A Self-Portrait by ReynoldsAuthor(s): Charles HolmesReviewed work(s):Source: The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 56, No. 326 (May, 1930), pp. 232+236-237Published by: The Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/864307 .Accessed: 09/05/2012 02:31

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Some Recently Discovered English Wall Paintings souls of the saved are being admitted by St. Peter into the Heavenly City, while the lost, with vivid and expressive gestures, are being herded into Hell by most repulsive looking demons. The whole work is of exceptional merit, and it is probably one of the best paint- ings of the period now in existence. The bright colours are in a wonderful state of pre- servation considering the vicissitudes through which the picture has passed during the four centuries and more that have elapsed since it was painted by some unknown master. It is interesting to compare the technique of this picture with the contemporary paintings in Eton College Chapel, which are executed largely in monochrome instead of the bright colours used at Stratford, and are not so characteristically English.

The famous Beauchamp Chapel, attached to the collegiate church of Warwick, must be added to the number of those churches, in which mural paintings have been recently found. As a result of the cleaning down of the walls, much of the rich colour decoration has been revealed, including traces of what must have been a magnificent Doom on the west wall. A special interest attaches to this painting, since the contract for its execution is still in existence. From this document we learn that " John Brentwood, citizen and steyner of London, 12 Feby. 20 Henry VI, doth covenant to paint fine, and curiously to make at Warwick, on the west wall of the New

Chappell there, the dome of our Lord God Jesus, and all manner of devices and imagery thereto belonging of fair and sightly propor- tion, as the place shall serve for, and with the finest colours and the finest gold: and the said Brentwood shall find all manner of stuffe thereto at his charge; the said executors pay- ing therefore XIIlli. VIs. VIIId." The fact that we know in this case the name of the painter and the date of the work adds greatly to the interest of the picture. Unfortunately, in 1678, Sir William Dugdale had the picture repainted. No attempt was made to reproduce the original design, but a completely new picture was produced on the model of Michel- angelo's Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel. Nevertheless, the faint outlines of the mediaeval painting have been revealed, which show that it followed traditional lines in depicting Christ seated upon a rainbow with His feet on another.

Lack of space forbids more than a passing reference to other paintings which have been revealed at Bartlow, Cambs.-a fine Weighing of Souls in good preservation, Rainham, Kent-a Doom and other subjects, East Wick- ham, Kent-a mutilated Weighing of Souls and various other scenes much damaged, and several other places.

This article cannot conclude without some slight acknowledgment to Professor Tristram, without whose generous aid its compilation would have been almost timpossible.

A SELF-PORTRAIT BY REYNOLDS BY SIR CHARLES HOLMES

FEW weeks ago my attention was called to a small portrait in oil, measuring 2o0 in. by 16j in. The picture had not been relined, and was painted on a thin canvas

with a very open texture, of a type not uncommon in North Italian painting, but not, to my knowledge, used in England. Neverthe- less, the painting was undeniably English. The forcible Rembrandtesque conception recalled the style of Opie: the details of the workman- ship, more particularly the use of strong red in the shadows, indicated a very definite memory of Jonathan Richardson; the treatment of the hair and the rich substance of the pigment were those of Reynolds. The face, too, was that of Reynolds, although the cleft in the chin was hardly marked; -and this stout young fellow, with full cheeks and tanned complexion, was a very different being from the pallid, studious creature, whom the other early portraits of him reveal. Yet the formation of th0 nostrils, and in particular of the mouth, with the deep dimple

below, were unmistakable. The sitter was young Joshua Reynolds and nobody else, although in certain details, such as the sup- pression of the cleft in the chin, and the exces- sive fullness and protrusion of the lips, the portrait differed slightly from other likenesses.

Reynolds, all his life, had a liking for Rembrandt. That master's influence is evident enough in portrait after portrait of his maturity. That otf Giuseppe Marchi, in the Diploma Gallery, shows it in full strength immediately after his return from Italy. In Lord Lans- downe's famous Laurence Sterne, it helps Rey- nolds to produce one of his masterpieces. An early self-portrait, representing the painter in a black broad-brimmed hat, is in the collection of Lord Crewe. Here the brim of the hat is rather less broad, and the hat itself has a more jaunty look, being looped up in semi-naval fashion, with a band of gold braid. The red coat adds to the liveliness of the presentation.

The portrait is clearly of early date, both from the appearance of the sitter and from the

232

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Self-portrait, here identified as by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Canvas, 52.4 by 42.5 cm.

