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THE BEST PORTRAITS IN ENGRAVING.

CHARLES SUMNER.

FREDERICK KEPPEL & CO.

NEW YORK, 20 EAST 16th STREET.

LONDON, PARIS,

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by

FREDERICK KEPPEL,

THE BEST PORTRAITS IN ENGRAVING.

Engraving is one of the fine arts, and in this beautiful family has been the especial handmaiden of painting. Another sister is now coming forward to join this service, lending to it the charm of color. If, in our day, the "chromo" can do more than engraving, it cannot impair the value of the early masters. With them there is no rivalry or competition. Historically, as well as aesthetically, they will be masters always.

Everybody knows something of engraving, as of printing, with which it was associated in origin. School-books, illustrated papers, and shop windows are the ordinary opportunities open to all. But while creating a transient interest, or, perhaps, quickening the taste, they furnish little with regard to the art itself, especially in other days. And yet, looking at an engraving, like looking at a book, may be the beginning of a new pleasure and a new study.

Each person has his own story. Mine is simple. Suffering from continued prostration, disabling me from the ordinary activities of life, I turned to engravings for employment and pastime. With the invaluable assistance of that devoted connoisseur, the late Dr. Thies, I went through the Gray collection at Cambridge, enjoying it like a picture-gallery. Other collections in our country were examined also. Then, in Paris, while undergoing severe medical treatment, my daily medicine for weeks was the vast cabinet of engravings, then called Imperial, now National, counted by the million, where was everything to please or instruct. Thinking of those kindly portfolios, I make this record of gratitude, as to benefactors. Perhaps some other invalid, seeking occupation without burden, may find in them the solace that I did. Happily, it is not necessary to visit Paris for the purpose. Other collections, on a smaller scale, will furnish the same remedy.

In any considerable collection, portraits occupy an important place. Their multitude may be inferred when I mention that, in one series of portfolios, in the Paris cabinet, I counted no less than forty-seven portraits of Franklin and forty-three of Lafayette, with an equal number of Washington, while all the early Presidents were numerously represented. But, in this large company, there are very few possessing artistic value. The great portraits of modern times constitute a very short list, like the great poems or histories, and it is the same with engravings as with pictures. Sir Joshua Reynolds, explaining the difference between an historical painter and a portrait-painter, remarks that the former "paints men in general, a portrait-painter a particular man, and consequently a defective model." A portrait, therefore, may be an accurate presentment of its subject without aesthetic value.

But here, as in other things, genius exercises its accustomed sway without limitation. Even the difficulties of a "defective model" did not prevent Raffaelle, Titian, Rembrandt, Rubens, Velasquez, or Vandyck from producing portraits precious in the history of art. It would be easy to mention heads by Raffaelle, yielding in value to only two or three of his larger masterpieces, like the Dresden Madonna. Charles the Fifth stooped to pick up the pencil of Titian, saying "it becomes Caesar to serve Titian!" True enough; but this unprecedented compliment from the imperial successor of Charlemagne attests the glory of the portrait-painter. The female figures of Titian, so much admired under the names of Flora, La Bella, his daughter, his mistress, and even his Venus, were portraits from life. Rembrandt turned from his great triumphs in his own peculiar school to portraits of unwonted power; so also did Rubens, showing that in this department his universality of conquest was not arrested. To these must be added Velasquez and Vandyck, each of infinite genius, who won fame especially as portrait-painters. And what other title has Sir Joshua himself?

Historical pictures are often collections of portraits arranged so as to illustrate an important event. Such is the famous PEACE OF M?NSTER, by Terburg, just presented by a liberal Englishman to the National Gallery at London. Here are the plenipotentiaries of Holland, Spain, and Austria, uniting in the great treaty which constitutes an epoch in the Law of Nations. The engraving by Suyderhoef is rare and interesting. Similar in character is the Death of Chatham, by Copley, where the illustrious statesman is surrounded by the peers he had been addressing--every one a portrait. To this list must be added the pictures by Trumbull in the Rotunda of the Capitol at Washington, especially the Declaration of Independence, in which Thackeray took a sincere interest. Standing before these, the author and artist said to me, "These are the best pictures in the country," and he proceeded to remark on their honesty and fidelity; but doubtless their real value is in their portraits.

