WHEN C.N. Cochin wrote to the marquis de Maringny in the autumn of 1755 about Louis XV's patronage of the arts, he did so in terms which reveal the sense of national superiority entertained by a cultivated Frenchman living in France in the eighteenth century. In his opinion all that was needed to ensure that all Europe came to France in search of those things 'qui sont du ressort du gout' was some small gesture of encouragement by the King in favour of native artists and craftsmen.

IN 1814 J. M. W. Turner entered the very curious Appulia in Search of Appulus in an annual competition sponsored by the British Institution, the art organisation managed by his most outspoken critic, Sir George Beaumont, and other well-to-do collectors. He therewith addressed an issue central to the development of landscape painting in England from the point of view of artists and connoisseurs alike, namely, the proper role of old master example in the representation of nature. The influence which Claude Lorrain, in particular, continued to exert, through the ministrations of collectors such as Beaumont, was both an inspiration and an impediment. The large number of Claude's works in England formed the canon by which young landscape painters first schooled themselves and through which they then worked to develop their own new approaches. At the same time, the old master works constituted an economic threat to the contemporary artist's livelihood and an obstacle to innovation. Turner's response to this conflict of interests was accordingly double-faced: his painting is wittily critical of too much homage, while at the same time exhibiting ample respect for the conventions of the past.

THERE is in the Flaxman account book at Columbia an undated entry for a commission from John Russell, sixth Duke of Bedford, for 'a Basso relievo of Satan etc., from Milton to be executed in marble for £500', which is not marked as having been paid.

FEW of Lord Arundel's circle knew him as well as Sir Thomas Roe, ambassador to the Ottoman Porte, 1621-1628. Roe spent much time collecting antiques on Arundel's behalf and in one of his letters we find him describing his patron as having 'curiosity unlimited'. The documents we shall discuss below show that Roe had the measure of his man. 

THE last Will of the fourteenth Earl of Arundel, the Collector Earl, was made, five years before his death, on 3rd September 1641 at Dover, when he was waiting to leave England as escort to the Queen Mother, Marie de' Medici, across the Channel on her way to Cologne. This Will has been published more than once, most recently by Mary in and Collections Thomas The Life, Correspondence of Harvey Howard Earl of Arundel,Cambridge [1921], from the copy in Sir Edward Walker's manuscript biography of the Earl, of 1651, contained in the British Library, Harleian MS 6272. In it Arundel, in the normal way, revoked 'all other Wills'.

IN 1961 the Friends of the Tate Gallery presented a half-length portrait of an unknown young lady to the Gallery. The early history of the picture has not been traced: The artist's name is not known, but the style reveals a hand recognisable in a number of portraits from the years 1565-69. He is called 'The Master of the Countess of Warwick'.1 A likely candidate is the Serjeant Painter Nicholas Lezard, a Frenchman, who died in 1571.