VENETIAN PAINTING, CHIEFLY BEFORE TITIAN, AT THE EXHIBITION OF VENETIAN ART. THE NEW GALLERY, 1895. BERNHARD BERENSON. i'onbon : Vacher & Sons, Peinters, 29, Parliament Street, Westminster, S.W. from the Library of Frank Simpson VENETIAN PAINTING, CHIEFLY BEFORE TITIAN, AT THE EXHIBITION OF VENETIAN ART. THE NEW GALLERY, 1895. BERNHARD BERENSON. Vacher & Sons, Printers, 29, Parliament Street, Westminster, S.W. PREFACE. The following critical account by my friend, Mr. Bernhard Berenson, of the Venetian pictures now exhibited at the New Gallery, is intended for those who wish to have a clearer idea of the various masters than can be gathered from the official catalogue. In fact, it is supplementary to it. The thanks of all lovers of art, and particularly of those students interested in the Italian Schools, are due to the organisers of the present exhibition. Opportunities for studying a particular school of art rarely occur, and such a collection — if rightly understood — has more than a passing interest. The reproduction of the most important pictures by the best available processes of modern photography will give additional value to such an undertaking, and should meet with the cordial support of all real students of art.* Mr. Berenson's writings on the Venetian School are sufficiently known to require no further words to emphasize the fact that his criticisms are worthy of the closest attention. Should any of the owners, who have so courteously lent their pictures to this exhi- bition, be induced by perusal of this essay to take a more critical interest in their family treasures, and to put Mr. Berenson's criticisms to the test, the following pages will not have been written in vain. H. F. 0. * Photographs of most of the pictures referred to in the following essay, except of those actually exhibited in this collection, are shown in the books on the Secretary's Table, in the Entrance Hall. THE GETTY CENTER VENETIAN PAINTING, CHIEFLY BEFORE TITIAN, AT THE EXHIBITION OF VENETIAN ART. THE NEW GALLERY, 1895. Rarely have I seen a catalogue so accurate as well as tactful in its description of works of art as the official catalogue to the Venetian Exhibition at the New Gallery. It has one and only one fault, that the attributions are, for the most part, unreliable. It is, of course, not to be reproached for this fault, since it merely gives the attributions the pictures bear in the private collections from which they come* ; but it is clear that it needs rectification in this respect, if it is to be of value to students of pictures or to those who are interested in the history of Renaissance art. This, I think, will be readily conceded when we have examined two or three typical instances. To Titian, for example, thirty-three paintings are ascribed. Of these, one only is actually by the master, Mr. Mond's Madonna (No. 244), a thoroughly characteristic work of his greatest, although latest, period. Of the thirty- two pictures that remain, a dozen and more have no connection whatever with Titian, and are either too remote from our present subject or too poor to require our attention. Five are copies, of varying degrees of merit, after well known originals : — Mrs. R. H. Benson's Laughter of Herodias (No. 129, original in the Doria Gallery, Rome) ; M. Leon SomzeVs Venus Worship (No. 136, original at Madrid) ; Lord Cowper's Lavinia (No. 152, original at Berlin) ; Lord Brownlow's * At the head of the official catalogue it is stated : " The works are catalogued under the names given to them by the contributors. The Com- mittee cannot be responsible for the attributions." A 2 4 Magdalen (No. 173, original in the Pitti at Florence); and Louisa, Lady Ashburton's little Strozzi Girl (No. 213, original at Berlin). Two are copies after unknown or lost originals: — Lord Malmesbury's Lucretia (No. 217, another version is at Hampton Court, No. 75); and the Duke of Westminster's copy of what must have been a splendid original, the Duke of Urbino and his Son (No. 257). Most of the pictures still unaccounted for are by various imitators : — four are by Titian's clever follower, Polidoro Lanzani, the Glasgow Holy Family (No. 133), Captain Holford's Holy Family (No. 158), Sir William Farrer's Holy Family and Two Donors (No. 179), and Lord Battersea's Madonna with the Infant John (No. 227). Another so-called "Titian," Captain Holford's Madonna and Saints (No. 7), is by Girolamo Santacroce ; another by Andrea Schiavone, Sir William Farrer's St. Jerome (No. 95) ; and another by Domenico Caprioli, Mme. C. de Rosenberg's Portrait of Doge Grimani (No. 124) ; while two further are probably the work of Francesco Beccaruzzi, Lord Powerscourt's so-called Portrait of Politian (No. 205), and Captain Holford's Portrait of Doge Gritti (No 248) . Of the two pictures that still remain unaccounted for, Captain Holford's so-called Portrait of a Lady of the Sforza Family (No. 156) is a fine work by Girolamo Romanino in his blond, late manner, and M. SomzeVs Portrait of a Venetian Lady (No. 234) is by some late Veronese painter of the quality of G. Fasolo or Bernardino India. This brief analysis shows the need there is for some emendation or supplement to the official catalogue. No