Meanwhile, across the water, a superb royal collection had been formed. Charles I. of England (reigned 1625-49) had begun his career as a patron of art before his accession, with the acquisition of the paintings and statues collected by his deceased brother, Henry. During his matrimonial visit to Madrid in 1623 he was presented by Philip IV. with Titian’s _Venus del Pardo_, now in the Louvre (No. 1587). Soon after his accession he began to collect systematically, employing trusty agents to buy for him in different parts of Europe. His most notable purchase was that of the collection of the Duke of Mantua, for which he paid £18,280 between 1629 and 1632. He is said to have possessed in all 1760 pictures by the date of his execution. Most of them were disposed of at auction by order of Cromwell between 1649 and 1652. One of the most persistent bidders at the sale of Charles I.’s pictures was Eberhard Jabach, a native of Cologne, who settled in Paris and became a naturalised Frenchman in 1647. He was an enthusiastic buyer of pictures, and his collection soon surpassed that of the French king. It was known to all French connoisseurs, and was visited by all travellers of note. In time, however, Jabach’s energies as a buyer exceeded his financial resources, and when his debts amounted to 278,718 _livres_ he offered his collection to Louis XIV., who was most anxious to distinguish his reign by the formation of a gallery of pictures which should be in all respects worthy of it. To this end he purchased Eberhard Jabach’s collection, paying 220,000 _livres_ for the 5542 drawings and 101 pictures which it contained. The price originally asked by Jabach was 463,425 _livres_. Among the masterpieces thus acquired by the king were Titian’s _Entombment_ (No. 1584, Plate XIII.), which Jabach had had the good fortune to purchase from the English royal collection for the absurdly small sum of £128, and Giorgione’s _Pastoral Symphony_ (No. 1136, Plate X.), which had also been among the treasures of the English Crown. To Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642), who founded the French Academy in 1635, at one time belonged Andrea Mantegna’s _Parnassus_ (No. 1375, Plate XIV.), the same painter’s _Wisdom victorious over the Vices_ (No. 1376), Lorenzo Costa’s _The Court of Isabella d’Este in the Garden of the Muses_ (No. 1261), and the same painter’s _Mythological Scene_ (No. 1262), together with Perugino’s _Combat of Love and Chastity_ (No. 1567). Another important buyer at the sale of Charles I.’s collection was Cardinal Mazarin (1602-61), who acquired several valuable pictures, besides statuary, tapestries, and other fabrics. Of Mazarin’s pictures the Louvre now possesses Raphael’s small _St. Michael_ (No. 1502) and a _Holy Family_ (No. 1135), which is catalogued under the name of Giorgione, but it is more probably from the hand of Cariani.