n the bevy of girl angels with roses in their
hair surrounding the Virgin. Most of them are not unlike English girls
of the present day, and the critics who say that this picture must
have been painted by a Frenchman may be asked where he is likely to
have found these English models for his angels.

Possibly the face of Richard himself may have been painted from life,
for the features correspond closely enough with the large full-face
portrait of him in Westminster Abbey, and with the sculptured figure
upon his tomb. He certainly does not look like a child of ten, for
his state robes and crown give him a grown-up appearance. But if you
regard the face carefully you can see that it is still that of a child.

The gold background in the original shines out brilliantly, for after
the gold was laid on, it was polished with an agate, which gives it
a burnished effect, and then the little patterns were carefully punched
so as not to pierce the gold and thereby expose the white ground beneath.
There is a jewel-like quality in the colour such as you can see in
manuscripts of the time, and it is possible that the painter may have
learned his art as an illuminator of manuscripts. Artists in those
days seldom confined themselves to one kind of work. We do not know
this man's name, and are not even certain whether he was French or
English.

Before, as in the time of Richard, painting had been mainly a decorative
art, and the object of making pictures was to adorn the pages of a
book, or the walls and vaults of a building. The most vital artistic
energies of Western Europe in the thirteenth century had gone into
the building of the great cathedrals and abbeys, which are to-day the
glory of that period. Most medieval paintings that still exist in
England are decorative wall-paintings of this kind, and only traces
of a few remain. In many country places you can see poor and faded
vestiges of painting which adorned church walls in the thirteenth
century, and occasionally you may come upon a bit by some chance better
preserved. These old wall-paintings were done upon the dry plaster.
The discovery, or rather the revival, of 'fresco' painting (that is,
of painting done upon the wet surface of freshly plastered walls, a
more durable process) was made in Italy and did not penetrate to
England.

Richard II. was not the only art-loving King of his time. You have
read of John, King of France, who was taken prisoner at the Battle
of Poitie