In the Hall of Niobe, which follows, is one of the most perfect works that ever grew into life under a sculptor’s chisel.  Mutilated as it is, without head and arms, I never saw a more expressive figure.  Ilioneus, the son of Niobe, is represented as kneeling, apparently in the moment in which Apollo raises his arrow, and there is an imploring supplication in his attitude which is touching in the highest degree.  His beautiful young limbs seem to shrink involuntarily from the deadly shaft; there is an expression of prayer, almost of agony, in the position of his body.  It should be left untouched.  No head could be added which would equal that one pictures to himself while gazing upon it.

The Pinacothek is a magnificent building of yellow sandstone, five hundred and thirty feet long, containing thirteen hundred pictures selected with great care from the whole private collection of the king, which amounts to nine thousand.  Above the cornice on the southern side stand twenty-five colossal statues of celebrated painters by Schwanthaler.  As we approached, the tall bronze door was opened by a servant in the Bavarian livery, whose size harmonized so well with the giant proportions of the building that until I stood beside him and could mark the contrast I did not notice his enormous frame.  I saw then that he must be near eight feet high and stout in proportion.  He reminded me of the great “Baver of Trient,” in Vienna.  The Pinacothek contains the most complete collection of works by old German artists anywhere to be found.  There are in the Hall of the Spanish Masters half a dozen of Murillo’s inimitable beggar-groups.

It was a relief, after looking upon the distressingly stiff figures of the old German school, to view these fresh, natural countenances.  One little black-eyed boy has just cut a slice out of a melon, and turns with a full mouth to his companion, who is busy eating a bunch of grapes.  The simple, contented expression on the faces of the beggars is admirable.  I thought I detected in a beautiful child with dark curly locks the original of his celebrated infant St. John.  I was much interested in two small juvenile works of Raphael and his own portrait.  The latter was taken, most probably, after he became known as a painter.  The calm, serious smile which we see on his portrait as a boy had vanished, and the thin features and sunken eye told of intense mental labor.

[Footnote A:  From “Views Afoot.”  Published by G.P.  Putnam’s Sons.]

[Footnote B:  This was written about 1848.  The population of Munich is now (1914), 595,000.  Munich is rated as third in importance among German cities.]

AUGSBURG[A]

BY THOMAS FROGNALL DIBDIN