interesting from the fact that they represented English persons of note, were transferred to an appropriate resting-place at the National Portrait Gallery, and the collection was again rearranged.

But the removal of these pictures from a collection which by this time included 1,200 works did little more than prevent actual 'jamming,' and although two apartments in the ground floor were, as a makeshift, converted into a gallery for the reception of British cabinet pictures of the modern school, the urgent necessity for further space again became apparent. Representations to that effect were made in the proper quarter, and happily with a good result.

With the sanction of Her Majesty's Treasury, plans were prepared for such an extension of the building as would not only secure five new rooms (two large, and three of more moderate dimensions), but would also provide a spacious and central staircase, which had long been regarded as a desideratum. It so happened that the room in which the larger works of Turner had hitherto been hung occupied a central position on the south side of the building. It was badly lighted, and had long been pronounced unsuitable for its purpose. The authorities determined to devote the space occupied by this room to the new staircase. How admirably this was managed-how ingeniously the old and new buildings were connected and fused, so to speak, into one general plan, will be acknowledged by all who remember the structural difficulties with which the architect (Mr. J. Taylor, of Her Majesty's Office of Works) had to deal in executing his commission. The foundations were laid in 1884, and towards the close of May in the present year the new rooms were nearly out of the hands of the workmen.

The hanging of a large picture gallery is, it need scarcely be said, at all times a serious undertaking. But when the building, not designed from the first in its entirety, has been piecened and enlarged from time to time, the very nature of its plan is such as to present peculiar difficulties to those on whom the duty devolves. The relative importance of this or that school represented in the collection, the number of examples which it may include, the sequence or order in which it may be desirable to dispose them, are all important elements in the task, which, however desirable to keep in view, are not easily reconcilable with the accommodation which the building affords.

Apart, however, from the special conditions thus imposed, the first question to be settled is the general principle on which a large and public collection should be arranged. Assuming that the pictures are to be classified, what should be the nature of the classification?

That a primary or national division should be observed, sufficient to separate examples of Italian art from those of Dutch or Flemish,

German from French, and French from Spanish, is too obvious a postulate to need discussion. But the progress of art in Italy, for instance, may be traced through a dozen distinct schools, each possessing its own characteristics, from the earliest and most archaic examples down to work of a comparatively modern period. If these distinctions are ignored, it may indeed be possible to arrange the pictures of any collection in order of date; but most connoisseurs will admit that to group in the same room Venetian, Tuscan, and Ferrarese works might often introduce a chromatic discord from which many a chef d'œuvre would assuredly suffer. Of course, in an ideal gallery of exceptionally large area and unlimited wall-space, pictures could be disposed in such a manner as to indicate the gradual development of each local school distinct from that of others. Even then it may be doubted whether, taking into consideration the varying size and character of the works, such an arrangement would prove satisfactory. But when the choice lies between a miscellaneous chronological assortment and a scholastic subdivision, there can be little doubt that the latter system appears at once the more rational and the more advantageous for study.

It was on this assumption that the most recent arrangement of pictures at the National Gallery was undertaken. But the adoption of a general principle often leaves a host of minor questions unsettled, and in the present case these had to be recognised and considered before any definite plan of classification could be followed. For instance, the total number of exhibition rooms, inclusive of those lately added to the Gallery, is but twenty-two. Of these, seven were required for old and modern British pictures, leaving only fifteen available for the foreign schools, whereas strictly speaking the latter might have been classed under perhaps twenty different heads.

Moreover, while the great preponderance of Florentine and Venetian examples rendered it imperative to occupy in each case more than one room for their display, such schools as those of the Romagna, of Siena, of Parma, and Cremona are so scantily represented that to appropriate a room to each would have been an obvious waste of

space.

In these circumstances it became necessary to decide which schools could be most appropriately grouped together. In a gallery of limited size it would have been almost pedantic to draw a distinction if indeed it were possible to do so with accuracy-between the great Florentine masters and those of provincial Tuscany. On the other hand, even a common nationality would not warrant the juxtaposition of works separated by so long an interval of time as those, for instance, of Orcagna and Pontormo.

Room I. (the first entered from the new central staircase) was therefore appropriated to Tuscan pictures executed towards the close of the fifteenth and the earlier part of the sixteenth centuries,

including those by Lionardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo, and Andrea del Sarto. But its contents were allowed to overflow into an adjoining cabinet, where the interesting but less sophisticated productions of Botticelli, Fra Filippo Lippi, and Paolo Uccello are associated.

From this we pass to a third room, devoted to more archaic examples of Florentine art, beginning with Margaritone d'Arezzo; while other early but more refined examples of the same school, including the small but precious works of Fra Angelico, share a fourth room with the few Sienese pictures possessed by the Gallery. Thus we have in close contiguity, and as methodically assorted as circumstances permit, one main group of the works by old Italian masters in our national collection.

Among other questions which presented themselves while the plan of rearrangement remained under consideration, was whether it would be desirable to exhibit such pictures as the Blenheim Raphael, Lionardo da Vinci's Vierge aux Rochers,' and similar works of high class in a room by themselves. This expedient has been often adopted in foreign collections. At Dresden, for instance, the Madonna di San Sisto is placed apart from other pictures. At the Louvre in Paris the Salon Carré forms a sort of select cabinet, where some of the most precious examples of ancient art are grouped together irrespectively of school or date; and the practice of retaining a tribuna, or special chamber for a like purpose, in the great galleries of Italy is well known. But the truth is that the raison d'être of this custom on the Continent can hardly be said to exist in London. The very magnitude of foreign collections, and the fact that many of them include among their rich contents a large number of works which do not rise above the level of mediocrity, suggest the propriety of singling out certain works for a position of distinctive honour.

