Who is not acquainted with at least some few works by Van Dyck? This celebrated pupil of Rubens has left in painting as many masterpieces as canvases; and in engraving he knew how to give to his etching-needle so much _verve_ and spirit, that his prints are perfect models to follow, and have never been surpassed. Who is there that does not admire the landscapes of Claude Lorraine, which are equally remarkable for the light diffused over them, and the misty atmosphere that tempers its brilliancy? We all know this master produced, as if for recreation, certain engravings which for truth and melancholy (_mélancolic_) are hardly surpassed by his marvellous paintings. And how can we speak of Rembrandt without seeming to be commonplace? For his fertile and varied talent no difficulty ever seemed to exist; a theme, the most simple and common in appearance, becomes in his hands the basis of a masterly conception; nature, to which he seemed to lend a new life, while seizing upon its most striking realities, was for him an inexhaustible source of powerful compositions. The mention of these artists on the threshold of an epoch into which we [Illustration: Fig. 270.--“Portrait of John Lutma, Goldsmith of Groningen.” Designed and Engraved in aquafortis by Rembrandt.] are precluded from following them, must suffice to convey some idea of the height that art had attained during this century. We will, however, enumerate after them a few names among foreign engravers. The Flemish artists, Nicolas Berghem and Paul Potter, both great animal-painters, have left some prints in aquafortis for the possession of which amateurs contend; Wenceslaus Hollar, the Englishman,[46] engraved “The Queen of Sheba,” after Veronese; to Cornelius Visscher, a Dutchman, we owe the famous “Seller of Ratsbane;” and to Stefano della Bella, of Florence, the “View from the Pont-Neuf, Paris.” Rupert, the Prince-Palatine (nephew of Charles I. of England), was the inventor of the mezzo-tinto, or black style of engraving; and William Faithorne, an Englishman, engraved several portraits after Van Dyck. France also presents to our notice some justly celebrated names. The views of towns by Israel Silvestre, of Nancy, are very beautiful; François de Poilly, of Abbeville, reproduced several pictures by Raphael; Jean Pesne, of Rouen, himself a painter, engraved especially after Poussin; Antoine Masson, of Orleans, has left a print of the “Pilgrims of Emmaus,” after the picture by Titian, which is regarded as a _chef-d’œuvre_. Lastly, Robert Nanteuil, of Rheims, the famous portrait-painter, engraved Péréfixe, Archbishop of Paris, four times; the Archbishop of Rheims five times; Colbert six times; Michel Le Tellier, Chancellor of France, ten times; Louis XIV. eleven times, and Cardinal Mazarin fourteen times. [Illustration: Fig. 271.--“The Holy Virgin.” Engraved by Aldegrever in 1527.] SCULPTURE.