CIPRIANI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1727-1785), Italian painter and engraver, Pistoiese by descent, was born in Florence in 1727. His first lessons were given him by an Englishman, Ignatius Heckford or Hugford, and under his second master, Antonio Domenico Gabbiani, he became a very clever draughtsman. He was in Rome from 1750 to 1753, where he became acquainted with Sir William Chambers, the architect, and Joseph Wilton, the sculptor, whom he accompanied to England in August 1755. He had already painted two pictures for the abbey of San Michele in Pelago, Pistoia, which had brought him reputation, and on his arrival in England he was patronized by Lord Tilney, the duke of Richmond and other noblemen. His acquaintance with Sir William Chambers no doubt helped him on, for when Chambers designed the Albany in London for Lord Holland, Cipriani painted a ceiling for him. He also painted part of a ceiling in Buckingham Palace, and a room with poetical subjects at Standlynch in Wiltshire. Some of his best and most permanent work was, however, done at Somerset House, built by his friend Chambers, upon which he lavished infinite pains. He not only prepared the decorations for the interior of the north block, but, says Joseph Baretti in his _Guide through the Royal Academy_ (1780), "the whole of the carvings in the various fronts of Somerset Place--excepting Bacon's bronze figures--were carved from finished drawings made by Cipriani." These designs include the five masks forming the keystones to the arches on the courtyard side of the vestibule, and the two above the doors leading into the wings of the north block, all of which are believed to have been carved by Nollekens. The grotesque groups flanking the main doorways on three sides of the quadrangle and the central doorway on the terrace appear also to have been designed by Cipriani. The apartments in Sir William Chambers's stately palace that were assigned to the Royal Academy, into which it moved in 1780, owed much to Cipriani's graceful, if mannered, pencil. The central panel of the library ceiling was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, but the four compartments in the coves, representing Allegory, Fable, Nature and History, were Cipriani's. These paintings still remain at Somerset House, together with the emblematic painted ceiling, also his work, of what was once the library of the Royal Society. It was natural that Cipriani should thus devote himself to adorning the apartments of the academy, since he was an original member (1768) of that body, for which he designed the diploma so well engraved by Bartolozzi. In recognition of his services in this respect the members presented him in 1769 with a silver cup with a commemorative inscription. He was much employed by the publishers, for whom he made drawings in pen and ink, sometimes coloured. His friend Bartolozzi engraved most of them. Drawings by him are in both the British Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum. His best autograph engravings are "The Death of Cleopatra," after Benvenuto Cellini; "The Descent of the Holy Ghost," after Gabbiani; and portraits for Hollis's memoirs, 1780. He painted allegorical designs for George III.'s state coach--which is still in use--in 1782, and repaired Verrio's paintings at Windsor and Rubens's ceiling in the Banqueting House at Whitehall. If his pictures were often weak, his decorative treatment of children was usually exceedingly happy. Some of his most pleasing work was that which, directly or indirectly, he executed for the decoration of furniture. He designed many groups of nymphs and _amorini_ and medallion subjects to form the centre of Pergolesi's bands of ornament, and they were continually reproduced upon the elegant satin-wood furniture which was growing popular in his later days and by the end of the 18th century became a rage. Sometimes these designs were inlaid in marqueterie, but most frequently they were painted upon the satin-wood by other hands with delightful effect, since in the whole range of English furniture there is nothing more enchanting than really good finished satin-wood pieces. There can be little doubt that some of the beautiful furniture designed by the Adams was actually painted by Cipriani himself. He also occasionally designed handles for drawers and doors. Cipriani died at Hammersmith in 1785 and was buried at Chelsea, where Bartolozzi erected a monument to his memory. He had married an English lady, by whom he had two sons. Entry: CIPRIANI
The best of Hobbema's dated pictures are those of the years 1663 to 1667. Of the former, several in the galleries of Brussels and St Petersburg, and one in the Holford collection, are celebrated. Of 1665 fine specimens are at Grosvenor House and the Wallace collection. Of seven pieces in the National Gallery, including the "Avenue at Middelharnis," which some assign to 1689, and the "Ruins of Breberode Castle," two are dated 1667. A sample of the last of these years is also in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge. Amongst the masterpieces in private hands in England may be noticed two landscapes in Buckingham Palace, two at Bridgewater House, and one belonging to Mr Walter of Bearwood. On the continent are a "Wooded Landscape" in the Berlin gallery, a "Forest" belonging to the duchess of Sagan in Paris, and a "Glade" in the Louvre. There are other fine Hobbemas in the Antwerp Museum, the Arenberg gallery at Brussels, and the Belvedere at Vienna. (J. A. C.) Entry: HOBBEMA
