_Edouard de Bièfve's_ "Treaty of the Nobles" formed the historical supplement to this work; after the triumph of the kingdom came the triumph of the people. The picture represents the signing of the defensive league, against the Inquisition and other breaches of privilege, which the nobility of the Netherlands entered into in 1566, in the Castle of Cuylenburg, near Brussels; it was hailed by the _Berliner Staatszeitung_ as "a landmark in the chronicle of historical painting." This heroic era of Belgian painting was brought to a close in 1848 by _Ernest Slingeneyer_, who, as early as 1842, obtained a brilliant success with his "Sinking of the French Battleship _Le Vengeur_." His "Battle of Lepanto" was the last great historical picture, and the entire vocabulary of admiration known to art criticism was showered upon it by the Brussels press. Even a new period of religious painting seemed about to dawn. German art, up to that time little regarded in Belgium, had since the fifties been discussed with considerable detail in the journals, and such names as Overbeck, W. Schadow, Veit, Cornelius, and Kaulbach had speedily acquired a favourable reputation. An exhibition of German cartoons instituted in Brussels in 1862 served--strangely enough--to sustain this high appreciation. The young nation believed that it could not afford to lag behind France and Germany, and commissioned two Antwerp painters, Guffens and Swerts, who had early made themselves familiar with the technique of fresco, to found a Belgian school of monumental painting. To this end they entered into a correspondence with the German artists, and, after long studies in Italy and Germany, adorned with frescoes the Church of Notre Dame in St. Nicolas in East Flanders, St. George's Church in Antwerp, the town halls of Courtrai and Ypres, a few churches in England, and the Cathedral of Prague; and on these frescoes Herman Riegel, in 1883, published a book in two volumes. [Illustration: _Bruyllant, Brussels._ DE KEYZER.]