portrait of the Marchese Antonio Giulio Brignole-Sale on horseback, the
beautiful work of Vandyck. Looking at this picture and its fellow, the
portrait of the Marchesa, it is with sorrow we remember the fate that
has befallen so many of Vandyck's masterpieces painted in this city. For
either they have been carried away, like the magnificent group of the
Lommellini family to Edinburgh, the Marchesa Brignole with her child to
England, or they have been repainted and spoiled.

It was in 1621, on the 3rd October, that Vandyck, mounted on "the best
horse in Rubens' stables," set out from Antwerp for Italy. After staying
a short while in Brussels, he journeyed without further delay across
France to Genoa. With him came Rubens' friend, Cavaliere Giambattista
Nani. He reached Genoa on 20th November, where his friends of the de
Wael family greeted him.

The city of Genoa, herself without a school of painting, had welcomed
Rubens not long before very gladly, nor had Vandyck any cause to
complain of her ingratitude. He appears to have set himself to paint in
the style of Rubens, choosing similar subjects, at any rate, and thus to
have won for himself, with such work as the Young Bacchantes, now in
Lord Belper's collection, or the Drunken Silenus, now in Brussels, a
reputation but little inferior to his master's. Certainly at this time
his work is very Flemish in character, and apparently it was not till
he had been to Venice, Mantua, and Rome that the influence of Italy and
the Italian masters may be really found in his work. A disciple of
Titian almost from his youth, it is the work of that master which
gradually emancipates him from Flemish barbarism, from a too serious
occupation with detail, the over-emphasis of northern work, the mere
boisterousness, without any real distinction, that too often spoils
Rubens for us, and yet is so easily excused and forgotten in the mere