IF the representation of French art at the National Gallery in London is admittedly meagre and inadequate, the British section at the Louvre can scarcely be considered worthy of serious consideration. Its entire removal, with the exception of about half a dozen pictures, would not only entail no serious loss to the collection, but would be an act of justice to the reputation of several great artists who are here made responsible for pictures upon which they presumably never set eyes. Under these circumstances it is quite impossible to illustrate the progress of British art by the two-score or so examples in the Long Gallery, part of which is devoted to the English pictures. Of the leading masters, Hogarth (1697–1764) and Gainsborough (1727–1788) will be vainly looked for, since the two Landscapes (Nos. 1811 and 1811b) attributed to the latter in the La Caze Room are inferior conventional compositions in Italian taste, which can no more be connected with the name of Gainsborough than the wretched Still Life which has lately been added to the Louvre collection.

CONSTABLE AND HIS IMITATORS

In view of the powerful influence exercised by Constable and the British Landscape school in general upon modern French art, it is surprising that no attempts should have been made to secure a few examples of greater importance and more certain authenticity than the ones now exhibited. Six pictures are catalogued under the name of John Constable (1776–1837); the only one that can be unreservedly accepted as the work of his brush is the little view of Hampstead Heath (No. 1809, Plate LIV.), which was presented to the Louvre in 1877 by the painter’s son, Mr. Lionel Constable. It is a fresh, masterly study for the picture in the Sheepshanks collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The Weymouth Bay (No. 1808), which realised as much as £2240 at the Marquis de la Rochebrune’s sale in 1873, has been enthusiastically commented upon by BÜrger, but cannot pass the ordeal of searching criticism. It is incoherent, and in the details of the foreground and the painting of the figures and sheep lacks the purposeful sureness of touch which is the hall-mark of Constable’s art. The Cottage (No. 1806) has the same provenance. Mr. P. M. Turner, in an article in the Burlington Magazine, suggests that F. W. Watts, a feeble imitator of Constable, is the real author of this timidly executed painting—an attribution which is certainly more convincing than the one in the official catalogue. The Glebe Farm (No. 1810) tallies closely, as regards the superficial aspect, with the picture of the same title at the National Gallery, to which it is, however, so inferior as to put Constable’s authorship out of the question. The Windmill (No. 1810a), a gift of Mr. Sedelmeyer, seems to be a copy of the Spring at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Rainbow (No. 1807) may possibly be by Constable, although its authorship has been questioned by several reliable authorities.

James Webb (1825?–1895), a painter of undeniable talent for imitating the manner of artists greater than himself, is beyond much doubt responsible both for the Landscape (No. 1820), which is officially given to Richard Wilson (1714–1782), and for the view of the Pont Neuf (No. 1819), which is still exhibited as an example by the greatest English landscape painter J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851). Unfortunately Turner’s name has to be added to Hogarth’s and Gainsborough’s in the list of eminent British masters who are not represented at the Louvre.

BONINGTON

That Richard Parkes Bonington (1801–1828) should be seen to better advantage in this collection, is only natural in view of the fact that by his training at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and under Gros he belongs to the French rather than to the English school. He was closely allied by the bond of friendship to Delacroix, and played an important part in the romantic movement. The two little pictures FranÇois I. and the Duchesse d’Etampes (No. 1802) and Mazarin and Anne of Austria (No. 1803) are conceived quite in the spirit of the French Romanticists. Bonington’s genius as a colourist is, however, best displayed in the sparkling and animated View of Venice (No. 1805). Admirable, too, in their spontaneous freshness are the View of the Gardens at Versailles (No. 1804) and the View of the Coast of Normandy (No. 1804a). The Old Governess (No. 1805a), one of Bonington’s rare attempts at portraiture, is remarkable for the accentuation of the modelling, which somehow suggests the broad treatment of the planes adopted by a wood-carver.

The picture which is catalogued as La Halte (No. 1814), by George Morland (1763–1804), is merely a poor copy of that artist’s painting The Public-house Door, engraved by Ward. It was presented to the Louvre by the proprietors of the magazine L’Art.

When we come to the great school of British portrait painting, we have to record at least two or three masterpieces worthy of being included in a great museum. A picture of unquestioned authenticity and great charm is the Portrait of Master Hare (No. 1818b) by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792), who in this, as in other similar pieces, proved himself the painter par excellence of childhood in all its innocence and ingenuousness, even though this picture is by no means impeccable as regards draughtsmanship. The Master Hare was bequeathed to the Louvre by Baron Alphonse de Rothschild in 1905. The badly repainted Portrait of a Lady (No. 1818a) in a white dress, and with powdered hair, is certainly not the work of Sir Joshua, under whose name it figures in the catalogue.