Unquestionably the finest assemblage of portraits anywhere is that of the artists occupying two halls in the gallery at Florence, being autographs contributed by the masters themselves. Here is Raffaelle, with chestnut-brown hair, and dark eyes full of sensibility, painted when he was twenty-three, and known by the engraving of Forster--Julio Romano, in black and red chalk on paper,--Massaccio, called the father of painting, much admired--Leonardo da Vinci, beautiful and grand,--Titian, rich and splendid,--Pietro Perugino, remarkable for execution and expression,--Albert D?rer, rigid but masterly,--Gerhard Dow, finished according to his own exacting style,--and Reynolds, with fresh English face; but these are only examples of this incomparable collection, which was begun as far back as the Cardinal Leopold de Medici, and has been happily continued to the present time. Here are the lions, painted by themselves, except, perhaps, the foremost of all, Michael Angelo, whose portrait seems the work of another. The impression from this collection is confirmed by that of any group of historic artists. Their portraits excel those of statesmen, soldiers, or divines, as is easily seen by engravings accessible to all. The engraved heads in Arnold Houbraken's biographies of the Dutch and Flemish painters, in three volumes, are a family of rare beauty.

Thus does the engraver vindicate his art. But nobody can examine a choice print without feeling that it has a merit of its own different from any picture, and inferior only to a good picture. A work of Raffaelle, or any of the great masters, is better in an engraving of Longhi or Morghen than in any ordinary copy, and would probably cost more in the market. A good engraving is an undoubted work of art, but this cannot be said of many pictures, which, like Peter Pindar's razors, seem made to sell.

Much that belongs to the painter belongs also to the engraver, who must have the same knowledge of contours, the same power of expression, the same sense of beauty, and the same ability in drawing with sureness of sight as if, according to Michael Angelo, he had "a pair of compasses in his eyes." These qualities in a high degree make the artist, whether painter or engraver, naturally excelling in portraits. But choice portraits are less numerous in engraving than in painting, for the reason, that painting does not always find a successful translator.

The earliest engraved portraits which attract attention are by Albert D?rer, who engraved his own work, translating himself. His eminence as painter was continued as engraver. Here he surpassed his predecessors, Martin Schoen in Germany, and Mantegna in Italy, so that Longhi does not hesitate to say that he was the first who carried the art from infancy in which he found it to a condition not far from flourishing adolescence. But, while recognizing his great place in the history of engraving, it is impossible not to see that he is often hard and constrained, if not unfinished. His portrait of ERASMUS is justly famous, and is conspicuous among the prints exhibited in the British Museum. It is dated 1526, two years before the death of D?rer, and has helped to extend the fame of the universal scholar and approved man of letters, who in his own age filled a sphere not unlike that of Voltaire in a later century. There is another portrait of Erasmus by Holbein, often repeated, so that two great artists have contributed to his renown. That by D?rer is admired. The general fineness of touch, with the accessories of books and flowers, shows the care in its execution; but it wants expression, and the hands are far from graceful.

Another most interesting portrait by D?rer, executed in the same year with the Erasmus, is PHILIP MELANCTHON, the St. John of the Reformation, sometimes called the teacher of Germany. Luther, while speaking of himself as rough, boisterous, stormy, and altogether warlike, says, "but Master Philippus comes along softly and gently, sowing and watering with joy according to the rich gifts which God has bestowed upon him." At the date of the print he was twenty-nine years of age, and the countenance shows the mild reformer.

This print, like the Erasmus of D?rer, is among those selected for exhibition at the British Museum, and it deserves the honor. Though only paper with black lines, it is, by the genius of the artist, as good as a picture. In all engraving nothing is better.

Contemporary with Caracci was Hendrik Goltzius, at Harlem, excellent as painter, but, like the Italian, pre-eminent as engraver. His prints show mastery of the art, making something like an epoch in its history. His unwearied skill in the use of the burin appears in a tradition gathered by Longhi from Wille, that, having commenced a line, he carried it to the end without once stopping, while the long and bright threads of copper turned up were brushed aside by his flowing beard, which at the end of a day's labor so shone in the light of a candle that his companions nicknamed him "the man with the golden beard." There are prints by him which shine more than his beard. Among his masterpieces is the portrait of his instructor, THEODORE COERNHERT, engraver, poet, musician, and vindicator of his country, and author of the national air, "William of Orange," whose passion for liberty did not prevent him from giving to the world translations of Cicero's Offices and Seneca's Treatise on Beneficence. But that of the ENGRAVER HIMSELF, as large as life, is one of the most important in the art. Among the numerous prints by Goltzius, these two will always be conspicuous.

