Rubens in a fit of pique at a false report which had been circulated
that he could not paint animals, and that those in his pictures were
supplied by the animal-painter, his friend and scholar, Schneyders.

Rubens' landscapes are not the least renowned of his pictures. He gave
to his own rich but prosaic Flanders, all the breadth and breeziness and
matchless aerial effects of a master of painting, and a true lover of
nature under every aspect, who can indeed distinguish, under the most
ordinary aspect, those hidden treasures which all but a lover and a man
of genius would pass by. His 'Prairie of Laacken,' 'with the sun of
Flanders piercing the dense yellow clouds with the force of fire,' is of
great repute.

Among his famous portraits I shall mention that called 'The Four
Philosophers' (Justus Lepsius, Hugo Grotius, Rubens, and his brother),
with peaked beards and moustaches, in turned-over collars, ruffs and
fur-trimmed robes, having books and pens, a dog, and a classic bust as
accessories. The open pillared door is wreathed with a spray from
without, and there is a landscape in the background. This portrait is
full of power, freedom, and splendid painting.

Another portrait contains that sweetest of Rubens' not often sweet
faces, called 'the Lady in the Straw Hat.' Rubens himself did not name
the picture otherwise in his catalogue. Tradition says the original was
Mdlle Lundens, the beauty of the seventeen provinces, and that she died
young and unmarried. Connoisseurs value the picture because of the
triumph of skill by which Rubens has painted brilliantly a face so much
in the shade; to those who are not connoisseurs I imagine the picture
must speak for itself, in its graceful, tender beauty. Forming part of
the collection of the late Sir Robert Peel (I think he gave three
thousand pounds for 'the Lady in the Straw Hat'), which has been bought
for the country, this beautiful portrait is now in the National Gallery.

And now I must speak of the picture of the Arundel Family. But first, a
word about Thomas, Earl of Arundel. It is impossible to write an English
work on art and omit a brief account of one of England's greatest art
benefactors. Thomas, Earl of Arundel, representing in his day the great
house of Howard, had a love of art which approached to a mania; and
without being so outrageously vain as Sir Kenelm Digby, there is no
doubt that the Earl counted on his art collection as a source of
personal distinctio