Month: March 1644 (Page 2 of 2)

I set forward with some company toward Fontainebleau, a sumptuous Palace of the King’s, like ours at Hampton Court, about fourteen leagues from the city. By the way, we pass through a forest so prodigiously encompassed with hideous rocks of whitish hard stone ((The sandstone, or grés de Fontainebleau. –AD)), heaped one on another in mountainous heights, that I think the like is nowhere to be found more horrid and solitary ((Addison, writing to Congreve in October, 1699, was more favourably impressed with Fontainebleau. “I am however so singular as to prefer Fontainebleau to all the rest. It is situated among rocks and woods that give you a fine variety of Savage prospects. … The cascades seem to break through the Clefts and cracks of Rocks that are cover’d over with Moss, and look as if they were piled upon one another by Accident. There is an Artificial Wildness in the Meadows, Walks and Canals, and ye Gardan instead of a Wall is Fenc’d on the Lower End by a Natural mound of Rock-work that strikes the Eye very Agreeably” (Life of Joseph Addison, by Lucy Aikin, 1843, i. P. 77).  –AD)). It abounds with stags, wolves, boars, and not long after a lynx , or ounce ((Old word for the European Lynx -GS)), was killed among them, which had devoured some passengers. On the summit of one of these gloomy precipices, intermingled with trees and shrubs, the stones hanging over, and menacing ruin, is built an hermitage. In these solitudes, rogues frequently lurk and do mischief (and for whom we were all well appointed with our carabines); but we arrived safe in the evening at the village, where we lay at the Horne, going early next morning to the Palace.

I went to Charenton, two leagues from Paris, to hear and see the manner of the French Protestant Church service. The place of meeting they call the Temple, a very fair and spacious room, built of freestone, very decently adorned with paintings of the Tables of the Law, the Lord’s Prayer, and Creed. The pulpit stands at the upper end in the middle, having an inclosure of seats about it, where the Elders and persons of greatest quality and strangers, sit; the rest of the congregation on forms and low stools, but none in pews, as in our churches, to their great disgrace, as nothing so orderly, as here the stools and other cumber are removed when the assembly rises. I was greatly pleased with their harmonious singing the Psalms, which they all learn perfectly well, their children being as duly taught these, as their catechism.

In our passage, we went by that famous bridge over the Marne, where that renowned echo returns the voice of a good singer nine or ten times.

The next morning, being recommended to one Monsieur de Hausse ((Hamelot de la Hussaye? This article suggests that this person was French ambassador to Venice in 1639 -GS)) , President of the Parliament, and once Ambassador at Venice for the French King, we were very civilly received, and showed his library. Among his paintings were a rare Venus and Adonis of Veronese ((There are at least two paintings by Veronese with this title. The painting shown in this entry is one possible example -GS)) , a St. Anthony, after the first manner of Correggio, and a rare Madonna of Palma.

I went to see the Count de Liancourt’s Palace in the Rue de Seine, which is well built. Toward his study and bedchamber joins a little garden, which, though very narrow, by the addition of a well-painted perspective, is to appearance greatly enlarged; to this there is another part, supported by arches in which runs a stream of water, rising in the aviary, out of a statue, and seeming to flow for some miles, by being artificially continued in the painting, when it sinks down at the wall. It is a very agreeable deceit.

At the end of this garden is a little theater, made to change with divers pretty scenes, and the stage so ordered, with figures of men and women painted on light boards, and cut out, and, by a person who stands underneath, made to act as if they were speaking, by guiding them, and reciting words in different tones, as the parts require ((This, no doubt, was one of those “jeux de marionnettes,” (Marionette Play) of which full details are to be found in the treatise of M. Charles Magnin, 2nd ed. 1862.  –AD)). We were led into a round cabinet, where was a neat invention for reflecting lights, by lining divers sconces with thin shining plates of gilded copper.

In one of the rooms of state was an excellent painting of Poussin, being a Satyr kneeling; over the chimney, the Coronation of the Virgin, by Paulo Veronese; another Madonna over the door, and that of Joseph, by Cigali; in the Hall, a Cavaliero di Malta, attended by his page, said to be of Michael Angelo ((“Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt and his page” by Michelangelo da Caravaggio – see article 94 of “The Age of Caravaggio”  By Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.) )) ; the Rape of Proserpine, with a very large landscape of Correggio. In the next room are some paintings of Primaticcio, especially the Helena, the naked Lady brought before Alexander, well painted, and a Ceres. In the bedchamber a picture of the Cardinal de Liancourt ((There is a line of thought that this may be a painting of the Cardinal de Lenoncourt -GS))  , of Raphael, rarely colored.

In the cabinet are divers pieces of Bassano, two of Polemburg, four of Paulo Brill, the skies a little too blue. A Madonna of Nicholao, excellently painted on a stone; a Judith of Mantegna; three women of Jeronimo; one of Stenwick; a Madonna after Titian, and a Magdalen of the same hand, as the Count esteems it: two small pieces of Paulo Veronese, being the Martyrdoms of St. Justina and St. Catherine; a Madonna of Lucas Van Leyden, sent him from our King ((“Liancourt was in London at the time [1630] as the French Ambassador extraordinary to mark the birth of Prince Charles and cemented his relations with the English court by a series of  gifts, exchanges and sales.  The most important gift was a painting of John the Baptist by Leonardo de Vinci for which the duke received in return a Madonna by Titian that had belonged to John Donne. He also gave the king some novel pictures “in the manner as the doe make turkey carpets worke” (that is, woven images with a nap), and he sold him several works. Source “Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi” by Keith Christiansen, Judith Walker Mann, Orazio Gentileschi, Artemisia Gentileschi -GS)); six more of old Bassano; two excellent drawings of Albert; a Magdalen of Leonardo da Vinci; four of Paulo; a very rare Madonna of Titian, given him also by our King; the Ecce Homo ((Latin for “Behold the man” – in art usually shows Pilate and Christ, the mocking crowd and parts of the city of Jerusalem -GS)) ., shut up in a frame of velvet, for the life and accurate finishing exceeding all description. Some curious agates, and a chaplet ((A decorative band or wreath worn on the head, often floral -GS)) of admirable invention, the intaglios ((Engravings -GS)) being all on fruit stones. The Count was so exceeding civil, that he would needs make his lady go out of her dressing room, that he might show us the curiosities and pictures in it.

We went thence to visit one Monsieur Perishot, one of the greatest virtuosos in France, for his collection of pictures, agates, medals, and flowers, especially tulips and anemonies. The chiefest of his paintings was a Sebastian, of Titian.

From him we went to Monsieur Frene’s, who showed us many rare drawings, a Rape of Helen in black chalk; many excellent things of Sneiders ((I think this is Frans Snyders – a Flemish painter who lived from 1579 – 1657 -GS)), all naked; some of Julio and Michael Angelo; a Madonna of Passignano ((Probably Domenico Passignano -GS)) ; some things of Parmensis ((Probably Jacopo Caraglio also known as Jacobus Parmensis -GS)) , and other masters.