The school was opened by Claude Mellan, more known as engraver than painter, and also author of most of the designs he engraved. His life, beginning with the sixteenth century, was protracted beyond ninety years, not without signal honor, for his name appears among the "Illustrious Men" of France, in the beautiful volumes of Perrault, which is also a homage to the art he practiced. One of his works, for a long time much admired, was described by this author:

"It is a Christ's head, designed and shaded, with his crown of thorns and the blood that gushes forth from all parts, by one single stroke, which, beginning at the tip of the nose, and so still circling on, forms most exactly everything that is represented in this plate, only by the different thickness of the stroke, which, according as it is more or less swelling, makes the eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks, hair, blood, and thorns; the whole so well represented and with such expressions of pain and affliction, that nothing is more dolorous or touching."

This print is known as the SUDARIUM OF ST. VERONICA. Longhi records that it was thought at the time "inimitable," and was praised "to the skies;" but people think differently now. At best it is a curiosity among portraits. A traveler reported some time ago that it was the sole print on the walls of the room occupied by the director of the Imperial Cabinet of Engravings at St. Petersburgh.

Morin was a contemporary of Mellan, and less famous at the time. His style of engraving was peculiar, being a mixture of strokes and dots, but so harmonized as to produce a pleasing effect. One of the best engraved portraits in the history of the art is his CARDINAL BENTIVOGLIO; but here he translated Vandyck, whose picture is among his best. A fine impression of this print is a choice possession.

"When I call Nanteuil's Pompone the handsomest engraved portrait, I express a conviction to which I came when I studied all the remarkable engraved portraits at the royal cabinet of engravings at Dresden, and at the large and exquisite collection there of the late King of Saxony, and in which I was confirmed or perhaps, to which I was led, by the director of the two establishments, the late Professor Frenzel."

And after describing this head, the learned connoisseur proceeds:--

It is bold, perhaps, thus to exalt a single portrait, giving to it the palm of Venus; nor do I know that it is entirely proper to classify portraits according to beauty. In disputing about beauty, we are too often lost in the variety of individual tastes, and yet each person knows when he is touched. In proportion as multitudes are touched, there must be merit. As in music a simple heart-melody is often more effective than any triumph over difficulties, or bravura of manner, so in engraving the sense of the beautiful may prevail over all else, and this is the case with the Pompone, although there are portraits by others showing higher art.

No doubt there have been as handsome men, whose portraits were engraved, but not so well. I know not if Pompone was what would be called a handsome man, although his air is noble and his countenance bright. But among portraits more boldly, delicately, or elaborately engraved, there are very few to contest the palm of beauty.

The PHILIPPE DE CHAMPAIGNE is the head of that eminent French artist after a painting by himself, and it contests the palm with the Pompone. Mr. Marsh, who is an authority, prefers it. Dr. Thies, who places the latter first in beauty, is constrained to allow that the other is "superior as a work of the graver," being executed with all the resources of the art in its chastest form. The enthusiasm of Longhi finds expression in unusual praise:

"The work which goes the most to my blood, and with regard to which Edelinck, with good reason, congratulated himself, is the portrait of Champaigne. I shall die before I cease to contemplate it with wonder always new. Here is seen how he was equally great as designer and engraver."

And he then dwells on various details; the skin, the flesh, the eyes living and seeing, the moistened lips, the chin covered with a beard unshaven for a few days, and the hair in all its forms.

Between the rival portraits by Nanteuil and Edelinck it is unnecessary to decide. Each is beautiful. In looking at them we recognize anew the transient honors of public service. The present fame of Champaigne surpasses that of Pompone. The artist outlives the magistrate. But does not the poet tell us that "the artist never dies?"

As Edelinck passed from the scene, the family of Drevet appeared, especially the son, Pierre Imbert Drevet, born in 1697, who developed a rare excellence, improving even upon the technics of his predecessor, and gilding his refined gold. The son was born engraver, for at the age of thirteen he produced an engraving of exceeding merit. He manifested a singular skill in rendering different substances, like Masson, by the effect of light, and at the same time gave to flesh a softness and transparency which remain unsurpassed. To these he added great richness in picturing costumes and drapery, especially in lace.