other name, it is true, is so recklessly abused as Titian's, but other instances of superannuated connoisseurship are not far to seek. Eight pictures, for instance, are catalogued as by Bonifazio, although not one is genuine. Similar is the case of Paolo Veronese, to whom thirteen pictures are falsely ascribed, one of them, M. Somzee's Christ at the House of Levi (No. 241) being, indeed, a Tiepolesque copy of the Venetian original (as is amply proved by the spirit and technique) ; and we shall see later what a small proportion of real as compared with attributed Bellinis and Giorgiones there is in this exhibition. But even aside from the abuse of famous names, the old connoisseurship was guilty of applying at random to a picture the first name that happened to suggest itself, without stopping to enquire whether the resemblance, real or fancied, was due to anything but chance. A couple of instances to 5 the point are two pictures here attributed to Paris Bordone and Moroni respectively. The former, a so-called Alfonzo II. d'JEste and his Mistress (No. 163, lent by Lord Malmesbury) is really by the widely-divergent Calisto Piazza, of Lodi ; while the latter, Lord Batters ea's Portrait of a Man (No. 20), is both as art and workmanship at the opposite pole from Moroni, being in fact a work by Domenico Brusasorci, of Yerona. All these instances have, I trust, made it apparent that the person who cares to get a clear idea of the various masters whose works are exhibited here, needs further guidance than is supplied by the official catalogue. To supply, so far as I am able, this necessary further guidance, par- ticularly for the earlier masters, is the object of the following pages. 6 I. The earliest Venetian here is Michele Giambono. This artist has, heretofore, been known only by his three signed works — the polyptych in the Venice Academy (Sala I., No. 5), the Madonna, belonging to Sir F. Leighton (now in the " Old Masters" at Burlington House, No. 136), and the mosaics in the Cappella dei Mascoli of St. Mark's. These reveal him as the follower of Gentile da Fabriano, and the kinsman in art of Antonio Vivarini, Jacopo Bellini, Vittorio Pisanello, and Stefano da Zevio. But, even with these works, his artistic personality has remained very vague, and we greet with interest the small half-length figure of St. Mark (No. 200, lent by Mr. Ludwig Mond), which appears to be correctly ascribed to him. The forms, the drawing, and the feeling — elements wherein Giambono is less influenced by Renaissance motifs than any of his mates — justify this ascription, and the colouring — deeper than that of most early Venetian paintings — also points to the mosaicist as its author. It is a pity that Dr. J. P. Richter's glowing panel by the same artist is not also here, to add to our knowledge of Giambono, but I fancy that if Sir F. Leighton's signed Madonna were placed side by side with the Madonna (No. 77) lent by Mr. Fairfax Murray, under the name of Stefano da Zevio, we should not long hesitate in recognising the hand of the same master in both, so striking alike are the forms, the drawing, and the colouring. Before we can properly know Giambono, we must be able to differentiate him from his contemporaries, from Stefano da Zevio in such a work as the Madonna mentioned above, from Jacopo Bellini in such a picture as the St. Grisogono, of San Trovaso at Venice (sometimes ascribed to Giambono), and from Antonio Vivarini, who comes very close to him in the predelle (Nos. 1280-1283) in the Salle des Sept Maitres of the Louvre (there labelled <( Bcole de Gentile da Fabriano") . And until we are able so to differentiate Giambono from his compeers as to have a precise idea of his career and quality, our knowledge of the beginnings of modern painting in Venice must remain in the hazy state in which it is at present.* II. Giambono is the only Venetian here who antedates the art-movement which had Padua for its seat and Squarcione * Other works that I have every reason to believe to be by Giambono are a St. Nicholas of Bari, and a St. Augustine, in the Sacristy of the Salute, and Nos. 26 and 28 in Sala VII. of the Museo Correr, in Venice. 7 for its figure-head. The part Squarcioiie himself played in the actual making of the young artists was probably no greater than that played by M. Julian in the Parisian ateliers of to-day. It is more than probable that Squarcione, like M. Julian at present, did no more than afford students an opportunity of working together and profiting by the presence, if not the actual instruction, of the great artists employed in the same town. In Padua masters such as Jacopo Bellini, Donatello, and Fra Filippo were all at work, and the younger men certainly studied their productions, and, it may be, enjoyed their actual teaching. It still remains for some investigator to reconstruct this art-movement, showing just what influences and what personalities went to form it, and I venture to prophesy that the result of such researches will be to prove that, deducting the Florentine elements, the so-called School of Squarcione was nothing but an embryonic phase of the Venetian school. To the man of supreme genius who all his life long