WHILE Venetian art was doubtless greatly influenced by Padua, where the gifted teacher, Squarcione, had his brilliant school, there was some native employment of the art of painting prior to the time when Crivelli and Mantegna came to perpetuate their ideas, and to make possible the growth of the greatest colour-school of any land.
In Venice there was established a ” Guild for the Propagation of Arts and Crafts,” the charter of which is dated 1272. This guild included artisans of every sort: makers of furniture, arms, house-hold utensils ; decorators of chests and other principal pieces of stately furniture with pictured scenes ; also the painters of little household shrines called anconæ. These anconæ were the originals of the gilded altar-pieces, which developed later into such marvellous importance under the Bellini.
But the chief source of inspiration for the school of Venice was certainly from the Paduans. Squarcione must have been wonderfully blessed with the pedagogic faculty, for he left a school of great painters, while there is hardly any trace of his own art remaining. This immortal preceptor was the son of a simple notary in Padua. Born in 1394, he developed a great love for the antique, travelling in his younger days all over Italy in search of ancient sculptures. With a substantial collection of these trophies, he returned to Padua and founded his academy for studying this heritage of the past, and adapting its lessons to the needs of the present. This academy constituted the germ of the Renaissance in the Venetian territory. From all parts of Italy youths came to avail themselves of his culture. Nearly a hundred and a half of these pupils went out to paint pictures as he had instructed them. The chief pupils of Squarcione in the National Gallery are Crivelli and Mantegna. It is well to pause and study the works of these men before proceeding to the defined school of Venice itself.
Carlo Crivelli, who worked in the last half of the fifteenth century, is almost a miniaturist. Such loving detail is to be seen in few masters carried to such an extreme as it was by him. Perhaps the chief impression made by his works on the casual observer is that of fine workmanship and quantities of fruits and flowers. Hardly any painting of his is without these leading characteristics.
Among the finest of his pictures is the Annunciation, in London, numbered 739; it is a perfect specimen of this artist at his very best, and is a remarkable example of minute achievement. It is difficult to define the scene. It is partly in a room and partly in the street. The kneeling Virgin, in her elaborate little apartment, is receiving the dove through a small arched hole cut in the sculptured cornice apparently for that express purpose. Above her room is seen an open loggia. Out in the street kneels a most elegant angel, accompanied by St. Emedius, the patron of Ascoli, holding a model of his city, to which he calls the attention of the Angel Gabriel. The street vista beyond is charming, with draped figures walking at intervals. From the tall steps of the little house across the way, a child is seen peeping at the strangers who kneel on the flagstones. No wonder he is moved by curiosity. On the top of one of the houses may be seen a dove-cote, and, as an amusing realistic touch, Crivelli has ventured to show these birds in a state of perturbation upon seeing the Holy Dove coming from a glowing spot in the firmament above. A peacock, too, in the loggia, is straining his neck to witness the phenomenon. The picture is a naïve amalgamation of rich Roman architecture, medieval sentiment, and wealthy display. There is a play of imaginative humour, without any sense of irreverence, which is one of the most delightful qualities of the spirit of the Middle Ages.
In Crivelli’s great altar-piece, No. 788, the Madonna is enthroned in the central panel, and in the three tiers of ornate arches various figures of saints are painted. This is his earliest picture in the National Gallery. The affected pose of the Virgin’s hand, as she gingerly lifts a veil from the Child, is a false note which instantly grates upon the spectator, but it is quite compensated for by the delightfully natural pose of the baby, who has fallen asleep hanging forward over his mother’s hand. The pose is most unusual in art, and shows again the delicate human sympathy of Crivelli.
An exquisitely decorative panel, with the texture of an ivory carving, is the altar-piece numbered 724, in which a little bird, alighting on the top of the Virgin’s throne, has given its name to the picture, Madonna of the Swallow. Flowers and fruit, painted as conscientiously as any other part of the composition, may be seen in all these pictures. The other works of Crivelli, of which there are several in the National Gallery, will all repay close attention. His colouring is like that of a mosaic, it is in small crisp values of undiluted tints, which, if introduced in larger masses, would be crude. He does not blend, and there is no comprehension of atmosphere, in spite of his clever perspective studies.
