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

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HAMPTON COURT
Charles's reign, or even before it, to purchase for
him in Italy the works of the great masters. A
special agent, Nicholas Lanier, was sent to join him.
In 1627-29 were carried on the negotiations which
ended in the purchase from Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga
of much of his famous collection, of which the most
precious portion was Mantegna's masterpiece. Nys
bid against Richelieu, against Marie de' Medici, and
her kinsman the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Month
by month he was able to announce new successes —
Correggios, Titians, Raffaelles — some of them sent
home by Lanier, and at length, at the beginning of
1629, he secured, with "the Duke's collection of
marbles and certain other pictures," for the price of
,£10,500, the great "Triumph" itself, "a thing rare
and unique and its value past estimation."
The pictures from the date of their arrival in
England have never left Hampton Court. They
were valued for sale by the agents of the Commonwealth
at £"1000, but Cromwell had them reserved
for himself. It may well be, as has been said, that
their austere majesty appealed to him. William III.
arranged them in the long " Queen's Gallery," now
hung with the tapestries from Charles le Brun's designs
which were bought for George I. Within the
present reign they have been moved to the Communication
Gallery, which connects the apartments
of the King with those of the Queen.
We see them now under almost every conceivable
disadvantage. They are arranged, it is true, in