remained most faithful to the Squarcionesque traditions, to Andrea Mantegna, no less than nine separate works in this exhibition are attributed. Of these, two only are his without question, No. 22, the Adoration of the Magi, belonging to Louisa, Lady Ashburton, and No. 96, a Holy Family, belong- ing to Mr. Ludwig Mond. The Adoration is not treated here in the usual Epiphany spirit, but severely and hieratically. Besides the Child, there are only five other figures. Crowded as a composition and rather gaudy in colour, with its bright reds and yellows and streaks of chocolate dye, the picture could never have been a source of great delight to a cultivated eye, and the disfiguring varnish which now covers the greater part of it, makes it even more difficult to do the work justice. Considered for its quality of line, however, it is admirable, and as feeling it has much of that tender homeliness which occupied Mantegna at a certain time, as appears in the Poldi- Pezzoli, the Bergamo, and the Dresden Madonnas, and in the Berlin Circumcision. The Adoration slightly antedates most of the pictures just mentioned, and shows every affinity in morphology and technique with the Hampton Court cartoons, the earliest of which must have been produced at exactly the same date. As a composition on a theme so hackneyed, it seems to have struck Mantegna's fellow-craftsmen for its originality, for we find numerous versions of it by nondescript painters in many of the Italian provincial galleries. The movement of the Madonna and Child seems particularly to 8 have attracted attention. Bonsignori copies it in an interest- ing Madonna belonging to Dr. J. P. Eichter, and an inferior imitation of it is actually hanging on the same wall, No. 12, a Virgin, Child, and Donor, attributed to Previtali, but really, as we shall see later, by another Bergamask painter, Francesco Santa Croce. Not very dissimilar in technique, although probably a trifle earlier in date, and of a quality incomparably superior, is Mr. Mond's Holy Family (No. 96). The Christ Child, half draped in white, with the look and carriage of an infant emperor, stands on the top of an elliptical wall, looking like the rim of a well, but representing, the catalogue tells us, the Sort as Glausus. Beside him stands the infant John, point- ing to him with an appealing look. On a level with them, to the R., appears the noble head of St. Joseph, and within the Hortus Clausus we see in profile the bust of the Virgin bend- ing forward in prayer. These figures, outlined with gem-like precision, and of the most refined severity of expression, are relieved against a dark orange-tree on which glistens the golden fruit. Whether we consider this canvas from the point of view of line, or of colour — a quality of which Mantegna is not often absolute master — whether from the point of view of modelling or of expression, we shall rarely find its rival among the other works of the great Paduan, and never its superior. Lord Pembroke's Judith (No. 125) is a small panel which, although I am persuaded it is not by Mantegna himself, is not to be dismissed lightly. The composition differs considerably from both the well-known versions of this subject by Mantegna, from the cameo-like drawing in the Uflizi, so antique in form and so modern in feeling, and from the superb monochrome recently belonging to Col. Malcolm. Lord Pembroke's tiny panel recalls rather Zuan Andrea's engraving, and there are faults in it which Mantegna himself would scarcely have made. The head of the Judith, although grandly antique, is extremely hard in modelling, and the old attendant, in her effort to preserve her balance while she holds open the mouth of the bag which is to receive Holof ernes' head, assumes an attitude which is almost ludicrous. The colouring is gaudy yellow and pink in proportions unknown to me in any of Mantegna' s genuine works, and in the drawing, despite the correctness, there is an element of pettiness which, I think, betrays rather than the obedient hand of the creator, the painful effort of the strenuous 9 imitator. And besides all these objections to this little Judith, comes one which perhaps outweighs them all. It is this : in the work of a master whose evolution may be pursued from first to last with scarcely a break, any given genuine picture must have its easily determinable place, if not actually between two well accredited pictures, at least in a small group of determined date. Now, few artists have had a more steady evolution than Mantegna. Every picture offering itself as a work of his must therefore be able to marshal itself in line with its unquestioned compeers before we may accept it. But Lord Pembroke's Judith will hunt in vain for such companions. Certainly it will not find its natural place beside the Uffizi Triptych, from which it differs in form and in colour, as well as in quality ; and even less will it take rank among works which share much of its own hardness, the now scattered San Zeno predelle (in the Louvre and at Tours), or the Agony in the Garden recently acquired from Lord North- brook by the National Gallery. From all of these it is widely divergent in spirit no less than in colour. The closest