Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) by S. Spooner (best ebook reader under 100 TXT) 📖

Margaret, which hung in the room After all present had

voted it execrable, Carreño quietly remarked, "It at least has the merit

of showing that no man need despair of improving in art, for I painted

it myself when I was a beginner."

 

 

 

 

CARRENO'S ABSTRACTION OF MIND.

 

 

Being at his easel one morning with two friends, one of them, for a

jest, drank the cup of chocolate which stood untasted by his side. The

maid-servant removing the cup, Carreño remonstrated, saying that he had

not breakfasted, and on being shown that the contents were gone,

appealed to the visitors. Being gravely assured by them that he had

actually emptied the cup with his own lips, he replied, like Newton,

"Well really, I was so busy that I had entirely forgotten it."

 

 

 

 

ANECDOTE OF CESPEDES' LAST SUPPER.

 

 

The Cathedral of Cordova still possesses his famous Supper, but in so

faded and ruinous a condition that it is impossible to judge fairly of

its merits. Palomino extols the dignity and beauty of the Saviour's

head, and the masterly discrimination of character displayed in those of

the apostles. Of the jars and vases standing in the foreground, it is

related that while the picture was on the easel, these accessories

attracted, by their exquisite finish, the attention of some visitors, to

the exclusion of the higher parts of the composition, to the great

disgust of the artist. "Andres!" cried he, somewhat testily, to his

servant, "rub out these things, since after all my care and study, and

amongst so many heads, figures, hands, and expressions, people choose to

see nothing but these impertinences;" and much persuasion and entreaty

were needed to save the devoted pipkins from destruction.

 

 

 

 

ZUCCARO'S COMPLIMENT TO CESPEDES.

 

 

The reputation which the Spanish painter Cespedes enjoyed among his

cotemporaries, is proved by an anecdote of Federigo Zuccaro. On being

requested to paint a picture of St. Margaret for the Cathedral of

Cordova, he for some time refused to comply, asking, "Where is Cespedes,

that you send to Italy for pictures?"

 

 

 

 

DONA BARBARA MARIA DE HUEVA.

 

 

Doña Barbara Maria de Hueva was born at Madrid in 1733. Before she had

reached her twentieth year, according to Bermudez, she had acquired so

much skill in painting, that at the first meeting of the Academy of St.

Ferdinand in 1752, on the exhibition of some of her sketches, she was

immediately elected an honorary academician, and received the first

diploma issued under the royal charter. "This proud distinction," said

the president, "is conferred in the hope that the fair artist may be

encouraged to rival the fame of those ladies already illustrious in

art." How far this hope was realized, Bermudez has omitted to inform us.

 

 

 

 

THE MIRACULOUS PICTURE OF THE VIRGIN.

 

 

The eminent American sculptor Greenough, who has recently (1853)

departed this life, wrote several years ago a very interesting account

of a wonderful picture at Florence, from which the following is

extracted:

 

"When you enter the church of Santissima Annunziata, at Florence, your

attention is drawn at once to a sort of miniature temple on the left

hand. It is of white marble; but the glare and flash of crimson hangings

and silver lamps scarcely allow your eye the quiet necessary to

appreciate either form or material. A picture hangs there. It is the

_Miraculous Annunciation_. The artist who was employed to paint it, had

finished all except the head of the Virgin Mary, and fell asleep before

the easel while the work was in that condition. On awakening, he beheld

the picture finished; and the short time which had elapsed, and his own

position relative to the canvas, made it clear (so says the tradition)

that a divine hand had completed a task which, to say the least, a

mortal could only attempt with despair.

 

"Less than this has made many pictures in Italy the objects of

attentions which our Puritan fathers condemned as idolatrous. The

miraculous 'Annunziata' became, accordingly, the divinity of a splendid

shrine. The fame of her interposition spread far and wide, and her

tabernacle was filled with the costly offerings of the devout, the showy

tributes of the zealous. The prince gave of his abundance, nor was the

widow's mite refused; and to this day the reputation of this shrine

stands untouched among all papal devotees.

