le 9

janvier

Murillo. 84 Une tête de Vierge.

Vente du cabinet du Comte Sommariva,

le 18 février

1839.

Ribera, dit l'Espagnolet. 77 Suzanne et les viellards et un sujet de l'Ancien Testament.

Vente du cabinet de M.. Heude, le 19 mars

1839.

Ecole de Murillo. 16 La Madeleine pénitente.

Vente du cabinet

de M. Lucien Bonaparte,

le 13 janvier

1840.

[Again, it can be noted that sales catalogues give only an incomplete image of the state of the arts: obviously the best paintings belonging to a family would most often remain in its possession without ever being placed on sale. This becomes quite evident in

235

Appendix Β comparing this livret with the two books of engravings that reproduce works of art in Lucien Bonaparte's collection, Collection de gravures choisies d'après les peintures et sculptures de la galerie de Lucien Bonaparte, prince de Camino (Rome: Alexandre Ceracchi, 1822), and the more complete Choix de gravures à l'eau forte d'après les peintures originales et les marbres de la galerie de Lucien Bonaparte (London: Bulmer & Co., n.d.), which contains 142 engravings including several reproductions of Velázquez, Ribera, and Murillo.] Castille, Jean de. 45 Saint Jean. 54 Repos de la Sainte Famille.

Vente de la collection Dubois, provenant des collections de Middelbourg, du Marquis de Calvière, du Cardinal Fesch, Séguin, Koertman d'Anvers, Duc de Berry et Prince de la Paix, le 7 décembre 1840. [The parenthetical figures in this and the following collection are handwritten marginal annotations that probably indicate the sales prices.] Murillo (Barth. Esteban). 23 Portrait d'un Grand d'Espagne. (1.500) 24 Une des trois Maries à genoux et priant. (810) 25 Laban donne ses filles en mariage à Jacob. (700) Ribera (José) dit l'Espagnolet. 26 Fiançailles du fils d'Abraham. (4.000) 27 Diogène. (100)

Zurbaran. 28 Jésus portant sa croix. (276) Velazquez. 48 Portrait d'un officier. (425) 49 Portrait de Philippe IV. (360) 50 La Reine, épouse de Philippe IV. (2.650) 51 Portrait du frère de Philippe IV. (5150, Paul Périer) Cano (Alonso). 52 Job. (90)

Vente de tableaux espagnols et italiens provenant de la de D. Bernardo de Yriarte, à Madrid, le 15 février 1841. Ecole espagnole. 123 La Famille de Michel-Ange. 124 Saint Sébastien. Velazquez. 125 Christ environné d'anges. Ribera. 126 La Charité romaine. (600) 127 L'Apôtre Saint Pierre. (100) Ecole espagnole. 128 Tableau signé : Un Peintre Espagnol. (250)

236

galerie

Velazquez. 129 Portrait équestre de Philippe IV. (1200) 130 Portrait en pied d'une Princesse Espagnole. (300) 131 Portrait d'une Femme. (150) Ecole de Velazquez. 132 Portrait à mi-corps de Philippe IV. (50) 133 Portrait de sa femme en costume de chasse. (50) 134 Portrait de jeune homme.

Paintings in Private Collections Joennes Christienne. 135 Vue du Palais de l'Escurial.

Vente anonyme,

Alonzo Cano. 137 Figure de Saint Jean.

le 23-24 décembre

Murillo. 61 L'Ascension (esquisse). 82 Visitation de la Vierge. 84 Saint François en prière.

1841.

Zurbarán (Fr.)· 86 Une des filles du Potier de Seville. 87 La deuxième des filles du Potier de Seville.

Valazquez (J.) 85 L'Annonciation.

Ribera (José) 88 Tête d'étude de Saint Pierre.

Vente du cabinet de M. N. Ravil, le 29 mars Murillo. 162 Jeune fille espagnole avec un panier de fruits (Dessin au crayon noir et blanc).

Ribera. 231 Un homme, la tête, en bas, attaché par les pieds à un tronc d'arbre.

Catalogue de dessins des grands maîtres Villenave, vente le 1" décembre 1842. Ecole

1843.

''

Vente

provenant

du

cabinet

espagnole

Ribera (Jusepe), dit l'Espagnolet. 319 Saint Jérôme dans le désert, au crayon rouge. „ , Murillo (Bart.-Esteban). 320 L Annonciation (a 1 encre et ave

1842.

321 Sainte tenant une palme, avec un mouton à ses pieds (à l'encre, lavé de bleu). 322 Quatre moines en adoration dey a n t ,a y ¡ e r g e d a n s le d e I tourée d'un choeur d'anges (lavé de rouge, rehaussé de blanc).

anonyme

d'un cabinet

Lavega, Francisco. 56 Couronnement de l'Infant Don Carlos, à Palerme (lavé à l'encre de chine).

d'un artiste

anglais,

le 6 mars

Murillo. 57 Vierge et l'Enfant Jésus (à la plume et lavé),

Vente du cabinet de M. Paul Périer, le 16 mars 1843. Ribera. 360 Le Mangeur de macaronis.

Vente des tableaux . .. delà galerie ... de M. Aguado, de les Marismas . . .le 20 mars 1843.

marquis

[Of the 395 items of this collection 230 belonged to the Spanish school, making it one of the most important collections of Spanish paintings in Paris of the 1830's.]

237

Appendix Β Ecoles espagnoles: Arellano 1 Fleurs. 2 Fleurs.

Caxes (Eugenio). 4 Adoration des Mages. Cerezo (Mateo). Déposition de croix. Déposition de croix. Saint Jérôme dans sa grotte. Ecce homo. Résurrection de la Vierge.

Coello (Claudio). 10 Saint Jean Baptiste et son mouton. 11 Portrait d'un cardinal. 12 Caïn et Abel. Conchillos (Juan Falco). 13 David et Abigail. 14 Vierge dans une gioire. Correa. 15 Un Portement de croix. Escalante (Juan Antonio). 16 Le jeune saint Jean. Fernandez (Louis). 17 Madone. 18 Mariage de la Vierge. Francisquito. 19 Paysage de l'Andalousie. 20 Paysage avec des animaux. Gránelo. 21 Portrait du Roi Alphonse VIII. Llano (Felipe de). 22 Sainte Thérèse devant un crucifix. 23 Jésus Christ au Oliviers. 24 Buste d'ange.

agenouillée Jardin

Mazo Martinez (Juan del). 25 Le marchand de fruits.

238

Castille

Miranda (Rodriguez de). 26 Saint Georges.

(Juan de).

Carreno de Miranda (Juan). 3 Portrait équestre de Charles II, roi d'Espagne.