Our English National Gallery, on the other hand, though comparatively small, contains but few examples of the Old Masters which do not belong to a high rank in art. To set apart a room for the display of choice specimens selected from a collection in which nearly all are choice would seem almost invidious, and might create a false impression regarding the standard of excellence which it has become a tradition in our Gallery to maintain. It can scarcely be regretted, therefore, that, for the present at least, the adoption of a tribuna has been abandoned.

The accidental association of the Ferrarese and Bolognese schools, between which Lorenzo Costa forms a connecting link in the history of Italian art, is a sufficient plea for their collocation in a gallery which does not possess many examples of either. It so happened that Room V., an apartment of moderate size, placed between two larger ones on the central axis of the building, afforded just sufficient space for the convenient reception of those pictures by Cosimo Tura,

Ercole Grandi, Garofalo, Dosso Dossi, and L'Ortolano on the one hand, and by Francia, Marco Zoppo, and Costa on the other, which form part of our national collection. To complete the Bolognese group by admiting the works of far later painters, such as the Carracci, Domenichino, Guido, and Guercino, would have been undesirable even if space had allowed, and they were therefore placed in another room which will be mentioned hereafter.

The Umbrian School, though worthily represented at the National Gallery, yields in point of actual numbers to the Venetian and Florentine pictures included in the same collection.

When, therefore, it was decided to hang the specimens of that school in one of the larger rooms recently added to the building, a choice which happily tended to secure for the 'Ansidei' Raphael a central and conspicuous position, it became necessary to supplement the contents of Room VI. with a few other works which, though not strictly Umbrian, possessed sufficient affinity to Umbrian art to justify that course.

Among these may be mentioned a 'Deposition' by Marco Palmezzano, and two panel pictures by Francesco Ubertini (Il Bacchiacca). Even with these additions and the retention of Raphael's later works (which could not reasonably have been separated from the others), the room at first sight appears thinly hung. But no one is likely to complain of this who remembers the immense superiority in effect which every picture gains by comparative isolation on the walls. There is probably no room in the Gallery where the works displayed are seen to such advantage.

The large size of the adjoining room (No. VII.), which once formed the north-west limit of the building, and where the famous picture by Sebastian del Piombo had long given the keynote to its surroundings, seemed to suggest, if not to demand, the appropriation of this room to the Venetian School. The examples of Florentine and Lombard art, which had once occupied the south and east walls, were therefore removed, and a rearrangement was effected which not only enabled the reunion in this room of several important Venetian pictures previously hung elsewhere, but also secured a space of several inches between frame and frame. The Veronese works were allowed to remain here, but the Crivellis and Mantegnas were grouped together in the adjoining ante-chamber (No. VIII.).

Even after an abstraction which the special character of these works no less than the restricted space required, no area could be found on the walls for a few Venetian panels of what may be called cabinet size. These were, therefore, placed on screens in Room VII.; and although that expedient may be regarded with disfavour by persons who enjoy the uninterrupted vista of a long gallery, there can be little doubt that, for the purpose of close examination and study, small pictures thus placed are better seen than when hung in

close association with larger works, by which they are, so to speak, often overwhelmed and rendered insignificant in scale.

The Lombard pictures in our national collection, though including examples of Parmese, Cremonese, and Milanese art, are not numerous, and they were therefore conveniently hung, without crowding, in the north-east room (No. IX.). With this group the list of earlier Italian Schools represented at the Gallery may be said to terminate. The rooms in which they are arranged are all contiguous, and the visitor may now pass from one to another in uninterrupted sequence.

The Dutch and later Flemish pictures contained in Room X. had been so recently rehung that little rearrangement was necessary there beyond that involved by the introduction of certain works selected from the Wynn-Ellis collection, which, under the terms of the generous donor's will, had been kept together for a period of ten years. That period had now expired, and the collection, being a miscellaneous one, was assorted in such a manner as to secure the transfer of several pictures to their proper places on the present plan of classification.

The admirable Peel collection, partly on account of its unique character, and partly on other grounds, was placed by itself in Room XI.1

The early Flemish pictures, which lately occupied a small cabinet at the top of the eastern staircase, are now grouped on two sides of Room XII., the other sides of which are hung with later works by Flemish and Dutch masters.

For many years past it has been deemed advisable to devote one room in the Gallery to the reception of pictures by those later Italian painters whose style has but little affinity to those of their predecessors. In this category may be included the productions of Guido, Guercino, Zampiero, and the Carracci among Bolognese artists; Tiepolo, Guardi, and Canale among the Venetians; Caravaggio, Sassoferrato, and Carlo Maratti, who belong to the so-called Roman School. These, with a few other works of the same class, are now collated in Room XIII.

By a partial rearrrangement of the adjoining apartment, space was found for the fine Claude and two studies by Greuze belonging to the Wynn-Ellis collection. The French pictures are now hung all together in RoomXIV., while the Spanish School pictures remain as heretofore in Room XV.

Two rooms were then left free on the east side of the new central staircase for the reception of British pictures. In the smaller one, No. XVII., were placed the Hogarths, the Wilsons, and a few other pictures of the Old English School. The larger room, No. XVI., is

With the exception of a few portraits by Reynolds, which are hung with the other works by that painter in Room XVI.