Old Paintings in the National Portrait Gallery

We may now pass on to some instructive examples preserved in the National Portrait Gallery:

Marc Gheeraedts (1561-1635)

No. 64. In this portrait, painted probably in 1614, while the vermilion has stood, the translucent reds appear to have faded and changed. The white sleeves of the dress are ornamented with small sprigs, which are now brown, and were probably originally painted in some vegetable yellow. The reddish pattern of conventional foliage on the cloak now clashes with the colour of the chair, the curtain, and the table; the hues of all or some of these parts must have altered.

Sir Peter Lely (1617-1680)

No. 509. A well-preserved picture in most respects, but it is probable that crimson-lake has been used for the satin dress, which is now a pinkish grey, and clashes with the flesh tints. This work was probably painted about 1669.

William Hogarth (1697-1764)

No. 289. This portrait of Hogarth, painted in 1758 by himself, affords some information as to the pigments he employed. He holds in his left hand a mahogany palette 'set' with eight colours. The first of these is white lead, and remains unchanged; so also is the second, vermilion; the third is a pale warm brown, precisely the hue of faded crimson lake; the fourth is now nearly black and undeterminable; the fifth is yellow ochre, slightly embrowned; the sixth is a pale yellow, well preserved - much like true Naples yellow; the seventh is a grey-blue, probably much changed; and the eighth and last a fair lavender blue colour. The seventh pigment may have been indigo, and the last possibly smalt. The cap on the artist's head has certainly faded in colour; probably it was painted with cochineal lake.

William Hoare, R.A. (1706-1792)

No. 112. This portrait of Alexander Pope, in coloured crayons on grey paper, shows the blues apparently intact.

Thomas Phillips, R.A. (1770-1845)

No. 269. This portrait of Faraday, painted in 1842, shows a large number of cracks, many of them wide. Where flake-white has been introduced somewhat freely, as in the face and hands, the shirt and collar, and the galvanic battery on the table, the paint has not lost its continuity.

Sir Joshua Reynolds, Lord Heathfield of Gibraltar, 1787 Photo © The National Gallery, London.

John Partridge (1789-1872)

No 342. 'Meeting of the Royal Fine Arts Commission.' This picture was painted in 1846. Almost every part of it is very badly cracked through the use of bitumen, and perhaps also of much megilp. Even the shaded portions of the faces have not escaped, although the high lights have been preserved where the proportion of white lead present has been large.

Many instructive illustrations of the degrees of stability shown by pigments are furnished by examples in the Wallace Collection at Hertford House.

Philippe De Champaigne (1602-1674)

No. 119. This picture is remarkable not only for the perfection of its technique, but for the extraordinary state of conservation of all the pigments, which cover a wide range of colours, and include a transparent amber-yellow and a rose.

Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792)

No. 47. Here the fatal asphaltum asserts itself, the background resembling a dissected map.

J. L. E. Meissonier (1815-1891)

No. 291. Generally the works of this careful painter are well preserved, but in this small example there are to be seen a few thin long cracks, which seem to have arisen in consequence of the premature application of varnish to the picture before the oil-paint was hard.

In Sir John Soane's Museum the two fine series of well-preserved oil-paintings by W. Hogarth (1697-1764) will repay careful study from the point of view now being considered.