From these recent specimens, you would turn with the more pleasure to a picture by Van Eyck, the inventor, as it is generally supposed, of oil painting. Let us respect these fathers of the art. Let us pardon the stiffness of their composition, the formality of their figures, the inelegance of their draperies, the hardness of their outlines, and the want of chiaroscuro;--for, in spite of all these failings, there is a truth to nature, and a richness of coloring, which always attract and win. The picture in question is the _Virgin Mother in her Domestic Retirement_, surrounded by her family, a comely party of young females in splendid attire, some of them wearing the bridal crown. It is altogether a curiosity, partaking, indeed, of the general bad taste of the times, but painted with great attention to nature in the minutiæ, and resembling Lionardo da Vinci in many particulars, especially in the high finishing, the coloring of the carnations, and the grace, and beauty of some of the heads. The draperies, too, are rich and brilliant.
This museum is a recent erection: most, if not all, of the departments of France, possess similar establishments in their principal towns. The basis of the collection is founded upon the plunder of the suppressed monasteries; but M. Descamps told us that, in the course of a journey to Italy, he had been the means of adding to this, at Rouen, its principal ornaments. He had the greater merit of preserving it entire, when orders were transmitted from Paris to send off its best pictures, to replace those taken from the Louvre by the allies; for on all occasions, whether great or small, the interests of the departments are sacrificed without mercy to the engulphing capital. Descamps was firm in defending his trust: he resisted the spoliation, upon the principle that the museum was the private property of the town; and the plea was admitted.
