The Samuel Butler Collection at Saint John's College, Cambridge Part 3

45. Oil Painting: On the S. Bernardino Pa.s.s.

46. Oil Painting: Bellinzona, The Castle.

In the same frame with no. 47.

47. Oil Painting: Mesocco, The Castle.

_Alps and Sanctuaries_, ch. xix. Butler always had this and no. 46 in the same frame.

48. Oil Painting: Bellinzona, The Castle.

He made many sketches of the Castle at Bellinzona, this and no. 46 are the only two I have found; none was quite satisfactory because there was no point of view from which the towers composed well behind a good foreground.

49. Drawing in pencil and ink: The Sacro Monte, Varese, from the seventh or Flagellation Chapel.

He intended to paint a picture this size, and started by making this drawing, which is an enlargement of the drawing reproduced in _Alps and Sanctuaries_, ch. xxiii. (1881), but he did not proceed with the painting.

50. Drawing in pencil and ink: Boulogne-sur-Mer, La Porte Gayole.

This was a favourite view which he often sketched; but I have only found this example.

SAMUEL BUTLER AND OTHERS

51. All (except a few which are lost) the original drawings for _Alps and Sanctuaries_.

Placed here in order of date because the book was published in 1881. Some of the drawings are by Charles Gogin, who did the frontispiece and the Madonna della Neve on the t.i.tle page, and who also introduced the figures into those of Butler's drawings which have figures; and a few are by me.

There are among this lot also several sketches, etc., by various persons which Butler collected as ill.u.s.trating his "Considerations on the Decline of Italian Art." Some are published in the chapter so headed in the book, but others were not published.

SAMUEL BUTLER

52. Oil Painting: Portrait of Henry Festing Jones. 1882.

53. Oil Painting: Castello Fenis, Val d'Aosta. 1882.

It was over one of the gateways of this Castle that Fortune with her Wheel was to appear in a fresco. See no. 19.

HENRY FESTING JONES

54. Oil Painting: View from Butler's room in Clifford's Inn showing the tower of the Law Courts. 1882.

Drawn with the camera lucida. Reproduced in the _Memoir_, ch. xx.

55. Oil Painting: Unfinished sketch-portrait of Butler. 1882

Drawn with the camera lucida. Referred to in the _Memoir_, I. 135-136, in letters from which extracts are given below.

_Miss Savage to Butler_.

31_st_ _October_, 1883: I went to the Fisheries Exhibition last week and spent a rather pleasant day. I was by myself for one thing, and, for another, took great delight in gazing at a life-size model of a sea-captain clad in yellow oil-skins and a Sou'wester. It was executed in that style of art that you so greatly admire in the Italian Churches, and was so good a likeness of _you_ that I think you must have sat for it. The serious occupations of my day were having dinner and tea, and the relaxations, buying shrimps in the fish-market and then giving them to the sea-gulls and cormorants. My most exalted pleasure was to look at your effigy, which I should like to be able to buy, though, as I have not a private chapel in my castle, I hardly know where I could put it if I had it. Upon the whole I enjoyed myself, but I am glad to hear that the Exhibition is to be closed to- day, so that I cannot by any possibility go there again.

_Butler to Miss Savage_.

5_th_ _November_, 1883: I believe I am very like a sea-captain. Jones began a likeness of me not long since, which I will show you next time you come and see me, which is also very like a portrait of a sea-captain.

56. Sketch-portrait of Robert Doncaster.

On the same mount with no. 40. A tracing is among the miscellaneous papers given to St. John's. This sketch of Robert was done, I suspect, with the camera lucida, and if so its date must be about 1882-3. Robert Doncaster was the husband of Mrs. Corrie; that is to say Mrs. Corrie, who was Butler's laundress in Clifford's Inn, "lost" her husband. After a suitable interval it was a.s.sumed that he was dead and she married Robert Doncaster and was known as Mrs. Doncaster. Robert, who was a half-witted old man, used to hang about the place, do odd jobs, and make himself fairly useful. He died in 1886.

57. Water-colour: Pinner. 1883.

SAMUEL BUTLER

58. Oil Painting: Edward James Jones.

Inscribed thus: "Portrait of E. J. Jones, Esq., of the Indian Geological Survey, Aet. Suae 24, painted by S. Butler, November, 1883." The date is not clearly written, but it must be 1883, because my brother Edward, born 5th September, 1859, was twenty-four in 1883, and in November 1883 he went to Calcutta, having obtained an appointment on the Geological Survey. Butler painted the portrait just before he started.

59. Oil Painting: Chiavenna. 1887.

It looks in some lights like 1881, but in other lights 1887, and it must be 1887. Butler did not go abroad in 1881 and he was at Chiavenna in 1887. This is one of the pictures given by Alfred.

THOMAS SADLER

60. Black and white drawing: Butler and Scotto in 1888.

Sadler made this for the _Pall Mall Gazette_ from the photograph which is reproduced in _Ex Voto_; the drawing was reproduced in an article, and a cutting from the _Pall Mall_ with the reproduction is with the papers given to St. John's.

SAMUEL BUTLER

61. Oil Painting: Wembley, Middles.e.x. Sketch of the back of the Green Man public-house, since burnt down.

Butler intended to finish this, and send it to the Royal Academy, but he got tired of it and turned it up.