5 6 7 8 9

Ecole de

des

Bautista

Montero de Roxas. Ή L'Ivresse de Noë. Morales (Louis), El Divino. 28 La Vierge au pied de la croix. 29 Ecce homo. Murillo (Bartolomé-Esteban). 30 La Mort de sainte Claire, Vierge et abbesse. Ce chef-d'oeuvre a été rapporte d'Espagne par M. Mathieu de Fabvier, intendant général de l'armée française en ce pays sous l'Empire, il était peu de temps encore avait cette époque dans le couvent de Saint François d'Assise, à Séville. . . . 31 Saint François d'Assise. Ce tableau a été rapporté d'Espagne par le général Léry. . . . 32 Saint Diego. 33 Réception de saint Gilles par un Pape. . . . comme le No 32 ce tableau a été rapporté d'Espagne par M. M. Fabvier, intendant général de l'armée. Lors de l'occupation, ils étaient l'un et l'autre placés dans le couvent de Saint François, à Séville. . . . " 34 Saint Elie dans le désert. 35 Saint Jean Baptiste et son mouton. 36 Madone. 37 Annonciation. 38 Assomption. 39 Madone dans une gloire. 40 Miracle de saint Vincent Ferrer. 41 Saint Thomas de Villanueva. 42 Saint Grégoire le Grand. 43 Saint Joseph et l'Enfant Jésus. 44 Enfants revenant du marché. 45 Sainte Juste. 46 Sainte Ruffine. 47 Groupe d'enfants. 48 Jeune fille aux poissons. 49 L'Enfant à la tourte. 50 Episode de la vie de Jacob. 51 Vision de Jacob. 52 Sainte Famille.

Paintings in Private Collections 53 Groupe d'Enfants. 54 Jeune Enfant conduisant un mendiant aveugle. 55 Enfant Jésus. 56 Conception de la Vierge. 57 Tête de Christ. 58 Jacob et l'Ange. 59 Sainte Famille. 60 La Vierge et l'Enfant. 61 Jacob luttant avec l'ange. 62 Saint Vincent Ferrer. 63 Christ au roseau. 64 Saint François de Paule. 65 Portrait de moine. 66 Portrait d'homme. 67 Tête de saint Jean Baptiste. 68 Jeunes mendiants. 69 La Vierge apparaissant à saint Jacques de Nisibe. 70 Saint François de Paule. 71 Tête de religieux. 72 Portrait d'homme. 73 Saint Joseph et l'Enfant Jésus. 74 Portrait du médecin de Murillo. 75 Adoration des Bergers. 76 Sainte Rosalie. 77 Homme âgé. 78 Christ en croix. 79 Adoration des bergers. 80 Saint Antoine de Padoue.

81 82 83 84

Le bon pasteur. Madone. Saint Dominique. Une Véronique.

Navarette (Juan Fernandez), El Mudo 85 Portement de Croix. 86 L'Ange Gardien. 87 Buste d'Archange. Obregon (Pedro de). 88 Un apôtre. Palomino (Antonio de Velasco). 89 Enfant Jésus et saint Antoine de Padoue. Pareja (Juan de). 90 Portrait d'un jeune Seigneur. 91 Dame en portrait religieux. 92 Buste d'un jeune Seigneur. Pereda (Antonio). 93 Déposition de croix. 94 Déposition de croix. Rizi (Don Francisco). 95 Saint François d'Assise. 96 Adoration des Bergers. Tristan (Luis de). 97 La Vierge et l'Enfant Jésus. 98 Christ à la colonne.

Ecole de Seville Artega (Matheus). 99 La Vierge Marie. 100 Le Rédempteur. BoradiUa. 101 Saint Pierre. Cabrai Bejarano (Antonio). 102 Portrait de Murillo. Campana (Pedro de). 103 Descente de croix. 104 La Vierge et le Christ mort.

Herrera el Mozo (le Jeune). 107 Saint Laurent. 108 Saint Jérôme. 109 Miracle de la Multiplication des pains. Herrera el Viejo. 110 Le Mariage mystique de sainte Catherine. 111 Diogene cherchant un homme. 112 Buste de saint Pierre. Labrador (Juan). 113 Fruits et nature morte.

Del Castillo (Juan). 105 La Vierge présentant à saint Dominique de Guzmán le portrait de saint Dominique de Silos.

Lopez (Cristobal). 114 Circoncision. 115 Adoration des bergers.

Garzón (Juan). 106 Trois Enfants.

Llórente (Gusman). 116 La Vierge.

239

Appendix Β Marquez Joya (Francisco). 117 Portrait d'un jeune homme. Meneses de Osorio. 118 Présentation de la Vierge au temple. 119 Repos de la Sainte Famille. 120 Christ en croix. 121 Saint François d'Assise dans le désert. 122 Saint Pierre apôtre. 123 Saint Paul. Moya (Pedro de). 124 Sainte Famille. 125 Ecce homo. Polanco. 126 Ecce homo.

138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153

Jeune femme et un nègre. Deux Infants. Portrait de dame. Marche de cavaliers. Enfant au lapin. Infante. Infante (buste). Gitana. Portrait en pied d'un corrégidor. Poissons rouges . . . sur une table. Buste de bohémienne. Pièces de viande. Nature morte. Un enfant appuyé sur un ancre. Martyre de sainte Apolline. Scène de mendiants.

Viilavicentio (Pedro Nuñez de). 154 Adoration des Mages. 155 Repos en Egypte. 156 Mater dolorosa.

Roelas (Juan de las). 127 Education de la Vierge. 128 La Vierge Enfant. 129 Immaculée conception. Sarabia (Josef). 130 Prédication de Jésus. Tobar (D. Alonso Miguel de). 131 L'Enfant Jésus . . . porté par des anges. 132 La Vierge. Varela (Francisco). 133 Tête de saint Pierre. 134 Tête de saint Paul. Vargas (Luis de). 135 Portement de croix. 136 Calvaire.

Zurbaran (Francisco). 157 Prise d'habit de sainte Claire. 158 Saint Hugues changeant le repas des chartreux. 159 Saint Joseph et l'Enfant Jésus. 160 Saint Pierre de Alcantara. 161 Saint Bernard. 162 Sainte Marine. 163 La Visitation. 164 Adoration des bergers. 165 Saint Bernard. 166 Sainte Catherine d'Alexandrie. 167 Sainte Lucie. 168 Sainte Ruffine. 169 La Vierge enfant.

Velasquez Da Sylva (Don Diego). 137 Mort de Sénèque.

