THE NATIONAL GALLERY 399

whether in future simpler and safer means may not be adopted to remove the coat of dust and smoke, without affecting either the glazing of the picture, or, what is almost as precious, the mellow tone left by time.

4. As regards the “Peace and War,”¹ I have no hesitation in asserting that for the present it is utterly and for ever partially destroyed. I am not disposed lightly to impugn the judgment of Mr. Eastlake, but this was indisputably of all the pictures in the Gallery that which least required, and least could endure, the process of cleaning. It was in the most advantageous condition under which a work of Rubens can be seen; mellowed by time into more perfect harmony than when it left the easel, enriched and warmed without losing any of its freshness or energy. The execution of the master is always so bold and frank as to be completely, perhaps even most agreeably, seen under circumstances of obscurity, which would be injurious to pictures of greater refinement; and, though this was, indeed, one of his most highly finished and careful works, (to my mind, before it suffered this recent injury, far superior to everything at Antwerp, Malines, or Cologne,)² this was a more weighty reason for caution than for interference. Some portions of colour have been exhibited which were formerly untraceable; but even these have lost in power what they have gained in definiteness,-the majesty and preciousness of all the tones are departed, the balance of distances lost. Time may perhaps restore something of the glow, but never the subordination; and the more delicate portions of flesh tint, especially the back of the female figure on the left, and of the boy in the centre, are destroyed for ever.

¹ [No. 46. The cleaning of this picture was one of the principal counts in Mr. Morris Moore’s indictment (see his letter to the Times, and Questions 2477-2479 in his evidence before the Select Committee of 1853. Sir Charles Eastlake’s reply was that the picture had been already “restored” in 1802 (ibid., Questions 4484-4847). For another reference to it, see above, “Review of Eastlake,” § 34, p. 295.]

² [For Rubens’ principal work at Cologne see Vol. II. p. 352; at Malines, in the Church of St. John, is his famous alter-piece, the “Adoration of the Magi”; and at Antwerp, in the Church of Notre Dame, his yet more celebrated “Descent from the Cross.”]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]