2-995-980 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Beaucousin Collection at the National Gallery - "Virgin and Child, with Saints", by Francia, 1860. Engraving of a painting. 'The most recent accession to our National Gallery, at least of those which have been exposed to public scrutiny, is the collection of thirty-one pictures purchased last year from M. Edmond Beaucousin, at Paris, for some £5000 or £6000, we do not recollect the exact amount. "The Virgin and Child, with two Saints," by Francia, is an example of the simplicity and pious solemnity with which the artists of the earlier Bolognese school treated devotional subjects; for it must be borne in mind that, although Francia died only two years before Raphael, he never experienced those impulses which at Rome and Florence constituted the revived school what it was; indeed, tradition states that he died of grief and vexation on seeing himself so much surpassed by his young friend Raphael in the "St. Cecilia" painted by the latter for the Church of St. Giovanni in Monte at Bologna'. From "Illustrated London News", 1860.