Ecole de Valence Espinosa (Jacinto Jerónimo de). 171 Saint François d'Assise. 172 Christ à la colonne. 173 Saint Sébastien secouru par des femmes. Jauregui y Aguilar (Juan). 174 Portrait d'homme. 175 Buste de moine.

240

Joannes (Vincente). 176 Un ange musicien. 177 Jésus Christ apparaissant à sainte Thérèse. Joannes (Juan Vincente). 178 Conception.

P a i n t i n g s in P r i v a t e C o l l e c t i o n s Martinez (Josef). 179 Buste d'un philosophe en méditation. 180 Buste d'un philosophe. 181 Saint Joseph et l'Enfant Jésus. Orrente (Pedro). 182 Tête d'homme. Ribalta (Francisco). 183 Conception. 184 Vierge. 185 Vierge. 186 187 188 189

Ecole de Bocanegra (Don Pedro Atanasio). 202 Sujet mystique. Cano (Alonso). 203 Jésus remettant à saint Pierre les clefs du paradis. 204 Un saint faisant pénitence. 205 Sacrifice d'Abraham. 206 Christ à la colonne. 207 Saint Félix de Cantalicio. 208 Martyre de saint Sébastien. 209 Assomption de la Vierge. 210 La Madeleine. Ecole de Atienza (Martin). 221 Madone.

Sierra (Francisco Perez). 200 Scène de bohémiennes. Zarinnena (Francisco). 201 Sainte Famille. Grenade 211 212 213 214 215 216

L'atelier de saint Joseph. Saint François d'Assise. Saint Antoine de Padoue. Sainte Madeleine. Sainte Madeleine. Christ portant sa croix.

Gomez (Sébastien). 217 Madone. 218 L'Epiphanie. Sevilla Romero Escalante 219 La Vierge des Rois. 220 Tête de Vierge.

(Sanchez) surnommé Frère Jean. 222 Mort de saint Bruno. Ecole de

apparaissant

Zembrano 224 Madone.

aux

(Luis)

Cordoue

(D. Juan). (An-

(Juan).

Tolède 223 Vierge treux.

Cotan

Del Castillo y Saavedra tonio). 226 Festin de Balthesar.

Martyre de saint Barthélémy. Reniement de saint Pierre. Saint Jérôme. L'Alchimiste. Déposition de croix. Saint Jérôme. Un philosophe. Un philosophe. Saint André mis en croix.

Salvador (Gomez Vicente). 199 Saint Cyrille, évêque d'Alexandrie.

Ribera (Josef) dit L'Espagnolet. Descente de croix. Repos de la Sainte Famille. La Vierge et l'Enfant Jésus. Adoration des bergers.

Alfáro y Gamez 225 Saint Joseph.

190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198

227 228 229 230

Vaides Leal (D. Juan de). Résurrection de la Vierge. Apparition de la Vierge. Christ en croix. Noces de Cana.

241

char-

Appendix Β Vente du cabinet de M. Tardieu,

le 9 mai

1843.

Murillo. 155 Jeune fille tenant des fleurs.

Vente de cabinet de M. Dubois, le 7 décembre 1843. [The following note was included:] M. Dubois est un marchand de tableaux dont nous avons déjà entretenu nos lecteurs à propos de la galerie Aguado, dont il dirigeait la vente et qu'il avait formé, en partie, l'on sait à quel prix. La collection offerte au public n'était nullement remarquable, et la vente a manqué complètement. Ecole

espagnole

Antolinez y Sarabia (D. Francisco). 47 Paysage avec des animaux."! , 1 1 Q > 48 Son pendanf, ' 1 ' Herrera el Viejo. Vi 49 Saint Mathieu. (30)

Vente de la collection

Murillo (Β. E.). 50 Miracle de Saint Vincent Ferrer. (290) Ménéssès Osorio (Francisco). 51 L'Adoration des Mages. (178) Vélasquez. 52 Portrait équestre du roi Philippe IV. (215)

de M. xxx, le 5 avril

1845.

Murillo. 11 Scène d'intérieur de famille espagnole.

Vente M. Debois,

d'une collection d'estampes le 21 avril 1845.

Joseph Ribera, dit l'Espagnolet. 1010 Le Corps mort de Jésus Christ pleuré par la Magdeleine. 1011 Saint Jérôme. 1012 Saint Jérôme.

Vente d'une collection le 19 octobre 1845.

1013 1014 1015 1016 1017

d'estampes

provenant

du cabinet

de

Saint Jérôme. Martyre de Saint Barthélémy, Saint Pierre pleurant son péché. Un poète couronné de lauriers. Silène couché près d'une cave.

de Boucher

de

Crèvecoeur,

100 14 pièces par et d'après Ribera, Salvator Rosa, etc.

Vente d'une collection Boissy, le 12 janvier 1846.

d'estampes

Ribera. 157 Le Corps mort de Jésus Christ. 158 Saint Pierre. Silène.

242

du cabinet

de M. A.

de

d'après Murillo par Say, William. 163 La Vierge et l'Enfant Jésus sur des nuages.

Paintings in Private Collections Vente d'une collection le 9 mars 1846.

d'estampes

Ribera (J.), dit l'EspagnoIet. 44 Le Corps mort de Jésus Christ. Saint Jérôme lisant. Saint Jérôme saisi de frayeur. Saint Jérôme.

Catalogue

de la collection

LaCombe,

45 Le Martyre de Saint Barthélémy. Saint Pierre pleurant son péché. Le Satyr fouetté. 46 Silène.

d'une vente anonyme,

Velasquez (genre de). 13 Princesse Espagnole.

le 3 avril

1846.

Villavicencio (Pedro Nuñez de). 34 L'Adoration des Mages.

Tobar (Alphonse Michel). 35 L'Assomption de la Vierge.

Vente de la galerie Ricketts (de Londres), le 8 décembre 1846. (Preface: M. Ricketts a imaginé de receuiller, en copies anciennes des fac-similé donnant l'image aussi approximative que possible de tous les tableaux célèbres des grands maîtres.) [This catalogue included 427 entries.] Alotizo Berruguette (élève Michel-Ange). 199 Jésus Christ sur la croix.

de

Pedro Orrente. 200 Deux paysages. Ribera. 201 L'Adoration des Bergers. Turbaran. 202 Moine à genoux avec un crane à la main (petite copie du tableau du Louvre No. 302). Velasquez. 203 Portrait de Velasquez par son élève Pareja. 204 Christ mort, la Madeleine pleurant à ses pieds. 205 Une Caravane dans la campagne. (Attribué quelquefois à Franc. Collantes). Antonio Pereda. 206 La Vanité de la vie. Original. Alonzo Cano. 207 Noè ivre et ses deux fils. Abraham visité par les anges. Moïse recueilli par la fille de Pharaon.

