exactly represented, all is brilliantly coloured, and many of the figures are admirably drawn and modelled. Representations of some of the principal Joys and Sorrows' occupy the more immediate foreground: as the "Nativity," the "Adoration," the "Resurrection," and the "Descent of the Holy Spirit;" in the middle ground are the Annunciation," the "Murder of the Innocents," the "Ascension of Christ," and the "Assumption of the Virgin." The figures range in size from about one to six inches.

66

2

The "Anonimo di Morelli" noticed a small portrait in oil of Isabella of Aragon, wife of Philippe le Bon, Duke of Burgundy, by Memling, in the Grimani Palace at Venice, in 1521, and dated 1450. Memling was a great miniatore, or miniature painter; his participation in the illumination of the Grimani Breviary has been already mentioned.

HUGO VANDER GOES, a scholar and imitator of John Van Eyck, known as Hugo d'Anversa by the Italians, was a native of Ghent, and enjoyed a great reputation there in 1467; he was employed by the municipality of that town in 1468, at the pay of fourteen sols or sous the day, much beyond the average remuneration of the time. Hugo's works are very scarce, though about fifty in various galleries are attributed to him; many of them, no doubt, perished under the hands of the Dutch and Flemish iconoclasts of the following century. There is still an altar-piece by him, of considerable pretensions, in the choir of Santa Maria Nuova, at Florence, originally executed for Tommaso, one of the Portinari family, then resident in Bruges; Tommaso's portrait, also by Hugo, is in the Pitti Palace. The Pinacothek, at Munich, possesses a picture by him, a small panel of "St. John in the Wilderness," signed H. V. D. GOES, 1472, which is finished with great delicacy, and has an Italian character in its style. It is quite possible that several other pictures by Vander Goes may be preserved among the great mass of anonymous works of this time, at Brussels and some other of the collections of the rich cities of Belgium. He did, however, I should imagine, not live to be old, as he died not

1 The principal Joys and Sorrows of the Virgin were: Joys-1. The Annunciation; 2. The Visitation; 3. The Nativity; 4. The Adoration of the Kings; 5. The Presentation in the Temple; 6. Christ found by his Mother in the Temple; 7. The Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin.

The Sorrows were likewise seven :-1. The Prophecy of Simeon (Luke ii. 35); 2. The Flight into Egypt; 3. Christ, while disputing with the Doctors in the Temple, missed by his Mother; 4. Christ betrayed; 5. The Crucifixion, with the Virgin and St. John only, present; 6. The Deposition from the Cross; and, 7. The Ascension of Christ, the Virgin being left on Earth. See the " 'Speculum Salvationis," Augsburg ed.; and Kugler's "Handbook of Painting," Italy, Editor's Preface, where other series of religious representations are described.

2 "Notizia D'Opere di Disegno," &c. Bassano, 1800. p. 75.

later than 1479, in the Augustine convent of Rooden Closter, near Brussels, to which he had not long before retired, through disappointment in love, a piece of sentimentality not very consistent with old age. He was shortly before his death, 1478-9, chosen as umpire between the Corporation of Louvain and the heirs of Stuerbout, to value some unfinished works left by that painter.'

Of GERARD VANDER MEIRE, also of Ghent, very little is known, but he can scarcely have been born early enough to have been the pupil of Hubert Van Eyck, though he may have easily worked with John. He was enrolled a master of the Ghent Guild of St. Luke in 1452; and we know also that he painted the portrait of a nun of St. Clara, named Colette, who died at Ghent in 1447. In 1474, Gerard served as one of the two "sworn members" of the corporation of painters at Ghent, and he was then probably an old man. Jan Vander Meire, a brother of Gerard, died at Nevers in

1471.