He was eminently a portrait engraver, which I must insist is the highest form of the art, as the human face is the most important object for its exercise. Less clear and simple than Nanteuil, and less severe than Edelinck, he gave to the face individuality of character, and made his works conspicuous in art. If there was excess in the accessories, it was before the age of Sartor Resartus, and he only followed the prevailing style in the popular paintings of Hyacinthe Rigaud. Art in all its forms had become florid, if not meretricious, and Drevet was a representative of his age.

Among his works are important masterpieces. I name only BOSSUET, the famed eagle of Meaux; SAMUEL BERNARD, the rich Councillor of State; F?NELON, the persuasive teacher and writer; CARDINAL DUBOIS, the unprincipled minister, and the favorite of the Regent of France; and ADRIENNE LE COUVREUR, the beautiful and unfortunate actress, linked in love with the Marshal Saxe. The portrait of Bossuet has everything to attract and charm. There stands the powerful defender of the Catholic Church, master of French style, and most renowned pulpit orator of France, in episcopal robes, with abundant lace, which is the perpetual envy of the fair who look at this transcendent effort. The ermine of Dubois is exquisite, but the general effect of this portrait does not compare with the Bossuet, next to which, in fascination, I put the Adrienne. At her death the actress could not be buried in consecrated ground; but through art she has the perpetual companionship of the greatest bishop of France.

Two other engravers belong to this intermediate period, though not French in origin: Georg F. Schmidt, born at Berlin, 1712, and Johann Georg Wille, born in the small town of K?nigsberg, in the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt, 1717, but attracted to Paris, they became the greatest engravers of the time. Their work is French, and they are the natural development of that classical school.

Schmidt was the son of a poor weaver, and lost six precious years as a soldier in the artillery at Berlin. Owing to the smallness of his size he was at length dismissed, when he surrendered to a natural talent for engraving. Arriving at Strasburg, on his way to Paris, he fell in with Wille, a wandering gunsmith, who joined him in his journey, and eventually, in his studies. The productions of Schmidt show ability, originality, and variety, rather than taste. His numerous portraits are excellent, being free and life-like, while the accessories of embroidery and drapery are rendered with effect. As an etcher he ranks next after Rembrandt. Of his portraits executed with the graver, that of the EMPRESS ELIZABETH OF RUSSIA is usually called the most important, perhaps on account of the imperial theme, and next those of COUNT RASSAMOWSKY, COUNT ESTERHAZY, and DE MOUNSEY, which he engraved while in St. Petersburgh, where he was called by the Empress, founding there the Academy of Engraving. But his real masterpieces are unquestionably PIERRE MIGNARD and LATOUR, French painters, the latter represented laughing.

Longhi was a universal master, and his portraits are only parts of his work. That of WASHINGTON, which is rare, is evidently founded on Stuart's painting, but after a design of his own, which is now in the possession of the Swiss Consul at Venice. The artist felicitated himself on the hair, which is modelled after the French masters. The portraits of MICHAEL ANGELO, and of DANDOLO, the venerable Doge of Venice, are admired; so also is the NAPOLEON, AS KING OF ITALY, with the iron crown and finest lace. But his chief portrait is that of EUGENE BEAUHARNAIS, VICEROY OF ITALY, full length, remarkable for plume in the cap, which is finished with surpassing skill.

Contemporary with Longhi was another Italian engraver of widely extended fame, who was not the product of the French school, Raffaelle Morghen, born at Florence in 1758. His works have enjoyed a popularity beyond those of other masters, partly from the interest of their subjects, and partly from their soft and captivating style, although they do not possess the graceful power of Nanteuil and Edelinck, and are without variety. He was scholar and son-in-law of Volpato, of Rome; himself scholar of Wagner, of Venice, whose homely round faces were not high models in art. The AURORA, OF GUIDO, and the LAST SUPPER, OF LEONARDO DA VINCI, stand high in engraving, especially the latter, which occupied Morghen three years. Of his two hundred and one works, no less than seventy-three are portraits, among which are the Italian poets DANTE, PETRARCH, ARIOSTO, TASSO, also BOCCACCIO, and a head called RAFFAELLE, but supposed to be that of BENDO ALTOVITI, the great painter's friend, and especially the DUKE OF MENCADA on horseback, after Vandyck, which has received warm praise. But none of his portraits is calculated to give greater pleasure than that of LEONARDO DA VINCI, which may vie in beauty even with the famous Pompone. Here is the beauty of years and of serene intelligence. Looking at that tranquil countenance, it is easy to imagine the large and various capacities which made him not only painter, but sculptor, architect, musician, poet, discoverer, philosopher, even predecessor of Galileo and Bacon. Such a character deserves the immortality of art. Happily an old Venetian engraving reproduced in our day, enables us to see this same countenance at an earlier period of life, with sparkle in the eye.

