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The negotiations were conducted with entire good faith on the side of my friend Vaudreix and with charming ingenuousness on the side of Mr. Harlington, until the day when the Rubenses and the carvings from the chapel were in a safe place and Mr. Harlington in prison.
And the Rubenses are of a peculiar lovely order, not to be found in Antwerp, Brussels or Paris. Even without Velasquez the trying trip to the Spanish capital is a necessary and exciting experience for the painter and amateur of art. The Prado is largely reinforced by foreign pictures and is sadly lacking in historical continuity whether foreign or domestic schools.
Under her guidance we passed through a dozen apartments, duly stocked with old pictures, old tapestry, old carvings, old armour, with a hundred ornaments and treasures. The pictures were especially valuable. The two Vandykes, the trio of rosy Rubenses, the sole and sombre Rembrandt, glowed with conscious authenticity.
And go, presently, into the old city itself, dull-flaming with the scarlet, gold, and black, of the Belgian flag, and with something that seemed to radiate from the life itself of this hearty, happy people, after all their centuries of trade and war, and good food, and good art like their own Rubenses and Van Dycks. There was no business, not a ship moving in the Scheldt.
He used to go to the house of Dr. Munro, who lived in fine style on the Strand. This gentleman owned Rembrandts, Rubenses, Titians, and other great masterpieces, and in that house the "little barber" had a chance to see the best of art, and also to copy it. This was a great opportunity for him and he made the most of it.
I miss the Dresden Gallery very much, and it makes me sad to think that I shall never look at the face of the Sistine Madonna again, that picture beyond all pictures in the world, in which the artist certainly did get to heaven and painted a face which was never seen on earth so pathetic, so gentle, so passionless, so prophetic. . . . There are a few good Rubenses here, but the great wealth of that master is in Antwerp.
What Mary Logan would say to these Rembrandts and Rubenses I know not; but there is much of indisputable value in this collection, to say nothing of Flaxman's masterpiece the statue of Pitt, or the recent accessions, such as the Whistler, or David Murray's "Fir Faggots," or the bust of Victor Hugo by Rodin.
"What is it you want me to do, my darling?" "I want you to give me a long day in the Luxembourg. I want to see all the pictures the modern pictures especially. I remember all the Rubenses at the Louvre, for I saw them three years ago, when I was staying in Paris with grandpapa.
The meek-looking "Belle Jardiniere" was as lamb-like as ever; the pearly nymph of Correggio invited the stranger's eye as frankly as of old; Titian's young man with the glove was the calm, self-contained gentleman I used to admire; the splashy Rubenses, the pallid Guidos, the sunlit Claudes, the shadowy Poussins, the moonlit Girardets, Gericault's terrible shipwreck of the Medusa, the exquisite home pictures of Gerard Douw and Terburg, all these and many more have always been on exhibition in my ideal gallery, and I only mention them as the first that happen to suggest themselves.
We have not more than alluded to the sculpture at the Prado; it is not particularly distinguished. The best sculpture we saw in Spain was displayed in wood-carvings. The pride of the Prado is centred upon its Titians, Raphaels, Rubenses, Murillos, El Grecos, and, above all, upon Don Diego de Silva, better known as Velasquez.
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