Gerard Vander Meire painted a picture of the Virgin for the church of St. John at Ghent; and the church of St. Bavon there still possesses an altar-piece by him, a composition of many figures, and a very ordinary picture; Christ on the Cross between the two Thieves constituting the centre, with the Brazen Serpent, on the right, and Moses Striking the Rock, on the left. In the National Gallery are two works ascribed to him-one, a small portrait of Marco Barbarigo, who was Venetian Consul in London in 1449, may have been painted at that time either in Ghent or in Bruges. Vander Meire has been supposed to be the Gerard of Ghent who executed a great number of the miniatures of the Grimani Breviary already mentioned; but it is just possible that a much younger man-GERARD HOREMBOUT-was the painter of these miniatures; but in this case they must have been executed about 1490 rather than 1475, a date which has been suggested for them, and a possible one for Vander Meire, or for Memling, who was about thirty-five years of age at that time; but Gerard Horembout was a generation later, and was then but a child. Gerard was the father of Susanna Horembout, who was born at Ghent about 1503, and was a distinguished artist in 1521: both she and her father settled and died in England.'

There is another Gerard, an illuminator, and contemporary of Horembout, who has also been supposed to be the master referred to by Vasari and Guicciardini, in speaking of the Flemish minia

1 Van Mander; Michiels; and Count De Laborde, "Les Ducs de Bourgogne." Preuves, Vol. I., introduction.

2 See Ch. xxxiii.; see also Passavant, "Kunstreise," &c.; Rathgeber's "AnnaJen," &c.; Michiels, "Peinture Flamande et Hollandaise;" Busscher, "Notice sur l'Ancienne Corporation des Peintres à Gand," Brussels, 1853.

ture painters, and this is GERARD DAVID, a native of Oudewater, and an excellent painter. Guicciardini says, "Gherardo eccellentissimo nel alluminare,” and assumes him to have been a native of Bruges. He settled in Bruges about 1487, was a member of the Corporation of Painters there in 1488, and served as Dean in 1501-2: he married the daughter of one of the principal jewellers of Bruges. In 1508, Gerard became a member of the Society of Notre Dame de l'Arbre Sec at Bruges, and died in that city on the 13th of August in 1523.'

By Gerard David there are two excellent pictures in the Gallery of Bruges, the long admired works representing the story of Cambyses, and the Unjust Judge, Sisamnes, as related by Herodotus: the son of Sisamnes succeeded to the judgment-seat, but as a warning, the leather with which it was covered was made of his father's skin. The first picture represents the seizure of Sisamnes; the second, his flaying: they were painted in 1498. In style they resemble the works of Stuerbout; the figures are large, about three feet high. These two panels were taken to Paris in 1794; but were restored to Bruges in 1815, when they were placed in the Museum: the same gallery contains two miniatures on vellum by Gerard David.

Judging from the style of the pictures above described, and their resemblance to the works of Stuerbout, it is not improbable that this great Dutch painter was the master of Gerard, by whom there are certainly many other pictures among the mass of the misnamed and unnamed works of the fifteenth century which abound in the galleries of the Low Countries.

DIERICK STUERBOUT, or contracted, BOUTS, called by Guicciardini and Van Mander, Dirk Van Haarlem, was born in that city about 1391; his father, Dirk Stuerbout of Louvain, was a skilful landscape 'painter: he died, aged seventy-four, on the 6th of May, 1400; and is the Dirick da Lovano noticed by Guicciardini.

Stuerbout is the earliest distinguished historical painter of Holland, and is in some respects not second to any of the painters of the Netherlands: his colouring is particularly rich, and in the character of the drawing of his figures, though they are somewhat elongated, he attained an excellence not reached by some of his immediate successors even of great name. He seems to have lived chiefly at Haarlem, for he was an old man in 1461, the year he is supposed to have settled in Louvain, on being appointed painter to that city. His now most celebrated pictures were executed, or finished at least, when he was nearly eighty years of age.

1 For these facts respecting this hitherto unknown painter we are indebted to Mr. Weale; see the "Beffroi," vol. i., p. 223, opposite to which is a portrait of Gerard photographed from a drawing.