 

"The Santissima Annunziata is always veiled, unless her interposition is

urgently demanded by the apprehension of famine, plague, cholera, or

some other public calamity. During my own residence at Florence, I have

never known the miraculous picture to be uncovered during a drought,

without the desired result immediately following. In cases of long

continued rains, its intervention has been equally happy. I have heard

several persons, rather inclined to skepticism as to the miraculous

qualities of the picture, hint that the _barometer_ was consulted on

these occasions; else, say they, why was not the picture uncovered

before the mischief had gone so far? What an idea is suggested by the

bare hint!

 

"I stood on the pavement of the church, with an old man who had himself

been educated as a priest. He had a talent for drawing, and became a

painter. As a practical painter, he was mediocre; but he was learned in

everything relating to art. He gradually sank from history to portrait,

from portrait to miniature, from miniature to restoration; and had the

grim satisfaction, in his old age, of mending what in his best days he

never could make--good pictures. When I knew him, he was one of the

conservators of the Royal Gallery. He led me before the shrine, and

whispered, with much veneration, the story I have related of its origin.

When I had gazed long at the picture, I turned to speak to him, but he

had left the church. As I walked through the vestibule, however, I saw

him standing near one of the pillars that adorn the façade. He was

evidently waiting for me. Me-thinks I see him now, with his face of

seventy and his dress of twenty-five, his bright black wig, his velvet

waistcoat, and glittering gold chain--his snuff-box in his hand, and a

latent twinkle in his black eyes. 'What is really remarkable in that

miraculous picture,' said he, taking me by the button, and forcing me to

bend till his mouth and my ear were exactly on a line--'What is really

remarkable about it is, that the angel who painted that Virgin, so

completely adopted the style of that epoch! Same angular, incorrect

outline! Same opaque shadows! eh? eh?' He took a pinch, and wishing me a

good appetite, turned up the Via S. Sebastiano."

 

 

 

 

THE CHAIR OF ST. PETER.

 

 

"La Festra di Cattreda, or commemoration of the placing of the chair of

St. Peter, on the 18th of January, is one of the most striking

ceremonies, at Rome, which follow Christmas and precede the holy week.

At the extremity of the great nave of St. Peter's, behind the high

altar, and mounted upon a tribune designed or ornamented by Michael

Angelo, stands a sort of throne, composed of precious materials, and

supported by four gigantic figures. A glory of seraphim, with groups of

angels, shed a brilliant light upon its splendors. This throne enshrines

the real, plain, worm-eaten wooden chair, on which St. Peter, the prince

of the apostles, is said to have pontificated; more precious than all

the bronze, gold, and gems with which it is hidden, not only from

impious, but holy eyes, and which once only, in the flight of ages, was

profaned by mortal inspection.

 

"The sacrilegious curiosity of the French, however, broke through all

obstacles to their seeing the chair of St. Peter. They actually removed

its superb casket, and discovered the relic. Upon its mouldering and

dusty surface were traced carvings, which bore the appearance of

letters. The chair was quickly brought into a better light, the dust and

cobwebs removed, and the inscription (for an inscription it was),

faithfully copied. The writing is in Arabic characters, and is the well

known confession of Mahometan faith--'There is but one God, and Mahomet

is his prophet.' It is supposed that this chair had been, among the

spoils of the Crusaders, offered to the church at a time when a taste

for antiquarian lore, and the deciphering of inscriptions, were not yet

in fashion. The story has been since hushed up, the chair replaced, and

none but the unhallowed remember the fact, and none but the audacious

repeat it. Yet such there are, even at Rome!"--_Ireland's Anecdotes of

Napoleon._

 

 

 

 

THE SAGRO CATINO, OR EMERALD DISH.

