These may be found somewhere between "The
Music Lesson" and the portrait next the Vermeer in the smallest of
the three Dutch rooms. Even more ingratiating than "The Music Lesson"
is "The Toilet" at the Wallace Collection. Terburg might be called a
pocket Velasquez--a description of him which will be appreciated at
the Ryks Museum in the presence of his tiny and captivating "Helena
van der Schalcke," No. 573, one of the gems of the Cabinet pieces
(see opposite page 290), and his companion pictures of a man and his
wife, each standing by a piece of red furniture--I think Nos. 574
and 575. The execution of the woman's muslin collar is among the most
dexterous things in Dutch art.
From the Ryks Museum it is but a little way (past the model Dutch
garden) to the Stedelijk Museum, where modern painting may be
studied--Israels and Bosboom, Mesdag and James Maris, Breitner and
Jan van Beers, Blommers and Weissenbruch.
There is also one room dedicated to paintings of the Barbizon school,
and of this I would advise instant search. I rested my eyes here for
an hour. A vast scene of cattle by Troyon (who, such is the poverty
of the Dutch alphabet, comes out monstrously upon the frame as
Troijon); a mysterious valley of trees by Corot; a wave by Courbet;
a mere at evening by Daubigny--these are like cool firm hands upon
one's forehead.
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