Deliciously mediæval is the picture by Vittore Pisano, No. 776, of St. George and St. Anthony. The costume of St. George is curious ; with its wide-brimmed hat shading his demure face, he looks like anything but a dragon-slayer. Pisano’s other painting, No. 1436, is equally charming; a very troubadour of a St. Hubert is seen on horse-back in the midst of a fairy wood, which fairly bristles with all manner of game, large and small, while a stag bearing a pretentious crucifix between his antlers stands before the saint. The treatment is like that of an old tapestry, rare and precious in its naïve seriousness.
Another great scholar of the school of Squarcione is Andrea Mantegna, a painter of even more ability in drawing the human form than Crivelli. He was not only the pupil, but the adopted son of Squarcione, and married the daughter of Jacopo Bellini, who, himself the father of the more famous Venetians of his name, was also in the studio. Mantegna’s earliest work, which we have the opportunity to study, is his Agony in the Garden, No. 1417. It is rather crude, but it speaks of a nature earnest and vigorous, and proclaims a close student of perspective. The effort to draw recumbent figures much foreshortened was a passion with Mantegna. While this picture of the Agony in the Garden denotes a stern and severe side to the art of this man, his Virgin and Child Enthroned with the Baptist and the Magdalen, No. 274, proves that he had a softer and more human side also. The humility of the Virgin is notable; the other figures are finely poised, noble types, free from the ascetic feeling of the earlier Florentine pictures. The Venetians from the first felt the glory of health and the joy of living.
A curious freak in the art of Mantegna was his method of painting certain subjects in monochrome, in imitation of bas-reliefs. His admiration for sculpture was so unbounded that he even made his graphic art secondary by trying to reproduce the same qualities of light and shade which carving in relief gives. Of such, No. 1125, in two panels, is an example; a finer specimen is his Triumph of Scipio, No. 902, the last picture which he ever executed. His mastery of the human form is manifest in this late work, where all the figures in the procession are in excellent proportion, and where the action is most virile. The drawing, also, in his Samson and Delilah, No. 1145, is very good, with the exception of a flatness on the top of the head of his hero, which suggests that Delilah has amputated a portion of his skull as well as cutting his hair!
Schiavone, another pupil of Squarcione, has some of the characteristics of Crivelli, but less of his grace and charm. His pictures are No. 630 and 904; they are hard, and of secondary interest after studying Crivelli.
The Vivarini were Venetian painters who owed their existence in part to Padua and in part to a studio in Murano. Antonio Vivarini is to be seen in the collection here, in No. 768, a long panel with figures of St. Peter and St. Jerome, and in No. 1284, its companion-piece, which exhibits St. Fran-cis and St. Mark. One can see promise of the wealth of colour and lucidity to follow in the later growth of this school, which is really Venetian in the main, the Paduan influence being visible only in the fine detail and sharp touch.
Bartolommeo Vivarini, the brother of Antonio, painted the Virgin and Child, No. 284, in which one may also trace both schools, the precise handling of Squarcione with the promise of the Bellini.
Antonello da Messina, a painter of Sicily, who came to Venice about 1473, had studied oil-painting with Jan Van Eyck in Flanders, and the Flemish influence is shown in his works, as will be readily proved by a comparison with the fine Van Eyck in the collection of Flemish painters. His Salvator Mundi, No. 673, is especially striking in this respect. The best of his pictures in the National Gallery is 1418, a delightful painting of St. Jerome at work in his study. Antonello’s use of oils was the first in Venice, and came rapidly in vogue, quite superseding the tempera which had been employed earlier. In his Crucifixion, No. 1166, the landscape shows the effect of dawn, the sky being of the most beautiful quality.
About 1460 the brothers Bellini, Gentile and Giovanni, who were sons of Jacopo Bellini, came to Venice from Padua. These epoch-making artists are the real founders of the Venetian school. And yet their actual style was not perpetuated. Giovanni Bellini may be said to have begun, continued, and ended a school of his own. His pupils adopted quite a different manner from his, with the exception of a few, and in a generation the whole tendency of Venetian art was in a much riper state of fruition than could have been the case had his admirers adhered strictly to his teachings. Giovanni, although the younger of the brothers, was the greater genius.
