You
will not find two other such, that I know of, in the west of Europe;
and yet there has been many a try at the painting of crowned heads,--and
King George III and Queen Charlotte, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, are very fine,
no doubt. Also your black-muzzled kings of Velasquez, and Vandyke's
long-haired and white-handed ones; and Rubens' riders--in those handsome
boots. Pass such shadows of them as you can summon, rapidly before your
memory--then look at this St. Louis.
His face--gentle, resolute, glacial-pure, thin-cheeked; so sharp at the
chin that the entire head is almost of the form of a knight's shield--the
hair short on the forehead, falling on each side in the old Greek-Etruscan
curves of simplest line, to the neck; I don't know if you can see without
being nearer, the difference in the arrangement of it on the two sides-the
mass of it on the right shoulder bending inwards, while that on the left
falls straight. It is one of the pretty changes which a modern workman
would never dream of--and which assures me the restorer has followed the
old lines rightly.
He wears a crown formed by an hexagonal pyramid, beaded with pearls on the
edges: and walled round, above the brow, with a vertical fortress-parapet,
as it were, rising into sharp pointed spines at the angles: it is chasing
of gold with pearl--beautiful in the remaining work of it; the Soldan wears
a crown of the same general form; the hexagonal outline signifying all
order, strength, and royal economy.
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