kin of this Judith is really such a picture as the small St. Sebastian of Vienna (Imperial Gallery, No. 282), in which also, in spite of the Greek signature, and in spite of its many merits, I have never been able to see the touch of Mantegna himself. I see in them both achievements of remarkably competent imitators, if indeed they are not both by the same hand. Less able, although still excellent imitations after Mantegna, are two small monochrome canvases belonging to Mr. R,. A. Markham, the one representing Dido, and the other Judith once more (Nos, 21 and 24). They are pendants executed by the same clever hand that produced the Summer and Autumn of the National Gallery (No. 1125), there attributed to Mantegna himself. Between all such imitations and the genuine works there is a difference, easily overlooked, it is true, but of mortal consequence — the difference in quality. We need not be detained by Mr. J. B Carrington's Entombment (No. 71), an obviously modern coloured copy after an engraving ; nor by Nos. 308 and 309, drawings from the Queen's collection, attributed on very slight pro- vocation to Mantegna himself. We cannot, however, so lightly pass by Mr. Charles Butler's Madonna (No. 4) . It is catalogued as a replica of a picture at Berlin (No. 27), which passed, until recently, for an unquestioned Mantegna, but which has in the last catalogue been conceded as the work of assistants, or possibly of " the young Giovanni Bellini, B 10 under the influence of Mantegna and Donatello." As Mr. Butler's picture, allowing for its worse preservation, is identical with the one in Berlin, so far as the Madonna and Child are concerned, I will discuss the two works together. The differences are that the landscape background here is replaced by a plain blue background in the Berlin picture, while the crowned head of Paduan character on the parapet here is there changed to an empty cartellino. The Berlin Madonna, moreover, is framed in by a border containing naked little angels holding the instruments of the Passion, with bronzed cherubs separating the groups. Let us now analyse these pictures. The Madonnas in type, dress, and expression resemble no universally acknowledged work by Mantegna, but closely approach Bartolommeo Yivarini' s signed Madonna in the National G-allery (No. 284). The drawing of the eyes, the nose, the mouth, and the hands is equally Vivarinesque, but — Bartolommeo never models so plastically and so classically. In this point the works are Mantegnesque ; and even more Mantegnesque is the Child, whose ear, and whose close folds of linen drapery have everything of Mantegna except the quality. Coming to the border of the Berlin picture, we are struck at once by the little nudes executed with anything but charm, and betraying an altogether different conception of the naked putto from B. Vivarinr's. The cherubs, on the other hand, recall the latter (cf. Naples altar-piece) far more than Mantegna. There is nothing what- ever of Giovanni Bellini in these works, but, as our analysis tells us, we here have to deal with a person who stands between B. Vivarini and Mantegna. We should be forced to refuse the hypothesis of Mantegna by the crudeness of the cherubs, the heaviness of the putti, and the lifelessness of the line throughout, even if there were not so much to remind us of Yivarini ; while for the latter, even setting aside the many Mantegnesque motives, the work is too classical and too plastic. Its real author must have been a person trained to the habits of Bartolommeo Yivarini, and incapable of shaking them off even when making every effort to imitate Mantegna. Just who he was, what name he had, is a problem still to be determined. Judging from the dates of those works of Mantegna and of B. Yivarini that these Madonnas most resemble — the Mantegnas in the Uffizi, and the National Gallery Yivarini, along with his signed works at Yenice and Naples of 1464 and 1465 — these two pictures must have been painted between 1460 and 1470. 11 III. To Bartolommeo Vivarini two works are attributed, both school pictures, however. Mr. Gr. McNeil Rushforth's Madonna (No. 33) seems originally to have had a gold back- ground which it pleased some later possessor to cover with a landscape. Mr. Charles Butler's Death of the Virgin (No. 44) is interesting as showing the way the subject was treated by the Muranese painters ; otherwise it is of little value. The inscription, opvs eactvm venetiis per bartholomevm vivar- invm de mvriano, 1480, is, as has been pointed out, and as is indeed obvious, a plain statement of the fact that it is a work done at the orders or under the supervision of Bartolommeo, but not by himself, and for a non- Venetian destination, the word Venetiis being of consequence only to provincial owners. IV. Nowhere else in the world can Carlo Crivelli, Barto- lommeo Vivarini's exact contemporary and fellow -pupil under Antonio da Murano and " Squarcione," be studied as in London, where at least nineteen of his works are known to me. Eight of these, among the most splendid, are in the National Gallery ; the remainder exist in private collections, and of these eight are now exhibited in the New Gallery. It is a pity that