ART SALES. The practice of selling objects of art by auction in England dates from the latter part of the 17th century, when in most cases the names of the auctioneers were suppressed. Evelyn (under date June 21, 1693) mentions a "great auction of pictures (_Lord Melford's_) in the Banquetting House, Whitehall," and the practice is frequently referred to by other contemporary and later writers. Before the introduction of regular auctions the practice was, as in the case of the famous collection formed by Charles I., to price each object and invite purchasers, just as in other departments of commerce. But this was a slow process, especially in the case of pictures, and lacked the incentive of excitement. The first really important art collection to come under the hammer was that of Edward, earl of Oxford, dispersed by Cock, under the Piazza, Covent Garden, on 8th March 1741/2 and the five following days, six more days being required by the coins. Nearly all the leading men of the day, including Horace Walpole, attended or were represented at this sale, and the prices varied from five shillings for an anonymous bishop's "head" to 165 guineas for Vandyck's group of "Sir Kenelm Digby, lady, and son." The next great dispersal was Dr Richard Mead's extensive collection, of which the pictures, coins and gems, &c., were sold by Langford in February and March 1754, the sale realizing the total, unprecedented up to that time, of £16,069. The thirty-eight days' sale (1786) of the Duchess of Portland's collection is very noteworthy, from the fact that it included the celebrated Portland vase, now in the British Museum. Many other interesting and important 18th-century sales might be mentioned. High prices did not become general until the Calonne, Trumbull (both 1795) and Bryan (1798) sales. As to the quality of the pictures which had been sold by auction up to the latter part of the 18th century, it may be assumed that this was not high. The importation of pictures and other objects of art had assumed extensive proportions by the end of the 18th century, but the genuine examples of the Old Masters probably fell far short of 1%. England was felt to be the only safe asylum for valuable articles, but the home which was intended to be temporary often became permanent. Had it not been for the political convulsions on the continent, England, instead of being one of the richest countries in the world in art treasures, would have been one of the poorest. This fortuitous circumstance had, moreover, another effect, in that it greatly raised the critical knowledge of pictures. Genuine works realized high prices, as, for example, at Sir William Hamilton's sale (1801), when Beckford paid 1300 guineas for the little picture of "A Laughing Boy" by Leonardo da Vinci; and when at the Lafontaine sales (1807 and 1811) two Rembrandts each realized 5000 guineas, "The Woman taken in Adultery," now in the National Gallery, and "The Master Shipbuilder," now at Buckingham Palace. The Beckford sale of 1823 (41 days, £43,869) was the forerunner of the great art dispersal of the 19th century; Horace Walpole's accumulation at Strawberry Hill, 1842 (24 days, £33,450), and the Stowe collection, 1848 (41 days, £75,562), were also celebrated. They comprised every phase of art work, and in all the quality was of a very high order. They acted as a most healthy stimulus to art collecting, a stimulus which was further nourished by the sales of the superb collection of Ralph Bernal in 1855 (32 days, £62,690), and of the almost equally fine but not so comprehensive collection of Samuel Rogers, 1856 (18 days, £42,367). Three years later came the dispersal of the 1500 pictures which formed Lord Northwick's gallery at Cheltenham (pictures and works of art, 18 days, £94,722). Entry: ART
BUCKINGHAM AND NORMANBY, JOHN SHEFFIELD, 1ST DUKE OF (1648-1721), English statesman and poet, was born on [v.04 p.0673] the 7th of April 1648. He was the son of Edmund, 2nd earl of Mulgrave, and succeeded to that title on his father's death in 1658. At the age of eighteen he joined the fleet, to serve in the first Dutch war; on the renewal of hostilities in 1672 he was present at the battle of Southwold Bay, and in the next year received the command of a ship. He was also made a colonel of infantry, and served for some time under Turenne. In 1680 he was put in charge of an expedition sent to relieve the town of Tangier. It was said that he was provided with a rotten ship in the hope that he would not return, but the reason of this abortive plot, if plot there was, is not exactly