[The Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac]@TWC D-Link bookThe Two Brothers CHAPTER VIII 18/26
On the panelled walls of the room, from space to space, hung several pictures, the spoil of various religious houses, such as the abbeys of Deols, Issoudun, Saint-Gildas, La Pree, Chezal-Beniot, Saint-Sulpice, and the convents of Bourges and Issoudun, which the liberality of our kings had enriched with the precious gifts of the glorious works called forth by the Renaissance.
Among the pictures obtained by the Descoings and inherited by Rouget, was a Holy Family by Albano, a Saint-Jerome of Demenichino, a Head of Christ by Gian Bellini, a Virgin of Leonardo, a Bearing of the Cross by Titian, which formerly belonged to the Marquis de Belabre (the one who sustained a siege and had his head cut off under Louis XIII.); a Lazarus of Paul Veronese, a Marriage of the Virgin by the priest Genois, two church paintings by Rubens, and a replica of a picture by Perugino, done either by Perugino himself or by Raphael; and finally, two Correggios and one Andrea del Sarto. The Descoings had culled these treasures from three hundred church pictures, without knowing their value, and selecting them only for their good preservation.
Many were not only in magnificent frames, but some were still under glass.
Perhaps it was the beauty of the frames and the value of the glass that led the Descoings to retain the pictures.
The furniture of the room was not wanting in the sort of luxury we prize in these days, though at that time it had no value in Issoudun.
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