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

ANDREA MANTEGNA 185
order, and on one wall, so that the scheme may be
followed, and none of the effect which that stately
march is intended to give is lost. But in summer
at least, the sunshine,or the reflection, on the glass,
makes it difficult to observe them clearly or continuously.
It is rarely, indeed, that the whole of any
picture can be seen at one time. No arrangement
of position thatIcan discover, or of the blinds that
can be drawn down the great windows, makes much
difference. We can only see them imperfectly and
piecemeal. It is bad enough to see them; but worse
remains behind. They have been patched, restored,
repainted, treated with every indignity that can be
"
imagined. In the entire series there are perhaps
not a dozen square inches in which Mantegna's hand
is still visible," is the judgment of one of the latest
and most competent critics.1 They are rather, says
another, " a memory than a work still extant; the
question not being which parts of the composition
are due to the restorer, but which,if any, reveal to
the careful observer any traces of Mantegna's own
handling." 2
This is true enough, it must be admitted; and
from the point of view of the connoisseur, who
judges a picture according to the standard which
his knowledge of its artist compels him to set up,
it is fatal. But for the historian, and for the general
observer, the "Triumph " retains an attraction which
1 Mary Logan,"The ItalianPictures at Hampton Court."
2 C. Phillips, " The Picture Gallery of Charles I.," p. 69.