ascertained. At court he took the side of the duke of York, and helped to bring about Monmouth's disgrace. In 1682 he was dismissed from the court, apparently for putting himself forward as a suitor for the princess Anne, but on the accession of King James he received a seat in the privy council, and was made lord chamberlain. He supported James in his most unpopular measures, and stayed with him in London during the time of his flight. He also protected the Spanish ambassador from the dangerous anger of the mob. He acquiesced, however, in the Revolution, and in 1694 was made marquess of Normanby. In 1696 he refused in company with other Tory peers to sign an agreement to support William as their "rightful and lawful king" against Jacobite attempts, and was consequently dismissed from the privy council. On the accession of Anne, with whom he was a personal favourite, he became lord privy seal and lord-lieutenant of the North Riding of Yorkshire, and in 1703 duke of Buckingham and Normanby. During the predominance of the Whigs between 1705 and 1710, Buckingham was deprived of his office as lord privy seal, but in 1710 he was made lord steward, and in 1711 lord president of the council. After the death of Anne he held no state appointment. He died on the 24th of February 1721 at his house in St James's Park, which stood on the site of the present Buckingham Palace. Buckingham was succeeded by his son, Edmund (1716-1735) on whose death the titles became extinct. Entry: BUCKINGHAM
EDWARD VII. (ALBERT EDWARD) (1841-1910), king of Great Britain and Ireland, and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas, emperor of India, the eldest son and second child of Queen Victoria and of Albert, prince consort, was born at Buckingham Palace on the 9th of November 1841. He was created prince of Wales and earl of Chester on the 4th of December following, and was baptized on the 25th of January 1842. In his childhood he was educated by the dowager Lady Lyttelton; and in his boyhood successively by the Rev. Henry Mildred Birch, Mr F.W. Gibbes, the Rev. C.F. Tarver and Mr Herbert W. Fisher. He afterwards resided at Edinburgh, studying chemistry in its industrial applications under Professor (afterwards Lord) Playfair at the university; at Christ Church, Oxford; and at Trinity College, Cambridge. In November 1858 he was made a knight of the Garter and a colonel in the army. In 1859 he travelled in Italy and Spain, and in 1860 paid a visit as "Lord Renfrew" to the United States and Canada. Entry: EDWARD
Dyce was one of the most learned and accomplished of British painters--one of the highest in aim, and most consistently self-respecting in workmanship. His finest productions, the frescoes in the robing-room in the Houses of Parliament, did honour to the country and time which produced them. Generally, however, there is in Dyce's work more of earnestness, right conception, and grave, sensitive, but rather restricted powers of realization, than of authentic greatness. He has elevation, draughtsmanship, expression, and on occasion fine colour; along with all these, a certain leaning on precedent, and castigated semi-conventionalized type of form and treatment, which bespeak rather the scholarly than the originating mind in art. The following are among his principal or most interesting works (oil pictures, unless otherwise stated). 1829: "The Daughters of Jethro defended by Moses"; "Puck." 1830: "The Golden Age"; "The Infant Hercules strangling the Serpents" (now in the National Gallery, Edinburgh); "Christ crowned with Thorns." 1835: "A Dead Christ" (large lunette altarpiece). 1836: "The Descent of Venus," from Ben Jonson's _Triumph of Love_; "The Judgment of Solomon," prize cartoon in tempera for tapestry (National Gallery, Edinburgh). 1837: "Francesca da Rimini" (National Gallery, Edinburgh). 1838, and again 1846: "The Madonna and Child." 1839: "Dunstan separating Edwy and Elgiva." 1844: "Joash shooting the Arrow of Deliverance" (the finest perhaps of the oil-paintings). 1850: "The Meeting of Jacob and Rachel." 1851: "King Lear and the Fool in the Storm." 1855: "Christabel." 1857: "Titian's first essay in Colouring." 1859: "The Good Shepherd." 1860: "St John bringing Home his Adopted Mother"; "Pegwell Bay" (a coast scene of remarkably minute detail, showing the painter's partial adhesion to the "pre-Raphaelite" movement). 