Hampton Court ... Illustrated with forty-three drawings by Herbert ...

180 HAMPTON COURT
from the portraits of the period of Charles and his
father.
Mytens is an artist who can be studied in England
nowhere so satisfactorily as at Hampton Court.
" Sincere and skilful, but cold and prosaic," an
eminent critic calls him; J but an examination of
the thirteen examples here may serve to justify a
somewhat higher estimate of his power. There is
perhaps no picture so striking as the Laud which
was so long unknown,2 but the portrait of James,
second Marquis of Hamilton, is extremely interesting;
and the Duke of Richmond and Lennox (No. 155)
is equally attractive. The Count Mansfeldt is not so
agreeable a work, but certainly merits the praise of
being " sincere."
Next to Mytens, we look naturally at Hampton
Court to Vandyke for illustrations of the reign of
Charles I. First and foremost is, of course, the
replica of the great Windsor picture of the King
himself on his horse, with M. Saint Antoine at his
bridle. It is a magnificent piece of dignity and colour,
not,like so much that came from his studio, entirely
of his own hand. A contrast is the voluptuous Mrs.
Lemon, Venetianin its richness, and a step, as has been
said, towards the still more sensuous presentments of
Lely. The " prince of court painters " he was in a
sense somewhat different to that in which Mr.Pater
1 Mr. Claude Phillips, " The Picture Gallery of Charles I.," p. 117.
2 It was exhibitedat the Laudian Exhibition,January 1895, and is
in a private collection.