208 Balaam et son âne (petite copie moderne du tableau du Louvre No. 11, Galerie espagnole). Castillo de 209 Paysage.

Saavedra.

Moya. 210 Jésus Christ sur la croix. Murillo. 211 Bohémiens—une vieille femme assise, un jeune garçon lui présente un miroir. 212 Petit paysan tenant des oiseaux morts. 213 Paysage avec un paysan et un troupeau de brebis. Original. 214 Assomption de la Vierge. Copie moderne. 215 Jésus au Jardin des Oliviers. Copie du tableau du Louvre No. 1127. Carreno. 216 Saint Louis de Gonzague. Jriarte. 217 Paysage. 218 Petit paysage, par Pagania, élève d'Iriarte.

243

Appendix Β Herrera (le jeune). 219 Nature morte. 220 Paysage.

Carmona. 222 La Vierge folle et la vierge sage. Copie moderne de la Galerie espagnole du Louvre.

Alfaro y Gomez. 221 Sainte Catherine. Vente

du cabinet

de M. Paul Périer,

Ribera. 32 Le Mangeur de macaroni.

Vente

du cabinet

du cabinet

de M. Durand-Duclos,

Vente

de M. Stevens,

de la galerie

de M. Dup.

le 18 février

1847.

Ecole espagnole. 39 Femme tenant un enfant, le 1er mars

Murillo. 27 L'Extase de Saint François. Cabinet

1846.

Velasquez. 36 Un prince de la maison d'Autriche (6850) 37 Un jeune Prince (1960)

Murillo. 6 Sainte Claire couronnée par un ange. Vente

le 19 décembre

1847.

Murillo (Ecole de). 28 L'Assomption.

de M.

Le Prince

de G., le 9 mars Ecole

de

Talleyrand

et

espagnole

Cano (Alonso). 1 Scène d'intérieur: la Vierge assise regarde l'Enfant Jésus.

2 Le Repentir de Saint Pierre. 4 Le Mariage de la Vierge, 5 L'Annonciation.

Murillo. 2 Petit Saint Jean.

Zurbaran. 6 Saint François en extase.

Vente

de la collection

du

1847.

d'estampes

d'Euguène

Piot, le 12

mars

1847. 248 La Galerie Aguado, planches et texte. 272 El Museo pictórico y escala óptica. Theorica de la pintura . . . [sic] por Don Antonio Palomino

de Castro y Velasco. Madrid, 1795. 273 Notices sur les principaux peintres de l'Espagne, par L. Viardot. Paris, 1839.

E cole italienne Francisco Goya. 29 Recueil de caricatures espagnoles (Los Caprichos). 80 pièces gravées à l'eau forte, un vol in 4°, demi-relié maroquin (Bauzonnet). 30 Suite de 33 estampes gravées à l'eau forte, représentant l'histoire et les particularités plus curi-

244

euses des luttes de la Tauromaquia. Suite très rare. 31 Joyeur de Castagnettes. Les Ombres fantastiques: Deux pièces singulières gravées à l'eauforte, par Goya. Elles sont inédites, et n'ont pas été signalées dans le catalogue très détaillé de

Paintings in Private Collections l'oeuvre de ce maître, publié par M. E. Fiot dans le Cabinet de l'Amateur . . . . t. I. Vente

de la galerie

du Comte

32 Esope, le Nain de Philippe IV. Trois pièces à l'eau-forte.

d'Espagnac,

mai

1847.

Cano (Alonso). 132 Glorification de la Vierge et de l'Enfant Jésus. 133 Le Voeu de Louis XIII.

140 Jésus adolescent, avec les signes de la Passion. 141 Jésus défaillant au Jardin des Oliviers.

Cerezo (Matteo). 134 L'Assomption de la Vierge avec l'Enfant Jésus.

Ribera (Jusepe, dit l'Espagnolet). 142 Saint Jérôme en méditation. Valdes Leal (Juan). 143 Jésus Christ, après la résurrection.

Cespedes (Paolo). 135 La Cène. 136 La Vierge et l'Enfant Jésus . . . se manifestant à Saint Joseph et Saint François.

144 145 146 147

Coello (Claudio). 137 La Mère de douleur, ayant la vision de la Passion. Murillo (Esteban). 138 Saint Thomas de Villanueva. 139 Présentation de Saint Jean au temple. Vente

du cabinet

d'Adolphe

148

Warneck,

Cano (Alonso). 66 La Madeleine. d'une

le 20 avril

1849.

Murillo. 103 Saint François agenouillé devant l'Enfant Jésus.

Turbaran. 36 Tobie et l'Ange.

Catalogue

Velasquez (D. Diego Rodriguez de Sylva). Dame italienne. Une Chartreuse. Sancho à table chez la Duchesse. Etude de chardons et de coquelicots. Deux Portraits: Les Enfants de Philippe IV.

vente

anonyme,

le 29 avril

1849.

Béranger (d'après Murillo). 80 L'Education de la Vierge. 81 La Vierge de Séville. Catalogue cinthe

de livres

provenant

de la bibliothèque

de M .

Hya-

Audiffert. Voyages

157 Voyage en Espagne en 1797 et 1798, par Fischer. Traduit par Cramer, Paris 1801. 158 Voyage en Espagne, par Delangle. Paris, 1803. 158 b i s Voyage en Espagne, par Peyron. Londres, 1782. 2 vols. 159 Voyage en Espagne et en Portu-

gal en 1774, par W. Dalrymple. Paris, 1783. 160 Voyage en Espagne, par Swinburne. Traduit de l'anglais par de LaBorde. Paris, 1787. 162 Voyage en Espagne en 1798, par de Fonvielle. Paris, 1823. 161 Voyage en Espagne, par Town-

245

Appendix Β send. Traduit de ' l'anglais par Pictet Mollet. Paris, 1809. 3 vols. ms et l'atlas.

163 Itinéraire descriptif de l'Espagne par Alexandre de LaBorde. Paris, 1809. 2 vols.

Vente du cabinet de M. Vorhin Janson, Ecole

le 10 juin 1849.

espagnole

Murillo. 1 L'Enfant Jésus apparaissant à Saint Antoine de Padoue (12.200) 2 Portrait d'une fille de Murillo.

l'Infant de Espagne Don Graviel, dont les armes sont au dos du tableau, et qui les légua à la duchesse d'Albe.

(60°)

7

A 7

Juan ae Juanes. 4 Saint François à genoux reçoit L'Enfant Jésus des mains de la Vierge. (75)

Vélasquez. 3 Réunion de divers personnages — " L a Conversation Vélasquez". (4.300). Ce tableau appartenait à

Vente du, cabinet de M. A. Mosselman,

le 4 décembre

1849.