Of the work of Gentile Bellini, there is only one piece in the National Gallery, No. 1213, a portrait of Girolamo Malatini, professor of mathematics. It is rather stiff and archaic, and of very inferior quality to the great portrait of the Doge Leonardo Loredano hanging near it, by Giovanni Bellini, No. 189, which is probably as famous a portrait as any in London. Giovanni was here at his best, about sixteen years before his death, the picture being painted about 1501. There is a clear amber tone about it, and a fineness of modelling, with an appreciation of the refinement of the face of his subject. Bellini was at this time the State Painter of Venice, so that the task of executing portraits of the Doges who should come and go in his life-time devolved upon him. The lovely Madonna, No. 280, painted considerably earlier, is in Bellini’s most characteristic vein, the style by which he would be recognized wherever he should be found. The Blood of the Redeemer, No. 1233, and the Agony in the Garden, No. 726, are quite early, and retain some of the wooden texture of the Paduan school. The limp sleeping figure on the extreme left in the latter, however, is wonderfully true to life.
The head of St. Peter Martyr, No. 8o8, with the formidable knife settled fiercely into his skull, is interesting, but more in the manner of Gentile, to whom it is sometimes attributed. One of the earliest wood-scenes which it has been our privilege to notice is Giovanni’s Death of St. Peter Martyr, No. 812. The rendering of the trees, each leaf being treated with the utmost care, is very clever. While St. Peter and his companion are being ruthlessly stabbed in the foreground, the woodcutters, paying no heed, are attending quietly to business in the background.
Among the pictures attributed to the scholars of Bellini is a St. Jerome in His Study, No. 694, rather more airy than that by Antonello da Messina, but not so open as that by Basaiti, No. 28′, or that by Cima da Conegliano, No. 1120, a pupil of Bellini, who, in his treatment of the subject, represents the saint as quite out-of-doors. Cima has other pictures here; how pathetic is his small Ecce Homo, No. 1310, and how confiding the children in his two Madonnas, Nos. 30o and 634. These delicate little pictures are more like Florentine than Venetian works. Cima was one of the followers who worked on Bellini’s own lines, at least, so far as his finish was concerned. A more important work is the Incredulity of Thomas, No. 816, a large picture, filled with well-composed groups of figures.
Bellini employed certain artists from time to time to assist him in his studio, so that there are many pictures which have some characteristic marks of the master about them, while they bear also too much testimony to the work of an inferior to be classed as genuine Bellinis. Of this type is No. 599, the Infant Christ asleep on the lap of the Virgin, which is often attributed to Catena, one of these collaborators. The naïve battle between the serpent and a stork in the background should be noticed; indeed, the whole background of this charming painting is a study of rural scenes.
The only genuine Catena which the National Gallery possesses is the beautiful Warrior Adoring the Infant Christ, No. 234, which was formerly ascribed to Giorgione. Indeed, this picture is so significant a link between the tender work of the Bellinis and the broader rendering of Giorgione, that I have chosen it, in preference to a single example of either of their works, to represent the tendencies of the Venetian school at this period. The informal attitude of the Virgin, and the graceful lines of the man’s figure, are a forecast of that indifference to traditional treatment which is such a marked characteristic of the school.
Of the subtle charm of Carpaccio there is little to testify in this collection; the picture by him, No. 750, is the only example. The Madonna sits like a wooden votive image in her niche, and the whole execution is stiff; but there is a fascination about all of his pictures which makes the slightest painting by Carpaccio worthy of attention. The dominating red colour is very usual with him.
A painter whose works are very rare is Marco Marziale, and here we have an opportunity to see him at his very best. It is a privilege to study this master, who -savours a little of Bellini, and much of Mantegna, in his two fine altar-pieces, Nos. 803 and 804. In the latter the little angel, playing on a very large lute at the foot of the throne, reminds one of Carpaccio or Bellini, and is most attractive. In No. 803 the heads of the personages are extremely interesting, especially that of a woman at the extreme left, whose profile and head-dress are treated very similarly to that famous little head in the Ambrosian Library in Milan, which was long supposed to be a portrait of Leonora d’Este by Da Vinci. This head might easily be a likeness of the same woman twenty years later.
There is a delightful group of portrait-heads by Giolfino, No. 749, representing in an original manner all the members of the Giusti family of Verona.
Girolamo da Libri (signifying Of the Book, he being primarily a miniaturist and illuminator) painted that most angelic Virgin and St. Anne with the Holy Infant, No. 748, which has the conspicuous central decoration of a lemon-tree behind the main personages. It is an exquisite painting, and was extolled by Vasari, who saw it when it was completed and sent to the Church of the Scala in Verona. Vasari alludes to its having been hung next to Morando’s San Rocco ; strange to say, this very picture (No. 735) is also in the National Gallery, and has hung for a time by the side of Girolamo’s, just as it did centuries ago in Verona.
