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He gave a ready welcome to the Captain, and his presents some looking-glasses, a pair of epaulettes, and some coloured prints, especially full-lengths of George IV. and William IV. The collection in a place such as Natal then was must have been very hard to make, but it was very successful, and still more so was the Captain's presenting himself in his uniform when he went to propose the treaty.
The artistic style of my father's portraits, and the excellent likenesses of his sitters, soon obtained for him ample employment. His portraits were for the most part full-lengths, but of a small or cabinet size. They generally consisted of family groups, with the figures about twelve to fourteen inches high.
Thus, on the suggestion of Tonson the portraits of the members were painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller for the bookseller, but as the walls of the room at Barn Elms were not lofty enough to accommodate full-lengths, the painter reverted to a canvas measuring thirty-six by twenty-eight inches, a size of portrait which preserves the name of Kit-Cat to this day.
To most visitors, who may see elsewhere finer works by these masters, the chief attraction of the walls is the series of original portraits by Holbein, Vandyck, Lely and Kneller. The two full-lengths of Charles I. by Vandyck, on foot and on horseback, both widely known by engravings, are the gems of this department, as a Vandyck will always be of any group of portraits.
Above, in the centre, is Christ half-length, flanked by smaller nearly full-lengths of the Virgin and S. John; at each side three half-lengths of saints left, SS, Martin, Stephen, and John the Baptist; right, a warrior, a bishop, and a man with green robe, and hat turned up in four pieces. The frame is fine, a blue ground and gilded arabesques.
Next he rented a suite of rooms, crowded in a lot of borrowed tapestries, brass, Venetian chests, lamps and hangings; gave a tea servants this time in livery exhibited his Sappho; refused a big price for it from the husband; got orders instead for two half-lengths, $1,500 each, finished them in two weeks, declined more commissions on account of extreme fatigue; disappeared with the first frost and the best cottage people; booked three more full-lengths in New York two to be painted in Paris and the other on his return in the spring; was followed to the steamer by a bevy of beauties, half-smothered in flowers, and disappeared in a halo of artistic glory just $4,000 in."
A few rusty full-lengths graced the walls; the stairs were guarded by two effigies in armour; a marble bust of one of the Cæsars stood on a high pedestal in the middle of the floor; and that was all. I was glad to get away from this dismal spot and to find myself in the passage which led to the housekeeper's room. I opened the door and looked in, but the room was vacant.
Then he saw them strike a crawl-stroke, side by side, faces downward, full-lengths out-stretched on surface, their feet sculling like propellers and their arms flailing in rapid over-hand strokes, as they spurted speed to approximate the speed of the overtaking wave, so that, when overtaken, they would become part of the wave, and travel with it instead of being left behind it.
We confess to a disappointment in his colour, though his paint was not new to us; but time has lent no pleasing patina to his canvases, the majority of which are rusty-looking, cracked, discoloured, dingy or dark. There are several exceptions. The nude and dressed full-lengths of the Duchess of Alba are in excellent preservation, and brilliant audacious painting it is.
Several of these were full-lengths; and she was with the help of her maid, both in long aprons, amid sponges and basins, soft handkerchiefs and varnish-pots and brushes busy in removing the dust and smoke-stains, and in laying-on the varnish, which brought out the colouring, and made the transparent shadows yield up their long-buried treasures of finished detail.
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