The paintings alluded to are the two of the Golden Legend, formerly in the collection of the King of Holland at the Hague; they were painted for the Council-hall at Louvain in 1468, and Dierick was paid 230 crowns for them. These works are called the First and Second pictures of the Emperor Otho and the Empress Mary. They illustrate a remarkable event which took place in 985. The story is recorded in the Chronicles of Louvain, and is known as the Golden Legend. The Emperor, Otho III., while at Modena, on his return from a journey to Rome, condemned to death one of his courtiers, an Italian Count, upon the accusation of the Empress Mary that he had attempted her honour during the emperor's absence; the accusation was, however, false; she had attempted in vain to seduce the Count, and pursued this course out of revenge. The Count was beheaded; but his widow, confident in his innocence, threw herself at the feet of the emperor, with the head of her husband in her arms, and holding in her hand a redhot bar of iron with impunity, supplicated him for justice. The emperor, convinced by the fire-ordeal, an infallible proof, determined to make what reparation he could, and ordered the empress to be burnt at the stake.

From this story Stuerbout painted these two large pictures, measuring about six feet wide by eleven high. In the first the emperor is listening to the accusation of the empress, and the Count is being led out in his shirt to execution, which is represented in the background. In the second the widow is kneeling before the emperor with the head of her husband on her left arm, and the hot bar of iron in her right hand; and in the distance of this piece the empress is being burnt at the stake in both pictures are various attendants. These paintings are much in the style of the Van Eycks, or rather Vander Weyden and Memling, in execution, and are extremely elaborated, especially the Second picture which is superior to the First. They were fixed on the wainscoting of the justicehall at Louvain; and by each was a panel containing an explanation of the subjects in the Flemish language and in gold Gothic letters. Being in a very dirty state and exposed to decay, they were purchased by the then King of Holland in 1827, were long in the palace of the Prince of Orange at Brussels, in 1841 were placed in the royal gallery at the Hague, and have recently been purchased for the Gallery at Brussels, in which they are now permanently located.

The galleries of Berlin, Munich, and other places, certainly have some fine examples of this painter, under other names, which are, however, gradually being restored to him.

Stuerbout died in 1479-80, aged about eighty-seven, leaving some important commissions for the Town Council of Louvain unexecuted.

In the "Annales et Antiquités de Louvain," first made known by M. De Bast, we learn that Stuerbout was commissioned on the 20th May, 1468, that is, after the completion of the two Golden Legend pictures, to paint two other works for the town-hall, for the sum of 500 crowns :-a "Last Judgment," six feet high by four feet wide, and another, twelve feet high by twenty-six feet wide. The former was executed, and was for many years in the townhall; the larger work was never completed. What was done was valued by Hugo Vander Goes at 306 florins 36 plekken, which money was accordingly paid to the painter's family. His brother Giles succeeded him in his office of painter to the city of Louvain, and he appears to have had also two other brothers, Hubert and Frederic. Molanus speaks of an Albertus Bouts as a painter, but Hubert is supposed to be meant.1

This school of art continued in the Netherlands with but little variety until the sixteenth century, when great changes were effected by the Flemish artists who had studied in Italy, after the production of the great works by Raphael and Michelangelo at Rome. The character of the art of Germany was of a kindred quality, and was in part derived from this early school of the Netherlands.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE QUATTROCENTISTI OR MASTERS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY IN TUSCANY, UMBRIA, VENETIA, BOLOGNA, AND NAPLES. PROGRESSION FROM THE REPRESENTATIVE TO THE IMITATIVE, THROUGH THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF NATURALISM.

NOTWITHSTANDING the great advances made by Masaccio and his contemporaries, the art was still more representative than imitative; or rather, every picture was more the representation of a subject, than the imitation of objects, which a true reproduction of nature requires. Filippino Lippi, Perugino, Francia, Mantegna, the Bellini, and others, attained this stage, to a great extent, though not perfectly; and it is the more natural treatment and elaboration

Edw. Van Even, in the Dietsche Warande," 1858, pt. 1, has given an outline portrait of Stuerbout, and some extracts about the early Dutch and Flemish painters, from the unpublished "History of Louvain," by Jan van der Molen, commonly called Molanus, who died in 1585: these extracts fix some important dates. The Latin title of the MS. is "Historiæ Lovaniensium libri xiv., auctore Joanne Molano."