August 2d. 1857 —
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Day before yesterday I went again to the Exhibition, and began the day with looking at the old masters. Positively, I do begin to receive some pleasure from looking at pictures; but as yet it has nothing to do with any technical merit, nor do I think I shall ever get so far as that.
Some landscapes by Ruysdael,
and some portraits by Murillo,
Velasquez,
and Titian,
were those which I was most able to appreciate; and I see reason for allowing, contrary to my opinion, as expressed a few pages back, that a portrait may preserve some valuable characteristics of the person represented. The pictures in the English portrait-gallery are mostly very bad, and that may be the reason why I saw so little in them.
I saw too, at this last visit, a Virgin and Child, which appeared to me to have an expression more adequate to the subject than most of the innumerable virgins and children, in which we see only repetitions of simple maternity; indeed, any mother, with her first child, would serve an artist for one of them.
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But, in this picture the Virgin had a look as if she were loving the infant as her own child, and at the same time rendering him an awful worship, as to her Creator.
Nathaniel HawthorneOld Trafford
That's all Hawthorne has to say about the Art Treasures for his visit on the 31st July 1857. Sophia Hawthorne was enamoured of a portrait of Mary Magdalen by Ary Scheffer:
Ary Scheffer’s Magdalen, when Christ says, “Mary!” is the greatest picture of his I have ever seen. Ary Scheffer himself was at the exhibition the other day… ."
Sophia Hawthorne
In 2019 this painting went to Abu Dhabi but it is up for sale again at a very reasonable €55,000 (or you could make an offer, get a few Euros knocked off)
Although Hawthorne had finished his art critique for the day he hadn't quite finished his journal entry. He meets a man who speaks to him about Uttoxeter and Charlotte Bronte. The Uttoxeter story is interesting inasmuch as Hawthorne's influence lead to a statue being erected to Samuel Johnson.
While I was sitting in the central saloon, listening to the music, a young man accosted me, presuming that I was so-and-so, the American author.
He himself was a traveller for a publishing firm; and he introduced conversation by talking of Uttoxeter, and my description of it in an annual.
He said that the account had caused a good deal of pique among the good people of Uttoxeter, because of the ignorance which I attribute to them as to the circumstance which connects Johnson with their town.
The spot where Johnson stood can, it appears, still be pointed out. It is on one side of the marketplace, and not in the neighborhood of the church.
I forget whether I recorded, at the time, that an Uttoxeter newspaper was sent me, containing a proposal that a statue or memorial should be erected on the spot. It would gratify me exceedingly if such a result should come from my pious pilgrimage thither.
My new acquaintance, who was cockneyish, but very intelligent and agreeable, went on to talk about many literary matters and characters; among others, about Miss Bronte, whom he had seen at the Chapter Coffee-House, when she and her sister Anne first went to London.
He was at that time connected with the house of — — — and — — — , and he described the surprise and incredulity of Mr. — — — , when this little, commonplace-looking woman presented herself as the author of Jane Eyre. His story brought out the insignificance of Charlotte Bronte’s aspect [he’s saying she was short, only 4’ 6”], and the bluff rejection of her by Mr. — — — , much more strongly than Mrs. Gaskell’s narrative.
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