RAEBURN

Among the recent additions to the Louvre collection is the excellent life-size portrait of Captain Robert Hay of Spot, by Sir Henry Raeburn (1756–1823), which still hangs on a screen in Gallery XV. and has not yet been provided with a number. It is a full-length portrait of the sitter, in uniform of scarlet coat, white breeches, black gaiters, and fur busby, his hand resting upon his gun, standing against a conventional landscape background with a sky of characteristic tawny hue. The picture was formerly in the collection of Mr. Sanderson, at the sale of which, in 1908, it was bought by Messrs. Agnew for 650 gs. To Raeburn are also ascribed the extremely puzzling Portrait of an Old Sailor (No. 1817), which, in spite of certain technical affinities with the British eighteenth-century school, is so un-English in spirit that it would be rash to ascribe it to any master of that school; the negligeable Portrait of Anna Moore, Authoress (No. 1817a); also the utterly commonplace and wretchedly drawn Mrs. Maconochie and Child (No. 1817b), which was bought in 1904, together with the equally questionable Portrait of a Lady and a Young Boy (No. 1812b), by Hoppner, for £4000.

SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE

The strangely exaggerated estimation in which Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830) is held by French connoisseurs, is to a certain extent to be accounted for by the superb quality of the picture by which he is best known in France: the portrait group of J. J. Angerstein and his Wife (No. 1813a) at the Louvre, which was acquired in 1896 for £3000. This fine group displays all his bravura and pleasing freshness and brightness of colour, without any of the vulgar tricks and shallow mannerisms of his later years. Next to it should be mentioned the charming half-length life-size Portrait of Mary Palmer (No. 1813c), in a yellow dress, seated in a garden. The completely wrecked Portrait of Lord Whitworth, English Ambassador to France in 1802 (No. 1813), and the Portrait of a Man (No. 1813d), are of no artistic significance.

Neither is it necessary to dwell upon the mediocre Brother and Sister (No. 1801), by Sir William Beechey (1753–1839); the Portrait of Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Princess of Wales (No. 1818), by Allan Ramsay (1713–1784); and the Portrait of Lamartine, French Poet and Politician (No. 1816a), by Henry Wyndham Phillips (1820–1868). The Woman in White (No. 1816) is at least a sound piece of craftsmanship, even if the attribution to John Opie (1761–1807), “the Cornish Wonder,” is subject to doubt.

OTHER PORTRAIT PAINTERS

We have already mentioned the portrait group (No. 1812b), a picture in deplorable condition, to which the name of John Hoppner (1758?–1810) has been attached without sufficient reason. No less doubtful is the authenticity of the Portrait of the Countess of Oxford (No. 1812a), a meretricious picture which serves to show the mannerisms and striving after prettiness of Lawrence’s rival, rather than the more estimable qualities by which his better achievements are distinguished.

George Romney (1734–1802), on the other hand, is seen in his most serious mood in the Portrait of Sir John Stanley (No. 1818c)— a thoroughly honest “likeness,” well drawn, and painted straight-forwardly, without tricky accents and mechanical recipes. On a screen in Gallery XV. has been temporarily placed a recently acquired Portrait of the Artist, by Romney. He is seated, palette in hand, in a landscape background. The features are well modelled, and the light and shade managed with considerable skill.

Strangely enough the most remarkable English picture at the Louvre is by a little known painter, who is not represented in any of the leading British galleries. Charles Howard Hodges (1764–1837), who was born in London, but went at the age of twenty-four to Holland, where he spent the rest of his life, was really a mezzotint engraver, in which craft he had been trained by John Raphael Smith. He produced many plates after pictures by the Dutch masters, and also painted a few portraits, among them the masterly Portrait of a Woman (No. 1812), at the Louvre. At a time which was too much given to conventionality and to the desire to please by concessions to a popular craving for prettiness, this picture strikes a note of almost brutal realism. It is painted with surprising vigour and with an appreciation of correct tone-values, in a low key, which heralds the art of the Glasgow school in the later decades of the nineteenth century.

With The Bathing Woman (No. 1810b), by William Etty (1787–1849), and The Watering Place (No. 1815), by William Mulready (1786–1863), we reach the full decadence of the British school in early Victorian days before the great revival initiated by the pre-Raphaelites.