A Self-portrait by Reynolds

A Self-Portrait by Reynolds absence of the characteristics which Reynolds acquired by study in Italy. On the other hand it cannot be one of his very earliest works, for it does not show a trace of the influence of his master Hudson, but goes back beyond him to Jonathan Richardson, whose book first inspired Reynolds with the ambition to become a painter. The canvas, as we have seen, sug- gests that the picture may not have been painted in England; the hat has a bowing acquaintance at least with the Navy. All these conditions are completely satisfied, if we assume that the portrait was executed at Port Mahon in Minorca, during the autumn of 1749. Rey- nolds arrived at Port Mahon in the August of that year, in the course of his voyage to Italy with Commodore Keppel.

His visit was unexpectedly prolonged. Writ- ing to his friend, Miss Weston, on Decem- ber io, Reynolds says: " I have been kept here near two months by an odd accident. I don't know whether to call it a lucky one or

not-a fall from a horse down a precipice, which cut my face in such a manner as confined me to my room, so that I was forced to have recourse to painting for my amusement at first, but have now finished as many pictures as will come to a hundred pounds. The unlucky part of the question is my lips are spoiled for kiss- ing, for my upper lip was so bruised that a great part was cut off and the rest so dis- figured that I have but a sorry face to look at, but in time you wont perceive the defect."'1 This portrait may well have been one product of the artist's enforced retirement from social life, for we see him in it tanned by the sea air, and with a gilt band in his hat, an ornament appropriate for a young man who had just taken part in a naval mission to the formidable Dey of Algiers. The unusual fullness of the lips is probably a discreet toning down of the effects of the acci- dent which he describes in his letter.

1 I give the text as completed by Dr. Hilles in his recent edition of Sir Joshua's Letters, pp. 4-5.

UN1A VILeANlA WINDISCH BY CAMPBELL DODGSON

HE magnificent drawing [PLATE] which the British Museum has recently acquired through the prompt support given by the National Art Collections Fund to the effort of

the Keeper of Prints and Drawings to secure it, is comparatively unfamiliar even to students of Diirer's work. To those who see it' for the first time, it gives a shock, pleasurable or other- wise, according to the temperament of the beholder; it possesses the vitality of a great work of art, and the artist has endowed it with an energy which can never perish and can never cease to surprise. This strange sly woman with half-closed eyes and widely-opened mouth is the Monna Lisa of German art. With her delicately modelled face, supported by a straight neck and massive bosom, she gazes directly to the front, amused perhaps by one of the not very delicate jests which Diirer shortly after this was putting into his letters home from Venice. The drapery wound about the hair is drawn with Diirer's utmost skill. The lines of the dress are very slightly indicated, and beneath the upper edge of the bodice Diirer has written a date, a signa- ture, and a title, so complete, large and emphatic, with the characteristic open figures and " Schn*rkel " of this period, as to sug- gest that he was specially proud of his work.

" Una vilana windisch" should be interpreted " a Slavonic peasant woman." Lippmann called her " South Tyrolese," and this put into my head the suggestion, which I now know to be etymologically false, that she was a native

of the Vintschgau, the Upper Adige Valley, above Meran. I realized, of course, that this lay off Diirer's route to Venice by the Brenner road, but there would be nothing improbable in his drawing, say at Botzen or Trent, a woman who came from the Vintschgau. " Windisch," however, as I have been reminded by Austrian friends, is simply the equivalent of the modern " Slovene." Applied in early times to the Slav race in general, " Windisch " came to denote the Southern Slavs inhabiting various parts of what till recently was the Austrian Empire, and not to be confused with the Wends of a more northerly region. The word occurs in several Austrian family and place-names, such as Windisch-Gratz, WVindischgratz, and Windisch- Matrei. The " Windische Mark " was a district in the Carolingian Empire, which became merged in Carniola (Krain), but survived till the end as part of the titles of the Emperors of Austria. Slovenes are to be found in various parts of Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, etc.

Whether Diirer drew this woman on his road to Venice or after his arrival, we do not know for certain. It is more probable, however, that other writers like Thausing and Ephrussi are correct in saying that the sitter was a Slavonic woman whom Diirer drew at Venice. The inscription, at any rate, was written when he had acquired some familiarity with Italian speech, and probably he wrote it when the drawing was fresh.1

The pen work was done in bistre, and the wash

237