 

 

"The church of St. Lorenzo, at Genoa, is celebrated for containing a

most sacred relic, the 'Sagro Catino,' a dish of one entire and perfect

_emerald_, said to be that on which our Saviour ate his last supper.

Such a dish in the house of a Jewish publican was a miracle in itself.

Mr. Eustace says, he looked for this dish, but found that the French,

'whose delight is brutal violence, as it is that of the lion or the

tiger,' had carried it away. And so indeed they did. But that was

nothing. The carrying off relics--the robbing of Peter to pay Paul, and

spoliating one church to enrich another--was an old trick of legitimate

conquerors in all ages; for this very '_dish_' had been carried away by

the royal crusaders, when they took _Cesarea_ in Palestine, under

_Guillaume Embriaco_, in the twelfth century. In the division of spoils,

this emerald fell to the share of the _Genoese Crusaders_, into whose

holy vocation some of their old trading propensities evidently entered;

and they deemed the vulgar value, the profane price, of this treasure,

so high, that on an emergency, they pledged it for nine thousand five

hundred livres. Redeemed and replaced, it was guarded by the _knights of

honor_ called _Clavigeri_; and only escaped once a year! Millions knelt

before it, and the penalty on the bold but zealous hand that touched it

with a diamond, was a thousand golden ducats."

 

The French seized this relic, as the crusaders had done in the twelfth

century; but instead of conveying it from the church of San Lorenzo to

the abbey of St. Denis (_selon les règles_), they most sacrilegiously

sent it to a _laboratory_. Instead of submitting it, with a traditional

story, to a _council of Trent_, they handed it over to the _institute of

Paris_; and chemists, geologists, and philosophers, were called on to

decide the fate of that relic which bishops, priests and deacons had

pronounced to be too sacred for human investigation, or even for human

touch. _The result of the scientific investigation was, that the emerald

dish was a piece of green glass!_

 

When England made the King of Sardinia a present of the dukedom of one

of the oldest republics in Europe, and restitutions were making "_de

part et d'autre_;" _Victor Emmanuel_ insisted upon having his emerald

dish; not for the purpose of putting it in a cabinet of curiosities, as

they had done at Paris, to serve as a curious monument of the remote

epoch in which the art of making colored glass was known--(of its great

antiquity there is no doubt)--but of restoring it to its shrine at San

Lorenzo--to its guard of knights servitors--to the homage, offerings,

and bigotry of the people! with a republished assurance that this is the

invaluable _emerald dish_, the '_Sagro Catino_,' which _Queen Sheba_

offered, with other gems, to King Solomon (who deposited it, where all

gems should be, in his church), and which afterwards was reserved for a

higher destiny than even that assigned to it in the gorgeous temple of

Jerusalem. The story of the analysis by the institute of Paris is hushed

up, and those who would revive it would be branded with the odium of

blasphemy and sedition; none now remember such things, but those who are

the determined enemies of social order, or as the Genoese Royal Journal

would call them, '_the radicals of the age_.'--_Italy, by Lady

Morning_.

 

 

 

 

"THE PAINTER OF FLORENCE."

 

 

There is an old painting in the church of the Holy Virgin at Florence,

representing the Virgin with the infant Jesus in her arms, trampling the

dragon under her feet, about which is the following curious legend, thus

humorously described by Southey, in the Annals of the Fine Arts:

 

There once was a Painter in Catholic days,

     Like Job who eschewed all evil,

Still on his Madonnas the curious may gaze

With applause and amazement; but chiefly his praise

     And delight was in painting the devil.

 

They were angels compared to the devils he drew,

     Who besieged poor St. Anthony's cell,

Such burning hot eyes, such a _d----mnable_ hue,

You could even smell brimstone, their breath was so blue

     He painted his devils so well.

 

And now had the artist a picture begun,

     'Twas over the Virgin's church door;

She stood on the dragon embracing her son,

Many devils already the artist had done,

     But this must outdo all before.

 

The old dragon's imps as they fled through the air,

     At seeing it paused on the wing,

For he had