Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/410

396 thousand pounds, but more probably a misprint for eight thousand pounds, caused Charles to delay it, and his political troubles soon put an end to that design. He painted three pictures of Charles on horseback, one of which is at Windsor, one at Hampton Court, and one at Warwick Castle.

Anthony Vandyck.

Rubens came only to this country as an ambassador, but Charles seized the opportunity to get him to paint the apotheosis of James on the ceiling of the Banqueting House at Whitehall. This he, however, merely sketched whilst here, and painted it at Antwerp, receiving three thousand pounds for it. The duke of Buckingham purchased Rubens's private collection of paintings, chiefly of the Italian school, but containing some of his own, for ten thousand pounds. These were sold by the long parliament, and now adorn the palaces of the Escurial at Madrid, and the Belvidere palace at Vienna. In our opinion, the large pictures in the latter gallery, "St. Francis Xavier preaching to the Indians," and "Loyola casting out Devils," are amongst the very finest of his productions—a great loss to this country.

Charles, besides making collections, and drawing round him great artists, projected the establishment of an academy of arts on a princely scale. But this remained only an idea, through the breaking out of the revolution. The parliament, in 1645, caused all such pictures at Whitehall as contained any representation of the Saviour or the Virgin, to be burnt, and the rest to be sold. Fortunately there were persons in power who had more rational notions, and much was saved. Cromwell himself secured the cartoons of Raphael for three hundred pounds, and thus preserved them to the nation, and as soon as he had the authority, he put a stop to the sale of the royal collections, and even detained many that were sold.

The native artists of this period were chiefly pupils of Rubens or Vandyck. Jamieson, called the Scotch Vandyck, was a pupil of Rubens at the same time with Vandyck—Charles sate to him. William Dobson, a pupil of Vandyck, was serjeant-painter to Charles, and Robert Walker, of the Vandyck school, was Cromwell's favourite painter, to whom we owe several admirable portraits of the protector. There were also several miniature painters of the highest merit—the two Olivers, Hoskins, and Cooper.

Up to this period engravings had become by no means prominent in England. That there had been engravers we know from various books having been illustrated by them. Geminus and Humphrey Lloyd were employed by Ortelius, of Antwerp, on his "Theatrum Orbis Terrarum." Aggas had executed a great plan of London, and Saxon county maps. Various Flemish and French engravers found employment here, as Vostermans, De Voerst, and Peter Lombard. Hollar, Bohemian, was employed extensively till the outbreak of the war, and illustrated Dugdale's, as well as other works. But the chief English engraver of this period was John Payne.

The Crucifixion. By Vandyck.

Sculpture was by no means in great advance at this period. There were several foreign artists employed in this country on tombs and monuments, but as they did not at that date put their names upon them, it is difficult to attribute to every man his own. Amongst these Le Soeur, who executed the equestrian statue of Charles I. at Charing Cross, Angier, and Du Val were the chief. John Stone,