We looked at the Zinsgroschen (Titian's), too, every day, and after that at the great painter's Venus, fit for its purity and sacred loveliness to hang in a temple with Madonnas. Palma's Venus, which hangs near, was an excellent foil, because it is pretty and pure in itself; but beside the Titian it is common and unmeaning.
Another interesting case of comparison was that between the original Zinsgroschen and a copy by an Italian painter, which hangs on the opposite wall of the cabinet. This is considered a fine copy, and would be a fine picture if one had never seen the original; but all the finest effects are gone in the copy.
The four large Correggios hanging together--the _Nacht_; the Madonna with St. Sebastian, of the smiling graceful character, with the little cherub riding astride a cloud; the Madonna with St. Hubert; and a third Madonna, very grave and sweet--painted when he was nineteen--remained with me very vividly. They are full of life, though the life is not of a high order; and I should have surmised, without any previous knowledge, that the painter was among the first masters of _technique_. The Magdalen is sweet in conception, but seems to have less than the usual merit of Correggio's pictures as to painting. A picture we delighted in extremely was one of Murillo's--St. Rodriguez, fatally wounded, receiving the Crown of Martyrdom. The attitude and expression are sublime, and strikingly distinguished from all other pictures of saints I have ever seen. He stands erect in his scarlet and white robes, with face upturned, the arms held simply downward, but the hands held open in a receptive attitude. The silly cupid-like angel holding the martyr's crown in the corner spoils all.
I did not half satisfy my appetite for the rich collection of Flemish and Dutch pictures here--for Teniers, Ryckart, Gerard Dow, Terburg, Mieris, and the rest. Rembrandt looks great here in his portraits, but I like none of the other pictures by him; the Ganymede is an offence. Guido is superlatively odious in his Christs, in agonized or ecstatic attitudes--much about the level of the accomplished London beggar. Dear, grand old Rubens does not show to great advantage, except in the charming half-length Diana returning from Hunting, the Love Garden, and the sketch of his Judgment of Paris.