Velasquez. 32 Tête d'Alguacil.

Catalogue

d'une vente anonyme,

le 7 décembre

Juan de Castille. 1 Réunion bacchique. 2 Le Concert.

Catalogue

1849.

Ces tableaux proviennent de la galerie Erard.

d'une vente anonyme, Ecole

le 4 mars

1850.

espagnole

75 Le Passage du bac.

Vente

du cabinet

de Mme.

Pinel Grandchamp,

le 13

mars

1850. Passante, dans le goût de Ribera. 41 Saint Barthélémy.

Zurbaran. 80 Tête de vieillard.

Ribera, dit l'Espagnolet. 52 Saint Jérôme.

Catalogue d'une vente l'etranger, le 16 mars 1850.

anonyme

de tableaux

provenant

de

en chef à l'Hôtel

des

Morales (Louis de) surnommé el Divino. 2 Christ descendu de la Croix.

Vente du cabinet du Dr. Cornac, médecin Invalides, le 18 mars 1850. Murillo (manière de). 13 Assomption de la Vierge.

246

Paintings in Private Collections E cole

espagnole

99 Cinq Saints auxquels apparaît le Saint Esprit.

Ribera, dit l'Espagnolet. 119 Invocation à la Vierge.

Alonso Cano (attribué à). 98 La Vierge et l'Enfant Jésus. Catalogue différents

d'une

maîtres,

vente

anonyme

le 18 mars

de tableaux

par

et

d'après

1850.

Ecole

espagnole

67 Démocrite Livres sur les Arts 90 Dictionnaire des Peintres gnols, par F. Quillet, 1 vol. Vente le 25 mars

du cabinet 1850.

espa-

du Marquis

Murillo. 15 Sujet mystique Jésus Christ, frappé de verges. (Les enchères ont commencé à 2000, vendu à 4.200.) Vente

de la collection

plénipotentiaire,

le 27 mars

de Montcalm

du Baron

de Cabre,

ancien

ministre

1850. Villa Franca, Sidonia.

Estampes gravées d'après les maîtres de l'école Murillo (d'après). 69 Le Frappement du Rocher, d'après le tableau de Murillo, gravé par Estève. 70 Le Vierge et l'Enfant Jésus. Tableau de la Collection Noèl Desenfants par Say. du cabinet

Montpellier,

16 L'Esclave (fait partie de la collection du Prince de la Paix.) (Les enchères ont commencé à 4,000, vendu à 8.200.)

Velasquez. 30 "Portrait des Dichters Quevedo" [sic] de la Galerie du Marquis

Vente

de

duc de

Médina

espagnole

71 Le Magdeleine par R. Morghem. 72 Neuf Portraits, gravés en Espagne: Charles V, Velasquez, Murillo, A. Cano, Calderón, Cervantes, etc. 73 Le Divin Pasteur, L'Education de la Vierge.

de M. Malézieu

Mannevil,

le 8 avril

1850.

Murillo. 7 La Marâtre. 8 Le petit aveugle.

Catalogue d'une vente anonyme 4 novembre 1850.

provenant

de l'etranger,

Ribeira (genre de). 13 Un Evangéliste.

247

le

Appendix Β Ecole espagnole 43 Sujet Biblique. 44 Sujet Biblique.

45 La Tête de Saint Jérôme. 46 L'Adoration des Bergers.

Vente de B. de C. de Valenciennes,

le 13 décembre

1850.

165 Douze lithographies d'après Murillo, et par Julien.

Vente du cabinet de M. Odiot (Père), le 17 décembre

1850.

Velasquez (Ecole de). 29 Bacchanale au Silène.

Vente du cabinet de M. Van Os, le 20 janvier

1851.

Dessins Alonzo Cano. 175 Saint François adorant l'Enfant Jésus. Trois études à la plume et au bistre.

Vente du cabinet de M. Prousteau de Montlouis, le 5 mai 1851. Murillo. 111 Fuite en Egypte.

Vente du cabinet de M. Louis Joseph 1851.

Jecker,

le 10

novembre

Murillo. S Christ assis. Nous laissons à ce chef d'oeuvre le nom du maître pour lequel il a été donné à un couvent à Mexico, et dont la supérieure en a fait hommage à M. Jecker: il est daté 1658.

Vente du cabinet du Baron de Silvestre, le 5 décembre Ribera. 14 Portrait de personnage espagnol, assis. 15 Saint Jérôme.

1851.

Velasquez (attribué à). 24 Tête d'Etude,

Vente du cabinet de M. Cottreau, le 15/16 décembre

1851.

Ribera. 50 Adoration des Bergers.

Catalogue

d'une vente anonyme, le 26 janvier

Velasquez. 18 Portrait de Da. Isabelle, fille de Philippe II.

248

1852.

Gonzales Coques. 66 Portrait d'un jeune seigneur espagnol.

Paintings in Private Collections Catalogue

d'une vente anonyme, Ecole

Ribera. 15 Saint Pierre. 42 Saint Jérôme.

d'une vente anonyme, Ecole

le 16 février

1852.

espagnole Ribera. 90 Moïse.

87 Saint Jean.

Catalogue

1852.

espagnole

3 Agar et Ismaël. 4 Sainte Cécile.

Catalogue

le 29 janvier

d'une vente anonyme,

Murillo (attribué à). 37 Têtes d'anges.

Vente de la collection

le 27 février

1852.

Ecole espagnole. 88 Les Muses. 103 La Visitation.

Bastonneau,

le 22 mars

Ecole espagnole. 82 Jésus montré au peuple. Jésus devant Pilate.

1852.

Jésus portant sa croix. Jésus sur la croix.

Vente Ch. L.xzx, le 29 mars

1852.

Morales. 32 Tête de Christ.

Vente Ch. Ledru, le 21 avril

1852.

Morales. 32 Ecce homo (710)

Catalogue

d'une vente anonyme, Ecoles

italienne

Murillo. 7 Portrait d'un moine (70)

Vente Siebel d'Elberfeld,

le 27 avril

et

1852.

espagnole

Zurbaran. 15 Apparition de Saint Michel à l'évêque de Siponte en 1118 (190)

le 17 avril

1852.

Velazquez. 17 Portrait en pied d'un homme.

Vente de M. de Godoy, Prince de la Paix, le 22 mai 1852. Ribera. 3 Sacrifice d'Abraham.

