Early Italian Art

If the British public care in the slightest degree about early Italian Art the Winter Exhibition at the New Gallery should be crowded from morning to night. The pictures alone form a collection which, if it were in any continental gallery, we should make a pilgrimage to see; and the objects of miscellaneous art, though rather bewildering in their variety, are a feast which those who best know their Italy and their South Kensington Museum can best enjoy. It is with these we have here to do.

Notable in the Central Hall (which has never been seen to better advantage) are the arms and armour, casques, swords, shields, daggers, and whole suits of steel from the collections of Messrs. G.F. Laking, Durlacher Brothers, W.H. Spiller, J. Gurney, and D.M. Currie, who lends, among other perhaps much more important things, the back of a gorget (1191), extra-ordinarily delicate in shape and quite perfect in workmanship.

In the Hall again we find quite a show of sculpture and modelling; quite a show, one might say, of Madonnas. One has the opportunity of comparing Donatello's "Virgin and Child" in marble (1293) surrounded by angels and cherubim, with the silver plaque of the same subject after him (1294). and the terra cotta ascribed to Verrocchio (1283) with the coloured group of Luca della Robbia (1277). Of the several Madonnas in tinted gesso the most beautiful are the one sent by Sir F. Leighton (1279), reproduced on this page, and that belonging to Earl Brownlow (1289), both of which are charming alike in feeling and in colour. There is material enough here on which to form some opinion as to the possibilities in the way of painted panels in relief: of the decorative value of such work as this there is no doubt. The famous St. Cecilia in dark grey slate (1305) is here, and ajuvenile St. John the Baptist in high relief (1305), also by Donatello.

In the South Gallery, where are the paintings of Giotto, Fra Angelico, and the rest of the "primitives," are placed the illuminated manuscripts. Some of these contain miniatures which may or may not be by Andrea Mantegna and other artists of repute. They are certainly very beautifully executed; but they are almost invariably out of scale, and out of keeping, with the ornament of which they pretend to form part, as are the quasi-natural birds and animals so frequently introduced among purely conventional scrollwork. The impression one had of the general crudity of the colour of illuminated MSS., even when the illuminators were Italians, is not here dispersed. A very interesting series of early printed books is displayed in the Balcony, where are also the greater part of the magnificent drawings of Raphael, Lionardo, Michelangelo, and other great masters, contributed chiefly by her Majesty and Mr. Fairfax Murray.

The gold and silversmith's work is very remarkable, especially the portable altar (303) a slab of oriental jasper, mounted in silver and richly ornamented in the style of the twelfth century, lent by the Bishop of Southwark. Another masculine piece of work is the casket of elaborately embossed leather, bearing the arms of the Medici, and bound with wrought-iron bands (317), contributed by Mrs. P.C. Hardwick. Mr. A. de Rothschild sends a severely designed casket of crystal (323), and Mr. Boore a gilt cup stem by Cellini (417). The personal ornaments are on the whole more wonderful than strictly beautiful ; one can see here how early something of the spirit of the Rococo developed it-self. Already we have misshapen pearls to form the body of a seahorse, a triton, and suchlike; almost one might fancy oneself in the Green Vaults at Dresden; a pendant a la Cellini (411) hangs from a necklace which is distinctly baroque. Quite the most tasteful piece of goldsmith's work is the Enamelled reliquary in the form of a pendant, lent by Mr. Boore (407); the back of it in particular is exquisitely delicate.