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

ANDREA MANTEGNA 183
Charles it was who has enabled us at Hampton Court
to study not a few of the great painters in a special
and illuminative way. The galleries as we see them
now are crowded, it is true, with a number of inferior
pictures, and yet we feel that we are in the midst of a
collection which could have been founded by no petty
princeling,but by an English king, and a king who was
an artist too. There is really a considerable number of
pictures of the first class. Arranged together in aroom
like the " Tribuna " at Florence, they would be even
more impressive than now, when we have to search for
them among many inferior things. But when they are
found,the great Tintorettos, the " Shepherd " of Giorgione,
the Andrea Odoni of Lotto, the " Adam and
Eve " ofMabuse, even Vandyke's " Cupid andPsyche,"
are enough to give fame to any great collection. And
besides these, and the many charming works of lesser
men, there is one mightv ruin from which we cannot
withhold the tribute of a mingled admiration and
regret.
VII
Of all the great acquisitions of Charles I., there
was none greater than the nine pictures of Andrea
Mantegna, the " Triumph of Julius Cæsar," and
this is the one work of supreme merit which remains
to us at Hampton Court from the magnificent
collection the King made there. The picture-dealer
Daniel Nys was employed from the beginning of