249

Appendix Β

Vente de M. Collot, ancien receveur général recteur de la monnaie de Paris, le 25 mai 1852. Ecole

et ancien

di-

espagnole

Murillo. 19 La Partie de cartes . . . Trois jeunes gens. Voici ce qu'écrivait le Chevalier d'Agincourt en envoyant ce tableau à Paris, le 21 mars 1801: "Votre Murillo pourrait être confondu par des yeux peu exercés avec un Caravage, par le ton de force qu'on y remarque, mais il diffère de ce maître par les ombres que celuici donnait d'un seul coup et d'une seule teinte, tandis que dans votre tableau on distingue une foule de nuances fondues avec soin extrême. Regardez les mains des joueurs, vous y distinguerez des passages de teintes soignées, recherchées et moelleuses qu'on

ne trouve jamais dans le Caravage." (Adjugé le 29 mars 1855, Fr. 1.300.) Zurbaran. 20 Saint Joachim et la jeune Marie. (Poussé à Fr. 600—Retiré 780) Rizi (la frère Jean). 21 Vierge apparaissant à des Chartreux. (Poussé à Fr. 330—Retiré) Ribera. 22 Adoration des Bergers. à Fr. 125—Retiré)

(Poussé

Velasquez. 23 Le Martyre de Sainte Agathe. (Adjugé le 29 mars 1855, Fr. 1000)

Vente de M. le Baron de Varange, le 26 mai 1852. Ribera. 39 Un mendiant. Vente

Prince

Paul de Wurtemberg,

le 21 juillet

1852.

Velasquez. 50 Renaud et Armide. Catalogue

d'une

vente

anonyme,

Alonso Cano. 1 Enfant Jésus et Saint Jean.

Catalogue

1852.

Ecole espagnole. 54 Saint Pierre.

Ribera. 33 Saint Jérôme.

le 29 novembre

le 12 octobre

Ribera. 93 Tête de Vieillard. d'une

vente

anonyme

de tableaux

arrivant

d'Italie,

1852.

Murillo. 28 Assomption de la Vierge (205) Vente

de la galerie

Murillo (genre de). 80 Adoration des bergers.

250

Verdie

de Bordeaux,

le 6 décembre

1852.

Paintings in Private Catalogue Ecole

d'une

Collections

vente

anonyme,

le 11

espagnole.

décembre

1852.

(attribué à).

Ribera

33 Vierge.

102 Un homme, à mi-corps.

3 4 P o r t r a i t de f e m m e .

1 0 3 S a i n t a v e c u n livre.

35 S a i n t M i c h e l t e r r a s s a n t le d é m o n . Vente

Cavé,

Velazquez

le 17

de

décembre

1852.

Silva.

1 1 1 Le M i r a c l e des r o s e s . 112 H o m m e cuirassé. Vente

Robert

Dumesnil,

le 20

décembre

1852.

Ribera. 4 7 V i e l l a r d lisant d a n s u n livre ( 6 0 ) Vente Coello

Comte

Ribert,

le 27

décembre

1852.

(Claudio).

1 0 S a i n t D o m i n i q u e et S a i n t e

Thé-

rèse. Catalogue

d'une

vente

anonyme,

le 10 janvier

1853.

Velasquez. 9 4 P o r t r a i t d'un b o u r g m e s t r e . 95 P o r t r a i t d'un s e i g n e u r . Vente

Dugléré,

le 31

janvier

1853. 65 H o m m e

Morales. 6 0 La V i e r g e et l ' E n f a n t J é s u s ( 3 2 0 )

avec un

panier

de

Murillo.

Velasquez.

6 1 P o r t r a i t de sa m a î t r e s s e ( 3 0 0 0 )

9 1 C h a m p de b a t a i l l e . U n t r o m p e t t e

6 2 U n S a i n t é c r i v a n t sous l ' i n s p i r a -

s o n n e la r e t r a i t e ( 8 5 )

t i o n de la S a i n t e V i e r g e .

^

6 3 V i s i o n d'une r e l i g i e u s e ( 1 0 0 ) , . τj i j 6 4 F e m m e du peuple, u n p a n i e r de

« , , 9 8 T r o i s t e t e s de g e n i e s v( 3 4 ) ° '

f r u i t s sur la t ê t e ( 1 0 0 ) Vente

Delacour,

le 26

février

1853.

Murillo 5 Michel Cervantes (525) Vente

Vigneron

de LaHaye, Ecole

Baroso

(Michel).

44 L'Annonciation. Cotan

lé-

gumes (200)

(Sanchez).

4 5 V i s i o n de S a i n t e C l a i r e .

le 28

février

1853.

espagnole Gallegos. 46 Christ couronné d'épines (29) Herrera

(le v i e u x ) .

4 7 S a i n t F r a n ç o i s e n prière.

251

Appendix Β Irìarte. 48 Paysage (20)

58 Copie du même.

luán de Joannes. 49 Deux prophètes—Pendants. Morales. 50 Saint Chrisostôme. Moya. 51 Jésus et Marie portés sur des nuages. Murillo. 52 Saint Jean (4.600) 53 Saint Antoine de Padoue (950) 54 Saint Dominique, apparition de Jésus et de Marie (1.000) 55 Joueur du Cornemuse, provient de la collection du duc de Penthièvre. 56 La Marchande de gâteaux et l'étudiant de Salmanque, d'après Murillo. 57 Bergère et troupeau.

Orrente. 59 Scène de buveurs (50) Tristan Luys. 60 Saint Jérôme dans le désert. C'est le portrait du Cardinal Sandovac, archevêque de Tolède. (Signé, 395). Velasquez. 61 L'incendie du bourg, d'après Raphaël. 62 Jeune femme portant une urne. 63 Le Torreador sur un cheval blanc (40) Zurbaran. 64 La Sainte Vierge et l'Enfant Jésus (35) 65 Saint Jean et le Mouton. Ecole espagnole. 66 Tête de Christ (36)

Vente Mundler, le 14 mars 1853. Alonso Cano. 7 Saint Antoine l'ermite. J. Ribera, l'Espagnolet. 21 Saint François recevant les stigmates.

Vente Passalagua,

Velasquez. 28 Portrait en buste de Philippe IV. Zurbaran. 30 Portrait de femme.

de Berlin, le 18 mars 1853.

Cano, Alonso (attribué à). 10 Moine en méditation.

Velasquez (d'après). 54 D. Diego Olivares.

Ribera, dit l'Espagnolet. 38 Tête d'homme chauve. 39 Portrait d'un évêque.

Ecole espagnole. 63 L'Annonciation. 64 Enfant nu, assis sur un rocher. 65 Enfant nu, assis sur un rocherpendant au No. 64.

Velasquez (attribué à). 53 Portrait d'une dame espagnole.