1861: "George Herbert at Bemerton." Dyce executed some excellent cartoons for stained glass:--that for the choristers' window, Ely Cathedral, and that for a vast window at Alnwick in memory of a duke of Northumberland; the design of "Paul rejected by the Jews," now at South Kensington, belongs to the latter. In fresco-painting his first work appears to have been the "Consecration of Archbishop Parker," painted in Lambeth palace. In one of the Westminster Hall competitions for the decoration of the Houses of Parliament, he displayed two heads from this composition; and it is related that the great German fresco-painter Cornelius, who had come over to England to give advice, with a prospect of himself taking the chief direction of the pictorial scheme, told the prince consort frankly that the English ought not to be asking for him, when they had such a painter of their own as Mr Dyce. The cartoon by Dyce of the "Baptism of Ethelbert" was approved and commissioned for the House of Lords, and is the first of the works done there, 1846, in fresco. In 1848 he began his great frescoes in the Robing-room--subjects from the legend of King Arthur, exhibiting chivalric virtue. The whole room was to have been finished in eight years; but ill-health and other vexations trammelled the artist, and the series remains uncompleted. The largest picture figures "Hospitality, the admission of Sir Tristram into the fellowship of the Round Table." Then follow--"Religion," the Vision of Sir Galahad and his Companions; "Generosity," Arthur unhorsed, and spared by the Victor; "Courtesy," Sir Tristram harping to la Belle Yseult; "Mercy," Sir Gawaine's Vow. The frescoes of sacred subjects in All Saints' church, Margaret Street, London; of "Comus," in the summer-house of Buckingham Palace; and of "Neptune and Britannia," at Osborne House, are also by this painter. Entry: DYCE
The death of Queen Victoria rendered it necessary that a renewed provision should be made for the civil list; and King Edward VII., following former precedents, placed unreservedly at the disposal of parliament his hereditary revenues. A select committee of the House of Commons was appointed to consider the provisions of the civil list for the crown, and to report also on the question of grants for the honourable support and maintenance of Her Majesty the Queen and the members of the royal family. The committee in their conclusions were guided to a considerable extent by the actual civil list expenditure during the last ten years of the last reign, and made certain recommendations which, without undue interference with the sovereign's personal arrangements, tended towards increased efficiency and economy in the support of the sovereign's household and the honour and dignity of the crown. On their report was based the Civil List Act 1901, which established the new civil list. The system that the hereditary revenues should as before be paid into the exchequer and be part of the consolidated fund was maintained. The amount payable for the civil list was increased from £385,000 to £470,000. In the application of this sum the number of classes of expenditure to which separate amounts were to be appropriated was increased from five to six. The following was the new arrangement of classes:--1st class, Their Majesties' privy purse, £110,000; 2nd class, salaries of His Majesty's household and retired allowances, £125,800; 3rd class, expenses of His Majesty's household, £193,000; 4th class, works (the interior repair and decoration of Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle), £20,000; 5th class, royal bounty, alms and special services, £13,200; 6th class, unappropriated, £8000. The system relating to civil list pensions, established by the Civil List Act 1837, continued to apply, but the pensions were not regarded as chargeable on the sum paid for the civil list. The committee also advised that the mastership of the Buckhounds should not be continued; and the king, on the advice of his ministers, agreed to accept their recommendation. The maintenance of the royal hunt thus ceased to be a charge on the civil list. The annuities of £20,000 to the prince of Wales, of £10,000 to the princess of Wales, and of £18,000 to His Majesty's three daughters, were not included in the civil list, though they were conferred by the same act. Other grants made by special acts of parliament to members of the royal family were also excluded from it; these were £6000 to the princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, £6000 to the princess Louise (duchess of Argyll), £25,000 to the duke of Connaught, £6000 to the duchess of Albany, £6000 to the princess Beatrice (Henry of Battenberg), and £3000 to the duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Entry: 1
HOOCH, PIETER DE (1629-?1678), Dutch painter, was born in 1629, and died in Amsterdam probably shortly after 1677. He was a native of Rotterdam, and wandered early to Haarlem and the Hague. In 1654 we find him again at Rotterdam, where in that year he married a girl of Delft, Jannetje van der Burch. From 1655 to 1657 he was a member of the painter's gild of Delft, but after that date we have no traces of his doings until about 1668, when his presence is recorded in Amsterdam. His dated pictures prove that he was still alive in 1677, but his death followed probably soon after this year. De Hooch is one of the kindliest and most charming painters of homely subjects that Holland has produced. He seems to have been born at the same time and taught in the same school as van der Meer and Maes. All three are disciples of the school of Rembrandt. Houbraken mentions Nicolas Berchem as De Hooch's teacher. De Hooch only once painted a canvas of large size, and that unfortunately