Morando’s saint is a very noble figure; the same problem of placing a tall tree in the centre of the background is worked out as in the picture by Girolamo. There is a very knowing looking little dog in the San Rocco, which should not be over-looked; this little canine pet used to bring the saint a loaf of bread each day, while he was in the wilderness.
Giovanni Bellini was the teacher of two of the greatest painters the world has ever seen, Giorgione and Titian. A new art came into existence with these two men. Where the work of the Bellini and the Vivarini had had a certain hardness in outline, more like that of wooden figures than of living, breathing mortals, Titian and his great contemporary painted with a flexibility which connects their people more vitally with their surroundings. Where the colour of the Bellini had been rather artificial, harmonious, but not exactly true to life, Titian, and especially Giorgione, painted flesh which looked as if it could feel, and materials which seemed to move softly in the breeze. Where the master had executed beautiful images, the scholars created living personalities.
Giorgione’s active life as a painter covered only a little over five years, from 1505 to the close of his life in 1511. He was wonderfully productive in that time, although a great part of his works have been destroyed, having been painted in exposed positions, on the outer walls of palaces, etc. Among the few probably authentic pictures from his pencil is the Young Knight, No. 269. It is so nearly like that of St. Liberate in Giorgione’s one unquestioned masterpiece, the Castel-franco Madonna, that many critics believe it to be a study for this figure. Of other pictures here purporting to be by Giorgione, the most we can claim for them is that they are Giorgionesque. Among them is the attractive Garden of Love, No. 930, bearing something of the relation to Italian art that Watteau’s work bears to the French; the Adoration of the Magi, No. 1160, and the Venus and Adonis, No. 1123, a picture much like a famous Giorgione in the Louvre in its general sentiment, although it is still more like a Titian. The landscape of Giorgione, and even of his school, is unmatched ; brought up in the picturesque region of Castelfranco, he has immortalized for ever his appreciation of his early environment.
Titian, born in Cadore in 1477, is generally conceded to be the greatest Venetian painter. Tintoretto and Paul Veronese are often classed with him, but there are paths that he trod which were never entered by either of these. Titian showed such marvellous balance and harmony of talent that his works have both pictorial charm and philosophic and poetic thoughtfulness. Nothing may be said to predominate; there is no discord, and there are no fads. He is so absolutely master of his art that the means by which he attains his end are lost sight of. He reaches to the grandeur of Tintoretto, and yet he can descend to the more trivial qualities of Veronese. He is more complete than these others.
Men who possess a strong artistic temperament are not always practical, but in this Titian was a great exception to the general rule. He was pre-eminently what in modern language we would call a ” good business man.” He did not allow his enthusiasms to lead him into ways which should be financially unprofitable. He had a shrewd instinct concerning the value of advertisement. Hear him strike a bargain : the following petition was presented in Venice before the Council of Ten in z5î3: ” I, Titian of Cadore, having studied painting from childhood upward, and desirous of fame rather than profit, wish to serve the Doge and Signory. . . . I am therefore anxious . . . to paint in the Hall of Council. . . . I should be willing to accept for my labour any reward that might be thought proper ; but, being studious only for honour and wishing for a moderate competence, I beg to ask for the first Broker’s Patent for life that shall be vacant, two youths as assistants, to be paid by the Salt Office, and all colours and necessaries.” A resolution was carried to ” accept Titian’s offer with all the conditions attached to it.” This great work in Venice had a most important effect upon his later undertakings.
He was the only artist to whom the Emperor Charles V. would sit. The emperor said that, as Alexander had selected Apelles to be his painter, so he, Charles, would suffer no one except Titian to hand down his portrait to future generations. Aretino said to him : ” Titian will paint your portrait, and with it abate the claims that death may have upon your person,” meaning that the emperor should live in the immortality of Titian’s work. One day Titian, while at work upon a portrait of Charles, dropped his brush; the emperor sprang forward, picked it up, and restored it to him; ex-claiming that it was an honour for even an emperor to stoop to serve such an artist. Titian was created a Count of the Lateran Palace, with privileges of Count Palatine; he was also dubbed Knight of the Golden Spur.