Vente Mawson et Ferrer de Londres, le 24 mars 1853. Murillo. 10 Présentation au Temple. Il faut, pour reconnaître la vierge si modeste et si pure dans cette femme que Murillo nous représente le sein découvert et les

252

cheveux ornés de perles, se rappeler que l'Ecole espagnole ne s'est jamais soumis au type idéal adopté et consacré pour reproduire les traits et le costume de la mère de Dieu. (15.000.)

P a i n t i n g s in P r i v a t e C o l l e c t i o n s Vente

Rollin,

le I e r avril

1853.

Collantes. 34 Paysage (provenant de la collection Raghaès).

152 La Mort de Sénèque. Velasquez. 168 Jonas jeté à la mer. Provenant de la Galerie Raghaès.

Juan del Castillo. 87 Le Marchand de fruits.

Zurbaran. 180 Saint Benoît en oraison. Provenant de la Collection du graveur Boissieu.

Murillo. 113 La Sainte Vierge, provenant de la Galerie Jourseureau. 114 Le Chanteur de cabaret. 115 Rieur, d'une figure grotesque.

_ l 181 Saint François d'Assise en prière.

Valdes. 151 Tête de Christ. Vente d'après

H.

Decaisne,

les anciens

Murillo. 55 Assomption Louvre. Vente

de

peintre

maîtres la

d'histoire,

par H. Decaisne

le 4 avril et ses

1853:

copies

élèves.

vierge—au

Velasquez. 100 Infante Marguerite Thérèse—au Louvre No. 524.

le

1853:

Pérignon,

8

avril

tableaux

copiés

par

M.

Pérignon. Murillo. 38 La Sainte Famille—au Louvre. ,, , Velasquez. 72 Portrait d'un jeune prince espagnol—au Musée de la Haye. Vente

du Marquis

de Sivry,

73 Portrait de Philippe IV. 74 Portrait du Duc d'Olivarès—au Musée du Roi de Hollande.

le 18 avril

1853.

Ribera. 5 Saint Barthélémy. Catalogue

d'une

vente

anonyme,

le 9 mai

1853.

anonyme,

le 7 juin

1853.

Zurbaran. 134 Adoration des bergers. Catalogue

d'une

vente

Velasquez (attribué à). 20 Portrait équestre d'un prince de la maison de Bourbon. Vente

Vautier,

le 21 novembre

1853.

Murillo. 63 Fuite en Egypte.

253

Appendix Β Catalogue

d'une vente anonyme,

le 9 décembre

1853.

Velasquez (attribué à). 96 Enfant mangeant des tartines.

Catalogue février 1854.

d'une vente anonyme

d'estampes

et de dessins,

le 9

Goya. 33 Deux nains de Philippe IV (8)

Vente du Général

de Division

Baron Servatius,

le 15

février

1854. Ecole

avec une tête de mort.

Villavicencio. 42 La Vierge et l'Enfant Jésus. Fernandez. 43 Saint François

en

Pereda, Antoine de. 44 Un Franciscain en extase.

méditation,

Catalogue d'une vente le 16 mars 1854.

de tableaux

Murillo. 78 La Vierge et l'Enfant Jésus ( 2 5 49) Murillo (Ecole de). 79 Le Marchand de volailles.

Vente V l e

espagnole

24 avril

provenant

de

l'étranger,

80 Le Marchand d'oeufs. 81 Un homme tenant un chien. 82 Un mendiant. Velasquez. 112 Un buveur (50)

1854.

Goya (François). 24 La Marchande de dentelles. 25 La Marchande d'eau de vie.

Turbaran. 61 Portrait de femme. 62 Martyre d'un moine dominicain.

Ribera. 48 Tête de vieillard.

Catalogue d'estampes Boiledieu 3, le 27 décembre Goya (François). 157 Deux nains de Philippe d'après Velasquez. Esope. Ménippe.

Vente ...M.le

.

rédigé 1854.

Ribera (Joseph). 276 Saint Jérôme lisant. Silène.

Comte de Β ... de Lille, le 11 janvier

Goya. 37 Un philosophe, d'après Velasquez

254

Vente

Barberousse. IV,

Estampes

(6)

par Delande.

1855.

Place

Paintings in Private Collections Vente d'une collection étrangère, le 29 janvier

1855.

Estampes Ribera. 33 Huit pièces à l'eau forte: Christ mort; Saint Pierre; Saint Jérôme; Saint Barthélémy; Ivresse de Silène; Deux têtes grotesques; Homme couronné de laurier.

Vente Collot, ancien receveur monnaie de Paris, le 29 mars 1855.

général

et directeur

de la

Ecole espagnole Murillo. 17 La Partie de cartes (1.300)

Velasquez. 19 Martyre de Sainte Agathe (1,000)

Zurbaran. 18 Saint Joachim et la jeune Marie (780)

Vente Bertrand, le 13 novembre

1855.

Ecole italienne Velasquez. 51 Portrait équestre d'Autriche.

de

D.

Juan

Catalogue d'estampes et de dessins anciens l'étranger (rédigé par Delande): vente le 7 décembre

provenant 1855.

de

Dessins Ribera. 48 Bacchanales, à la plume.

Vente Abbé DuFouleur,

le 13 février

1856.

Ecole espagnole Jouannès de Castiïïe. 35 Chartreux et Franciscain prière (102)

en

Murillo. 36 Tête de l'Enfant Jésus (265) 37 Saint François adorant Jésus (290)

Murillo (Ecole de). 38 L'Enfant Jésus sur des nuages (37) Perez de Seville. 39 La Vierge et Jésus couronnés par deux anges (21)

Catalogue d'une vente anonyme d'estampes,

les 17 mars

Goya. 142 Le Philosophe Moenippus (8)

255

1856.

Appendix Β Vente du Comte de L. R„ le 29 mars Murillo (genre de). 1 Saint Jean Baptiste et son agneau (82, de la Rotalier)

Vente d'une galerie princière Velasquez. 17 Portrait de P. P. Rubens (1.850) 21 Portrait d'un seigneur.

Vent de la Marquise

Velasquez (attribué à). 39 Portrait de Philippe IV (16, Séman)

de Rome, le 5 mai 1856. Murillo. 59 Ecuyer tenant son cheval, provenant du Château de Rizzi (1.000)

Dxxx d'Uxxx d'Espagne,

Carnizero. 5 Halte de voyageurs.

1857.

24 La Nativité. 25 La Présentation au temple. 26 L'Adoration des mages. 2 7 L a F u i t e e n Egypte. Ribera. 38 Un saint avec un tête de mort.

Greco (Le). 14 Saint Dominique en prière. Murillo (Esteban). 24 Quatre . . . petits tableaux représentant une suite de l'Histoire Sainte.