Raffaelle Morghen left no scholars who have followed him in portraits; but his own works are still regarded, and a monument in Santa Croce, the Westminster Abbey of Florence, places him among the mighty dead of Italy.

Meanwhile a Scotchman honorable in art comes upon the scene--Sir Robert Strange, born in the distant Orkneys in 1721, who abandoned the law for engraving. As a youthful Jacobite he joined the Pretender in 1745, sharing the disaster of Culloden, and owing his safety from pursuers to a young lady dressed in the ample costume of the period, whom he afterwards married in gratitude, and they were both happy. He has a style of his own, rich, soft, and especially charming in the tints of flesh, making him a natural translator of Titian. His most celebrated engravings are doubtless the VENUS and the DANA? after the great Venetian colorist, but the CLEOPATRA, though less famous, is not inferior in merit. His acknowledged masterpiece is the MADONNA OF ST. JEROME called THE DAY, after the picture by Correggio, in the gallery of Parma, but his portraits after Vandyck are not less fine, while they are more interesting--as CHARLES FIRST, with a large hat, by the side of his horse, which the Marquis of Hamilton is holding, and that of the same Monarch standing in his ermine robes; also the THREE ROYAL CHILDREN with two King Charles spaniels at their feet, also HENRIETTA MARIA, the Queen of Charles. That with the ermine robes is supposed to have been studied by Raffaelle Morghen, called sometimes an imitator of Strange. To these I would add the rare autograph PORTRAIT OF THE ENGRAVER, being a small head after Greuze, which is simple and beautiful.

One other name will close this catalogue. It is that of William Sharp, who was born at London in 1746, and died there in 1824. Though last in order, this engraver may claim kindred with the best. His first essays were the embellishment of pewter pots, from which he ascended to the heights of art, showing a power rarely equalled. Without any instance of peculiar beauty, his works are constant in character and expression, with every possible excellence of execution; face, form, drapery--all are as in nature. His splendid qualities appear in the DOCTORS OF THE CHURCH, which has taken its place as the first of English engravings. It is after the picture of Guido, once belonging to the Houghton gallery, which in an evil hour for English taste was allowed to enrich the collection of the Hermitage at St. Petersburgh; and I remember well that this engraving by Sharp was one of the few ornaments in the drawing-room of Macaulay when I last saw him, shortly before his lamented death. Next to the Doctors of the Church is his LEAR IN THE STORM, after the picture by West, now in the Boston Athenaeum, and his SORTIE FROM GIBRALTAR, after the picture by Trumbull, also in the Boston Athenaeum. Thus, through at least two of his masterpieces whose originals are among us, is our country associated with this great artist.

It is of portraits especially that I write, and here Sharp is truly eminent. All that he did was well done; but two were models; that of MR. BOULTON, a strong, well-developed country gentleman, admirably executed, and of JOHN HUNTER, the eminent surgeon, after the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds, in the London College of Surgeons, unquestionably the foremost portrait in English art, and the coequal companion of the great portraits in the past; but here the engraver united his rare gifts with those of the painter.

In closing these sketches I would have it observed that this is no attempt to treat of engraving generally, or of prints in their mass or types. The present subject is simply of portraits, and I stop now just as we arrive at contemporary examples, abroad and at home, with the gentle genius of Mandel beginning to ascend the sky, and our own engravers appearing on the horizon. There is also a new and kindred art, infinite in value, where the sun himself becomes artist, with works which mark an epoch.

CHARLES SUMNER.

WASHINGTON, 11TH DEC., 1871.

FOOTNOTES:

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