This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1920 Excerpt: ...of the original number, so the convenience of inspection, diminishing in proportion to every numerical increase, has now disappeared. "The demand for space is so great as to cause the expulsion of Correggio, Canaletti and Co. from the ante-room to the staircase, and Both even descends to a dark corner in the hall. ...
Read More
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1920 Excerpt: ...of the original number, so the convenience of inspection, diminishing in proportion to every numerical increase, has now disappeared. "The demand for space is so great as to cause the expulsion of Correggio, Canaletti and Co. from the ante-room to the staircase, and Both even descends to a dark corner in the hall. Consequently any judicious arrangement as to the epoch of the paintings, their style or subject, is impracticable, and hence most unfelicitious associations unwillingly arise from the juxtaposition of the pictures and the dissimilarity of their subjects. Christ praying in the Garden by Correggio is looking up to Annibale Carracci's Silenus, and Ludovico Carracci's Susanna ogles the Hon. William Windham of Sir Joshua Reynolds. "So scanty is the supply of light that we might almost conclude it to be not essential to vision. Numbers of the paintings are in this respect so disadvantageously hung as to be nearly invisible and it is necessary to exert some adroitness and management to catch a glimpse of many." Among the pictures, additional to these in the Angerstein collection, that now crowded the walls, was the most valuable acquisition the National Gallery has received since its foundation--Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne. Brought from Italy early in the century, the Titian was in the collection of Hamlet, the jeweller, in 1826, and was then offered to the National Gallery for 9,000, a price that was to include Nicolas Poussin's Bacchanalian Festival and Annibale Carracci's Christ appearing to Peter. The Government accepted the offer, on the recommendation of Lord Aberdeen, Sir Charles Long, Sir George Beaumont, Sir Thomas Lawrence, and the Keeper, William Seguier. A better bargain was never made for the State, for the value of the ...
Read Less