sh, but he had more than
counterbalancing faults. His grouping was artificial, his heads
monotonous, his colouring 'cold and heavy,' with 'a frosty feeling' in
his pictures. His flesh tints resembled ivory, yet his elegance was so
highly prized that he had many royal and noble patrons, for whom he
executed sculptural and mythological pieces. Many of his pictures are in
the Munich Gallery.

Anton Raphael Mengs was born in Bohemia 1728, and died in Rome 1774. His
father was a distinguished miniature painter, and gave his son a careful
education, training him to copy the masterpieces of Michael Angelo and
Raphael from his twelfth year. Unfortunately he remained a copyist and
an eclectic. He drew well, learnt chiaroscuro from studying Correggio,
and colouring from analysing Titian. He was acquainted with the best
technical processes in oil and fresco. All that teaching could do for a
man was done, and to a great extent in vain. For though he worked with
great conscientiousness, fancy and feeling were either originally
lacking, or they were overlaid and stifled by his excess of culture and
severe education. The most successful of his works are portraits, in
which masterly treatment makes up to some extent for the absence of
originality and subtle sympathy. But in his day, and with some reason,
Raphael Mengs was greatly prized, since he figured among a host of
ignorant, careless, and conceited painters. At the age of seventeen he
was appointed court painter to King Augustus of Saxony. He was summoned
to Spain by Charles III., who gave him a high salary. Among his good
works is an 'Assumption' on the high altar of the Catholic Church,
Dresden. An allegorical subject in fresco on the ceiling of the Camera
de Papini in the Vatican has 'beauty of form, delicate observation, and
masterly modelling.' Mengs wrote well on art, though in his writing also
his eclecticism comes out.

NOTE TO PAGE 96.

'I have been told that I have not done justice to Lionardo in
this short sketch. I give in an abridged form the accurate
appreciative analysis of the man and his work in Sir C, and Lady
Eastlake.'--KUGLER. It is stated that the versatility of
Lionardo was against him. He attempted too much for one man and
one life. An additional impediment was produced by his
temperament, 'dreamy, perfidious, procrastinating,' withal
desirous of shining in society. His ideal of the Lord's head is
the