Vente du Comte Thibaudeau, Murillo. 149 La Sainte Vierge et Sainte Elisabeth.

Velasquez (Jacques de Silva). 44 L'Innocence, jeune fille avec une colombe (150)

le 13 mars

1857.

Deux

Vente Patureau de Bruxelles,

le 20 avril

Murillo. 16 Le Sommeil de l'Enfant Jésus: Provenant du Cabinet de ForbinJanson (acheté par le Comte de Nieuwerkerke, pour Napoléon III, 41.500).

Vente Paul Delaroche,

1857.

Velasquez. 203 Jeune femme dans un parc,

d'A. Busche, le 23 mars

Goya. 458 Philippe III, 1778. Comte d'OIivares, 1778. pièces d'après Velasquez.

le 15 juin 1857.

Murillo. 3 La Madeleine élevée au ciel par des anges.

256

le 16 février

bis

Coetto (Claude). 9 L'Adoration des bergers. 10 L'Adoration des mages.

Vente d'estampes

1856.

1857.

Paintings in Private Collections Vente Thibaudeau,

le 20 février

Murilîo. 19 Les Joueurs de dés. 20 Les Joueurs de cartes (46) 21 Vision de Saint François (75)

1858.

Vente

d'estampes

Velasquez. 29 Portrait d'une gnole (360)

de la collection Ecole

Martelli

princesse

de Florence,

espa-

avril

espagnole

Ribera. 101 Sujets religieux et autres (9)

Vente Domard,

1858.

Muriìlo. 102 La Conception et autres (7)

le 5 mai 1858.

Goya. 93 Les Tricoteuses.

Vente Major Merighi,

le 15 mai 1858.

Murillo. 11 Saint François (provenant du couvent des religieuses à Saló).

Velasquez. 21 Une Infante d'Espagne (provenant de la famille Spinola, de Gênes).

Vente Itrémy, ancien restaurateur janvier 1859. Murillo. 53 Le Pouilleux, répétition de celui du Louvre.

des tableaux

du Louvre, le 20

Zurbaran. 56 Christ donnant sa bénédiction,

Murillo (Ecole de). 54 Ecce homo.

Vente d'estampes Kaieman, Bruxelles, le 2 mars 1859.

conseiller

Ecole espagnole:

de la cour d'appel

à

Dessins

Murillo. 575 Vierge sur le croissant.

Ribalta. 579 Tête d'homme.

Morales Luis, le Divin. 576 La Vierge, l'Enfant Jésus et Saint Joseph.

Ribera. 580 Descente de Croix. ,, , „ . „ 581 Morales. Saint François. Castañeda, Gregorio. Tête d'apôtre. Zurbaran, Saint Ignace.

Nuñez de Villavicencio. 577 Sainte Agnès. ., , , , , „ . Vaides Leal (Juan). 578 La Vierge couronnée par le Dieu et le Fils.

Zurbaran. 582 Saint François.

257

Appendix Β Alonso Cano. 583 La Vierge et l'Enfant Jésus.

590 La Vierge et l'Enfant Jésus. Christ redempteur.

Collantes, F., 584 L'Assomption de la Vierge. 585 Herrera, Bart. Saint Luc. del Castillo y Savedra, Ant. Le Martyre de Saint Bartolomé. Anonyme. del Castillo, Jean. 586 Homme au violon. 587 del Castillo, Ant. Madeleine. Ribalta, Jean. Saint Pierre. Sujet religieux. del Castillo, Antonio. 588 Saint Jerome. Murillo. 589 Saint François. Deux études de moine.

Vente Alphonse Ribera. 70 Apparition saintes.

d'un

Moya, P. de. Les Misères de la guerre, trois dessins sur une feuille. Muñoz, Sébastien. 591 Un Saint. Albuferro, Polydore. 592 Persée avec la tête de Méduse. Victoria, Vincent. 593 La Vierge dans d'anges.

Vente Ary Scheffer,

à

gloire

Murillo, Barth. E. 594 Rosaire: La Vierge avec l'Enfant Jésus debout (provenant de la collection Standish, et plus tard a appartenu à S. M. LouisPhilippe).

David, peintre, le 10 mars ange

une

1859.

deux

peintre d'histoire,

le 15 mars

1859.

Ribera. 58 Le Martyre de Saint Barthélémy.

Vente Schwenberg

de Strassbourg, Ecole

Herrara le Vieux. 62 Portrait de Pierre l'Hermite (13) Murillo. 69 Saint Jean le Précurseur. 70 Saint Jacques de Compostelle. 71 Saint François en prière (23)

le 16 mars

1859.

italienne Ribera. 79 L'Enfant prodigue (16) 90 La vieille maîtresse d'Ecole (30) Velasquez. 86 Saint Martin (41)

Vente Moret, artiste peintre, le 28 avril 1859: collection nant de la galerie du Cardinal Fesch. Coello, Cl. 21 Vision de Saint Bruno. „ , , , Murillo (attribue a). 47 La Vierge assise avec I Enfant Jesus.

258

prove-

Ribera. 58 Saint Jérôme méditant. 59 Saint Jérôme entendant la trompette du jugement dernier.

P a i n t i n g s in P r i v a t e C o l l e c t i o n s Ribera (Ecole de). 60 Esope. 61 Un savant. Vente

Velasquez (Ecole de). 71 Trois princes de la d'Espagne.

de la Marquise

de Bausset,

Morales (Il Divino). 5 Christ au roseau (470) Vente

André

Leroux,

le 13 mai

maison

1859.

Murillo. 6 Le Repos de la Sainte Famille. le 14 mai Ecole

1859.

espagnole

Ribera. 1 Musicien ambulant (2.700) Vente

Comte

14 décembre

de Houdetot,

député,

ancien

Murillo. 101 L'Enfant Jésus apparaissant Saint François (260) τ-- c · . r · v ' 1 5 102 Saint François en priere pr (30) 103 L'Annonciation (35) 104 Guérison d'un possédé "1 , 105 La jeune femme malade

j

6

mort (110)

(70)

1 5 8

P a r a i t d'homme (12°)

1 5 9

Petite

filIe

e n

Ecole

Saint Pierre (135) Méditation de Saint Jérôme (125) M . „ . „ Un moine en extase. de M . . . de C . . . ,le

Baron

Pasquier,

17 décembre

père,

le 17 décembre

tableau

Murillo. 52 Saint Jérôme en prière: Le Dr. Pasquier tenait ce tableau du d'une

espagnole.

M ° r t d'un saint (135) 1 8 5 T e t e d ' h o m m f