THE NATIONAL GALLERY AND THE NEW " GIOVANNI BEL LINT."
21 Soho Square, 9th July. Srs—This morning I paid a first visit to the new " Giovanni Bellini."- Imagine, instead of thelimpid, sunny, and gemlike surface of Giovanni Bellini, a besmeared, dull purple, and rotten-looking daub, stippled up to: the highest pitch of the "trade," and you have a faint idea of what you will at once realize in all its offensiveness by a visit to the Western room- of the National Gallery. There is nothing in this picture upon which to fix a belief that it ever was a work of moment ; but, whatever its former pre- tensions, reduced as it is now, without a square inch of the flesh, or the sky, or the landacapd' and with scarcely more of the drapery, in even a proxi- mately original state, it is not less a libel on the intelligence of England than on the great patriarch of the Venetian school. I shall scarcely be sus- pected of partiality for the individuals, whether separately or collectively., now at the head of the National Gallery, but should the surprise whicli.l. felt on my first glance at this their latest triuumh be insisted on as an.i.4- voluntary homage to their former achievements, I shall not dispute the claim.
On leaving the Gallery, I met an acquaintance who had already paid a visit to this "Giovanni Bellini." A less experienced student or National Gallery economy than myself, he was somewhat ruffled upon my informing him that the taxpayers of this country had been mulcted in the sum of 10501. for a daub, the summary ejection of which from the Gallery woad be a. gain even at the sacrifice of its purchase-money and a fee for its re- moval; for a bad picture is worse than none. He exclaimed, "Are these men (meaning the purchasers of the Bellini ') mad, or do they take us for fools ? " Sir C. Eastlake has certainly little reason to respect the wisdom of a people who persist in retaining him in the Directorship. of their Na- tional Gallery, in the teeth of his reiterated admissions of his incompetency, for the office. With regard to the first clause of my impatient comamon's exclamation, a reference to the spurious or bedaubed llolbeins, Titians, Paul'Veroneses Mantegnas, Bottieellis, &c., from abroad, to Bay nothing of home '4:restorations," soon convinced him that if the men are insane, their ■ madnese has at least the virtue of " method" ; for a more methodical selec- tion of bad and vamped-upobjeets would tax even the most imaginative to conceive. Yet our cesthetical Director complacently announces, at pages 63, 64, 55, and 56, 4‘ Estimates, &c., Civil Services for the year ending March 31, 1857," that his "Adoration of the Magi" is "on the whole, well preeerved" ; that his Manteg.na is, 1‘ happily, net touched by re- storers " ; and that his Botticelli 111 " excellent " and his Giovanni Bel• lini in "perfect preservation." The judgment which I have pronounced upon the new " Giovanni Del- had" is the result of as much consideration as a work in such a condition deserves. The intelligent will indorse it ; those of the opposite category are unworthy of a thought. I will maintain that judgment and make it. prevail.
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