perished in a fire at Rotterdam in 1864. But his small pieces display perfect finish and dexterity of hand, combined with great power of discrimination. Though he sometimes paints open-air scenes, these are not his favourite subjects. He is most at home in interiors illuminated by different lights, with the radiance of the day, in different intensities, seen through doors and windows. He thus brings together the most delicate varieties of tone, and produces chords that vibrate with harmony. The themes which he illustrates are thoroughly suited to his purpose. Sometimes he chooses the drawing-room where dames and cavaliers dance, or dine, or sing; sometimes--mostly indeed--he prefers cottages or courtyards, where the housewives tend their children or superintend the labours of the cook. Satin and gold are as familiar to him as camlet and fur; and there is no article of furniture in a Dutch house of the middle class that he does not paint with pleasure. What distinguishes him most besides subtle suggestiveness is the serenity of his pictures. One of his most charming was the canvas formerly in the Ashburton collection, now burnt, where an old lady with a dish of apples walks with a child along a street bounded by a high wall, above which gables and a church steeple are seen, while the sun radiates joyfully over the whole. Fine in another way is the "Mug of Beer" in the Amsterdam Museum, an interior with a woman coming out of a pantry and giving a measure of beer to a little girl. The light flows in here from a small closed window; but through the door to the right we look into a drawing-room, and through the open sash of that room we see the open air. The three lights are managed with supreme cunning. Beautiful for its illumination again is the "Music Party," with its contending indoor and outdoor lights, a gem in the late A. Thieme collection at Leipzig. More subtly suggestive, in the museum of Berlin, is the "Mother seated near a Cradle." "A Card Party," dated 1658, at Buckingham Palace, is a good example of De Hooch's drawing-room scenes, counterpart as to date and value of a "Woman and Child" in the National Gallery, and the "Smoking Party," formerly in Lord Enfield's collection. Another very fine example is the "Interior" with two women, bought by Sir Julius Wernher. Other pictures later in the master's career are--the "Lady and Child in a Courtyard," of 1665, in the National Gallery, and the "Lady receiving a Letter," of 1670, in the Amsterdam Museum (Van der Hoop collection). Entry: HOOCH
The Vatican galleries, though best known for their statuary, have fine examples of painting, chiefly of the Italian school; the most famous easel picture is Raphael's "Transfiguration," but the Stanze, apartments entirely decorated by painting, are even more famous. In England three royal palaces are open to the public--Hampton Court (Mantegna), Windsor (Van Dyck, Zuccarelli), and Kensington (portraits). At Buckingham Palace the Dutch pictures are admirable, and Queen Victoria lent the celebrated Raphael cartoons to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Semi-private collections belong to Dulwich College (Velasquez and Watteau), Oxford University (Italian drawings), the Soane Museum (Hogarth and English school), and the Royal Academy (Leonardo). Among private collections the most important are the Harrach, and Prince Liechtenstein (Vienna), J. Pierpont Morgan (including miniatures), Mrs J. Gardner of Boston (Italian), Prince Corsini (Florence). In Great Britain there are immense riches in private houses, though many collections have been dispersed. The most noteworthy (1909) belong to the dukes of Devonshire and Westminster, Lord Ellesmere, Captain Holford (including the masterpiece of Cuyp), Ludwig Mond, Lord Lansdowne, Miss Rothschild. The finest private collection is at Panshanger, formerly the seat of Lord Cowper, the gallery of Van Dyck's work being quite the best in the world. Entry: ART
BROCK, THOMAS (1847- ), English sculptor, was the chief pupil of Foley, and later became influenced by the new romantic movement. His group "The Moment of Peril" was followed by "The Genius of Poetry," "Eve," and other ideal works that mark his development. His busts, such as those of Lord Leighton and Queen Victoria; his statues, such as "Sir Richard Owen" and "Dr Philpott, bishop of Worcester"; his sepulchral monuments, such as that to Lord Leighton in St Paul's cathedral, a work of singular significance, refinement and beauty; and his memorial statues of Queen Victoria, at Hove and elsewhere, are examples of his power as a portraitist, sympathetic in feeling, sound and restrained in execution, and dignified and decorative in arrangement. The colossal equestrian statue of "Edward the Black Prince" was set up in the City Square in Leeds in 1901, the year in which the sculptor was awarded the commission to execute the vast Imperial Memorial to Queen Victoria in front of Buckingham Palace. Brock was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1883 and full member in 1891. Entry: BROCK