Of the Titians in the National Gallery, the first in point of time is the Holy Family, No. 4. But the most interesting is his famous Bacchus and Ariadne, which was executed in 1514, soon after the death of Giorgione, while he was still swayed by the poetic spell of nature which the Castelfrancan loved. This picture, No. 35, is so pure in tone, so innocently, gladly sylvan, that it has almost the pagan joyousness of Correggio. The colour is well balanced, but very strong and brilliant. The red scarf of Ariadne emphasizes and develops the colour-scheme without clashing with the other tones, although most painters would have hesitated to use it. There is abundance of youth and enthusiasm in every detail of this work.
The Venus and Adonis, No. 34, is a beautiful representation of this subject, glowing and chaste. As a painter of classical scenes there is no artist of the Renaissance who excelled Titian. The Noli Me Tangere, No. 270, is poetic and full of grace. The earlier idea of reverence is not seen here, but there could not be a truer portrayal of awe than that suggested by the whole pose of the Magdalen. The Giorgionesque still predominates in this landscape. There is another Holy Family, No. 635, in which St. Catherine is seen on her knees, fondling the infant Christ, who lies in the lap of his mother. There is almost a replica of this work in the Pitti Palace. It is especially interesting as being a very late picture by Titian, and should be compared with his earlier one, No. 4, to note the differences in style between the two. The new Titian, purchased in 1904 (No. 1941), is said to be a portrait of Ariosto. Thirty thousand pounds was paid for this masterpiece.
Titian was much appreciated and eulogized by his biographers. Pino, in his ” Dialogo di Pintura,” 1548, speaks of him as having three lives, ” one natural, one artificial, and one eternal.” (In which, after all, one may say that Titian was no exception to the general rule!)
Palma Vecchio’s Portrait of a Poet is a fascinating study of light and shade, and is strongly suggestive of Giorgione in its modelling. It is numbered 636, and is unfortunately the only bit of the work of this brilliant painter which we have. It is often attributed to Titian.
Bonifazio Veronese’s Madonna and Saints, No. 1202, is like many of Palma’s paintings elsewhere, but, without opportunity of comparison, this point is hardly worth dwelling upon. Bonifazio was a pupil of Palma, and painted in the light-hearted, buoyant style of the Venetians of his period.
Paris Bordone may be seen to advantage in two characteristic pictures, one, a Portrait of a Lady, No. 674, resplendent in texture and colour, in which Bordone shows himself a worthy disciple of Titian in the art of portraiture, and a Daphnis and Chloe, No. 637, rather artificial, though pleasant in colouring.
Lorenzo Lotto is seen only in portrait-work in London, but one should not complain at that, as he was particularly famous in that branch, and these are fine examples. The Brothers Della Torre, No. 699, is one of the great double portraits of the world, familiar to any student of historic likeness. The wonderfully natural and unadorned informality of the picture strikes one as strictly modern in spirit. It was originally intended for a single portrait, the second brother having been added afterward. A magnificent study, too, is the Portrait of the Prothonotary Apostolic Juliano, No. 1105, refined, intelligent, forceful in its simplicity. The charming picture of a family group, No. 1047, is most fascinating, although a little stiff, the eyes of all being ” on the audience.” The quaint little daughter sitting on the table is among the sweetest children in the field of Renaissance art.
After the death of Titian, in 1576, the art of Italy suffered a very general decline. With the exception of Tintoretto and Veronese in Venice, the various schools may be said to have been with-out a great master. These later painters will be noticed when we reach the thirteenth hall in the gallery. The art of Venice died with Tintoretto.
Of Paolo Caliari, better known as Paul Veronese, the National Gallery is replete with masterpieces. A great pageant painter, a scenic and dramatic artist, he can be seen to full advantage in his magnificent Family of Darius at the Feet of Alexander, No. 294. After the battle of Issus, in 333 B. C., the royal captives are seen imploring par-don from the conqueror. Of course, the costumes are Venetian, and sixteenth century at that; indeed, it was the fashion then for living people to pose as participants in historic scenes. In this case the family of Darius are personated by the Pisani family, and the portraits are said to be accurate. The picture was painted in recognition of hospitality bestowed upon the artist by the Pisani. There has never been a more gorgeous colour-treat to linger in one’s memory. This picture has been called the best criterion in estimating the genius of this master for colour. The Adoration of the Magi, No. 268, is a fine specimen of the painter’s religious spirit, to which class of subject, however, the sumptuous style of Veronese is little adapted.
