Velasquez at the New Gallery

Velasquez at the New Gallery

A review of Spanish art at the New Gallery finds representation of Murillo, Ribera, Zurbaran, Goya, Madrazo, and Fortuny, but nothing rivalling the work of Velasquez, though two of his most important English canvases are absent: Mr. Bankes's sketch for "Las Meninas" at Kingston Lacy, and the "Venus" at a northern country house. The arrangement of the Velasquez canvases is decorative rather than chronological, which the writer regrets. The earliest Velasquez shown is a large, somewhat straggling "Peasant Boy Feeding Fowls," lent by Lady Gregory, broad in treatment though imperfect in composition. Alongside it hangs "A Partridge" by Herrera el Viejo, Velasquez's harsh-tempered first master, lent by Sir Clare Ford. The Duke of Wellington owns the earliest authenticated Velasquez, the "Water-Carrier" ("El Corno, Aquador de Sevilla"), showing a man in a tattered brown doublet bearing an earthen jar and offering a glass of water to a boy. Recorded in the Buen Retiro inventory, it was carried off among Joseph Bonaparte's baggage, captured at Vittoria, and given by Ferdinand VII to the Duke. Sir Charles Robinson lends a Jael and Sisera, said to contain portraits of the Conde Duque Olivarez and the Duke of Alva, with a possible allegorical reference to the assassination of William the Silent. Sir Francis Cook's "Spanish Beggar," questioned by Justi as a Fleming's work, and the portrait of "Quevedo" in his dark-rimmed glasses complete this earlier group. With Mr. Huth's full-length "Philip the Fourth" and the Duke of Westminster's "Don Balthasar" on a prancing pony, Velasquez reaches his height, though Mr. R. M. Stevenson's view that outdoor full-lengths subordinate facial study to overall effect is borne out. The portraits of Mariana of Austria, Philip's second wife, show Sir Francis Cook's bust-length as earliest, followed by Mr. Cuthbert Quilter's three-quarter length and Sir Clare Ford's vigorous rendering. Greatest of all is the Duke of Wellington's "Innocent the Tenth," painted after Velasquez's Italian voyage with Spinola, admired for its mouth and watchful eye. A "Philip the Fourth" from the Dulwich Gallery, harmonious in silver and rose-red, is also noted.

By Frederick Wedmore · First published 1899 · Genre: Art Criticism, Essay, Exhibition Review · 1,743 words

First lines

A collection of Spanish Art at the New Gallery contains such representation as it has been possible to acquire of Murillo, Ribera, and Zurbaran -- and even of the artists of our own century: Goya, Madrazo, Fortuny -- but nothing that vies for a moment in attractiveness and vitality with the work of Velasquez. Unfortunately, it does not include two of the most important of those canvases of Velasquez which have a resting-place in England -- Mr. Bankes's priceless ‘document' (for it is that and something besides), the first study, we mean, at Kingston Lacy, for the great Madrid picture of ‘Las Meninas,' and the yet more important, because the even more exceptional and more perfected picture, the astonishing ‘Venus,' whose home for many years has been at a small country house upon the borders of two counties in the North. The sketch -- the oil sketch, for Velasquez never made preparatory drawings -- the sketch of ‘Las Meninas' would have recalled appropriately the composition, and conveyed something of the character of a mature masterpiece whose actual presence can never be looked for here; and the recumbent ‘Venus' would have shown an almost austere artist winning for once an easy triumph in the treatment of a luxurious theme, more properly, or more habitually, Titian's. But, as it is, the representation of Velasquez, in Regent Street, affords ground for study. We could wish, for our own part, that decorative, even symmetrical, arrangement had been discarded, and that the master's works, as far as they are here, had been seen close together, with no distracting juxtaposition of paintings of a secondary rank. To have ranged the Velasquez canvases in order of date would have been at least to have facilitated reference and to have assisted observation.

Similar titles

Genres

Tags

Velasquez · Spanish art · art criticism · portraiture · exhibition review · Old Masters · royal portraits · 17th-century art · The New Gallery · artistic technique · brushwork · character study

What this Textopian page supports

Velasquez at the New Gallery is listed on Textopian as an essay by Frederick Wedmore, dated 1899 CE.

This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.

Good citation fit

More by Frederick Wedmore