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It would be difficult to name a second collection of Italian pictures of any extent, in which, compared to portraits of historical interest, the Madonnas and Saints fall so markedly into the background as is the case here. Those princes, of world-wide celebrity on account of the splendour of their courts and their relations to the first painters of the Renascence, whose names are familiar to every one, meet us here in numerous portraits, as to which it can be asserted on good grounds that they were executed under their orders by the painters in their service. The collection is peculiarly rich in portraits of the Medici family and of the Royal House of Spain; and among the likenesses of princes, we may call special attention to the portrait of King Henry VII., as unique and remarkable from more than one point of view. No trouble has been spared that, by comparison and in other ways, might contribute to the highest possible degree of certainty in the descriptions and attributions.
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