The Consecration of St. Nicholas of Myra, being rather a study of the outward and visible things of religion, instead of those inward and spiritual, is much more successful. This is No. 26. The beautiful St. Helena, No. 1041, has a wide reputation for its limp, restful grace and peachlike colouring and tone. There is a small Europa, not unlike those larger pictures in Venice and Rome, and four delightful allegorical groups, very decorative and well composed. They were probably originally used as panels in a ceiling. They appear to deal with various phases in the lives of lovers. Their names indicate their general subjects : Unfaithfulness, Scorn, Respect, and Happy Union. They hang in the rotunda.
Jacopo Robusti, or Tintoretto, was born in 1518, ten years earlier than Veronese, and lived until 1594, outliving Paul by six years, so that his long life saw the rise, summit, and decline of Venetian art. He was the most versatile genius of all. With out the perfection of Titian, he yet has greater originality of conception. While it is true that Tintoretto painted nature, he may justly be accused, like all his contemporaries, of not rendering historic scenes accurately. With vital truth, he paints the Venice of his day, and not the scenes which he is supposed to be transcribing. Colour and form, and truth to nature not as he detected it as a student, but as he saw it as an observer were what Tintoretto strove for. On his studio wall was written, as a motto, ” The colouring of Titian and the design of Michelangelo.” There is something of his ” terribilità ” felt in the St. George, No. 16, where the swirl of energy in horse, rider, and dragon is contrasted with the still, dead figure of the victim on the ground ; this same violent action characterizes, although with quite a different result,, the picture of the Origin of the Milky Way, No. 1313; while the devout quiet of No. 1130, Christ Washing the Feet of His Disciples, is an entire contrast to either. In his epitaph Tintoretto is spoken of as the ” Venetian Apelles,” and the inscription proceeds with the statement that ” by his fervent genius he rendered dumb poetry eloquent, in that by his divine pencil he made the denizens of the earth and heaven breathe in his pictures.” It is not possible to appreciate Tintoretto from the examples in the National Gallery. A further study would only be fair to such a master. Later critics are inclined to claim for Tintoret the octagon panel, No. 32, of the Rape of Ganymede; it would certainly seem that it might be by him, for the modelling and colour are like his works. This panel was once in a ceiling, but it is improved by being recognized in an upright position, the attitude being just as appropriate when considered longitudinally as when the figure was supposed to be ascending.
The great painting by Sebastiano del Piombo, No. r, the Raising of Lazarus, shows the combined schools of Michelangelo and Raphael, although the Frate del Piombo was also a pupil of Giorgione. He is an exponent of what is known as the ” grand style.” The picture, fine as it is technically, is not especially acceptable to most observers. The subject is always an unpleasant one in art when treated with realism, as it has been from the earliest times.
Among the striking portraits in this room are two by Moretto, of Italian noblemen, Nos. 299 and 1025. A typical late Venetian picture, too, is Moretto’s St. Bernardine of Siena, No. 625, with its gracefully draped figures. The colouring is cool and silvery; there is less of the golden glow, which is so marked a feature in Titian’s paintings. Cool, too, in tone is Savoldo’s Magdalen Approaching the Sepulchre, No. 1131, where the sheen of satin and the side glance are too theatrical.
Domenico Morone’s two gay little panels portray scenes from a tournament, and are full of merry activity. These are Nos. 1211 and 1212. His more talented son, Francesco Morone, is represented by a delightful Madonna, No. 285, with a naive little human child in her arms. There is a Morone almost like this in Verona. Bassano’s Christ Driving Out the Money Changers, No. 228, is spirited.
Contrast the Portrait of a Young Man, by Veneziano, No. 287, in his gay red with elaborate trimmings, with that by Licinio, No. 1309, where intellectual poise and restraint are felt. Here we have the two great opposites in Venetian portraiture; the dashing, worldly spirit of the one balanced by the scholarly, thoughtful bearing of the other.
There are no better portraits than those by Moroni, a talented pupil of Moretto. The Lawyer, No. 742, the Ecclesiastic, No. 1024, and especially the world-famous Tailor, No. 697, are among the finest portraits ever painted. The characteristics of each type are brought out so that the personages seem to live before us; and they are not grandees, they are the every-day people who are doing something of the world’s work, and are refreshing after the great leisurely overdressed and overfed aristocrats who usually sat for their portraits in the sixteenth century.