Page:Bryan's dictionary of painters and engravers, volume 1.djvu/45

 Hall in 1843, which, however, to his great dis- appointment, found no purchaser. In the former picture Napoleon is the principal figure in the foreground ; in the latter the Duke of Welling- ton. In 1844 he revisited St. Petersburg, and, on his return, painted for the Emperor Nicholas a picture of ' Peter the Great teacljiiig his sub- jects the Art of Ship-building,' which was ex- hibited in London in 1845, and is now in the Winter Palace at St. Petersburg. Sir William died in his painting-room at Edinburgh before a large unfinished picture of ' The Battle of Ban- nockbum,' in 1850. Tliis picture is now in the National Gallery of Scotland. Besides Iiis other titles, he held those of Honorary Member of the Academicians of New York and Philadelpliia. His excellence as a painter consisted chiefly in con- siderable dramatic power in telling a story, and in skilful composition. As a colourist he w as deficient. In the National Gallery is a single exaniplt^ of hi? pencil, ' Tartar Eobbers dividing their Spoil.' which was painted in 1817 (Loan Collection), and which has been engraved by J. Stewart, and by J. T. Smyth.

ALLARD, Abraham, an engraver mid print- Beller. Tiiere are twelve views of the towns of Friesland engraved by this artist ; and in the British Museum is a large print, representing the Garden of Love, entitled Het Lust Ilof van Flora ; partly etched and finished with the graver in a stiif, clumsy style, inscribed A. Allart cecinit. €'• Allart edit. He lived at Amsterdam towards the close of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century.

ALLARD, Cabel, an engraver and printeeller, who executed a number of mezzotint portraits of English celebrities, after the paintings of Leiy. There are in the British Museum four plates of ' The Seasons,' represented in half-length figures, executed in a coarse, heavy style, without any taste. He flourished at Amsterdam toward the close of the 17th, and the beginning of the 18th century.

ALLARD, Huijcn, a Dutch engraver, flourished at Amsterdam in the latter part of the 17th century. By him we have ' The Flight of King James after the Battle of the Boyne,' 1690 — Hugo Allard, fecit, Carolus A Hard, excudit — and some portraits, amongst which is that of Adriaan Pauw, one of the negotiators of the peace of Miinster.

ALLARD, Jean Pierre Eoqexe, a French his- torical and portrait painter, was born at Lyons in 1829. He studied under Flandrin and Jannot, and after^vards went to Rome, where he was assassin- ated in his studio in 18G4.

ALLEGRAIN, Etie-vne, a French landscape painter, bom in Paris in 1644, painted works which were much esteemed. Two landscapes by him are in the Louvre — one of which was formerly ascribed to Millet — and several, in the manner of Fran- cisque MiEet, are at Versailles. At the Hermitage at St. Petersburg is a ' Landscape, with the find- ing of Moses.' He died in 1736 in Paris.

ALLEGRAIN, Gabriel, bom in Paris in 1679, son and pupil of Etienne, painted in the manner of his father: he died in 1748. He exhibited at the Salon from the year 1737 to 1747, missing a year occasionally. There are by him at Ver- sailles views of the gardens of Versailles, of the chSteau of St. Germain-en-Laye, and of the chSteau of Vincennee.

ALLEGRl, Anto.mo, commonly culled Cob- TiEGGIO, was bom, according to his Italian bio- grapher Pungileoni, in the year 1494, in the small town of Correggio near Reggio-Emilia. His father, Pellegrino Allegri, was a merchant, or tradesman in comfortable circumstances, as is proved by his having purchased in 1516 a clothier's business, and also by his having farmed for nine years two estates for which he paid 150 gold ducats a year. His mother, named Bemardina Piazzola, belonged to the Ormani or Aromani family, and brought hei husband a dowry of 100 lire.

These facts, which have been distinctly ascer- tained, prove that Allegri could not have been brought up in poverty, nor could he, as was at one time supposed, have belonged to a noble family of the name of De AUegris, who possessed a castle and estates a short distance from Correggio. He always, it would appear, lived an easy, comfort- able bourgeois life, never, it is true, rising to the grandeur and show of some of the other great masters of the Renaissance, but on the other hand never falling into that dire poverty of which Vasari gives such a moving picture. Vasari'a narrative indeed, as regards Allegri, has long been known to be more than usually inaccurate. He possessed little real knowledge concerning the distant Lombard master, though he professed a great admiration for him as one " endowed with exalted genius," whose works he praised for their "attractive grace, charming m.mner, perfect relief, and the exquisite softness of their flesh- tints." Nor has modem research, while showing the incorrectness of Vasari's statements, found out much concerning the personal history of this charming master, who, living far distant from Rome and Florence, the great centres of art in the 16th century, remained unknown to most of his renownedcontemporaries, and thus probably missed the important part that he might otherwise have played in the art of his time.

The ascertained facts of his life, stripped of all conjecture and tradition, may be told in a short space. His father, Pellegrino, destined him, it is said, for a learned profession, but this is not cer- tain. At an early age, however, the young Allegri showed an inclination towards painting, which f.ict does not appear to have been disputed. He had an uncle, named Lorenzo, an indillerent painter of Correggio, from whom he probably ac- quired the first rudiments of the art ; but after- wards there is reason to believe that he studied under a master named Antonio Bartolotti, or Bartolozzi, called also Tognino degli Ancini, who in 1500 was the chief master or Caposcuola in Correggio. Bulbarini, in his Memm-ie Pairie, speaks of this painter as having been " often assisted by his pupil Allegri ; " but Dr. Meyer does not con- sider that he gained anything from this master ' beyond a certain technical practice in tempera painting." Unfortunately only two of Bartolotti's works are known, and they prove that he had very little capacity.

Mengs is of opinion that Allegri studied in Modena also, under two masters of some repute — Francesco Bianchi, called ' 11 Frare,' and Pelle- grino Munari — but there is no historical evidence to support this view beyond a passage in Vedri- ani's Pittore Modenesi, which was added by the publisher at a later date. Bianchi died in 1510 when Allegri was only sixteen, so it is not likely that he derived much knowledge from him, even if we admit that he studied in Modena, which