the earliest of all the English Crivelli's is not on exhibition — I mean the highly interesting Madonna belonging to Sir Francis Cook, which in type and characteristics is more advanced than the polyptych at Massa Fermana, dated 1468 (photographed by Count Cordelia, Fermo) and not so mature as the loveliest of all Crivelli's Madonnas, the one dated 1470, in the library at Macerata, and which may therefore safely be dated 1469. The earliest, as well as the most dainty and charming, among the exhibited pictures is the small pale-coloured Madonna of supreme refinement, which belongs to Lord Northbrook (No. 42. signed opvs karoli crivelli veneti). In character and quality it stands very close to the Macerata picture. Of about the same date is the Resurrection (No. 50) from the same collection. Scarcely, if at all, later than these is a work in which Crivelli in his quality of design, in the enamel of his surface, and in the energy of his line, approaches closer than any other Occidental artist to what is the supreme quality of Japanese art, particularly as manifested in lacquer. Beside all this b 2 12 charm as pattern, the St. George and the Dragon — the work to which I allude (No. 40, formerly in the Leyland collection, and now the property of Mr. Stuart M. Samuel) — has that feeling of the fairy-tale about it which makes it imperative that it should have, as it has here, a sky of gold. In this respect it recalls another version of the same subject, by some as yet unidentified early Venetian, the one in the Mar- tinengo Gallery at Brescia, there ascribed to Montorfano (photographed by Alinari). Mrs. Eobert Benson's Madonna (No. 32, inscribed carolvs ceivellvs venetvs pinsit, 1472), not quite so enchanting as the preceding works, is never- theless full of charm, and, in point of date, follows close upon them. The Virgin's facing to the left, and the child's eager movement to the right indicate that this panel must have formed originally the middle of a polyptych, with saints on either side. Of later date and minor interest are the St. George and the St Dominic (Nos. 86 and 88) belonging to Louisa, Lady Ashburton, and Lord Northbrook's St. Catherine and St. Bernardino (No. 302). The exhibition is, furthermore, fortunate in having a superb specimen of a theme treated by Crivelli frequently and always with the greatest passion and mastery — the Pieta. Mr. B. Crawshay's Pieta (No. 87, formerly in the Dudley collection) has not, perhaps, quite the concentration, either in grouping or feeling, of the one in the Panciatichi collection at Florence, dated 1485, but it stands very close to it in quality as well as in date. Two further works in the New Gallery are ascribed to Carlo Crivelli, No. 5, a Triptych, belonging to Mr. S. Milner Gibson Cullum, and No. 48, a Madonna, belonging to Sir William Farrer. In the Triptych, the hand of Vittorio Crivelli will at once be recognised by anybody who happens to be acquainted with the signed or otherwise authenticated works by this follower of Carlo, with which the region between Fermo, Ascoli, and Sarnano, in the March of Ancona, is teeming. The Madonna is by an even inferior person, Pietro Alamanno, who, like the Crivelli, a native of Venice,* worked a great deal at Ascoli, where a number of his shoddy imitations of the great Crivelli are still preserved. * This is proved by a Polyptych by him, in part, which belongs to Mr. Foulke, of Paris. Alamanno's panel, the central one, bears the signature, pbtrvs venetvs pinsit — thus proving that he was not, as Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle supposed, a native of Ascoli. 13 V. Once passed through its Squaroionesque phase, Venetian painting runs on smoothly to its apogee in Giorgione and Titian, headed meanwhile by three great masters, Alvise Vivarini,, Gentile Bellini, and Giovanni Bellini, each of Avhom stands for a distinct tendency, each of whom has a following of his own. They emerge together from the Paduan vortex, and although their common origin is apparent to the end, they travel further and further apart, Alvise devoting himself chiefly to the expression of very intensely felt spiritual emotion, and to striking portraiture ; Gentile to historical and ceremonial painting ; and Giovanni Bellini to the exploitation of the dawning sense of beauty, to the perception of which in the life about them the study of the recovered ancient art was leading the best intelligences. In threading our way through the remainder of the pictures exhibited in the New Gallery, we shall do best to discuss separately the works of each of the schools mentioned, beginning with that of Alvise, which to the end carried along with it a greater residuum of the old traditions than either of the other schools. I shall, I trust, be pardoned for proceeding on the assumption that the reconstruction of Alvise Vivarini and his school, given in my book on Lorenzo Lotto,* is, in its main features, correct. On this hypothesis, Cima da Conegliano, Montagna, Basaiti, and Andrea Solario — to mention only artists represented in this collection— formed an integral part of the school of Alvise, while Antonello da Messina was closely connected with it-. To Alvise himself a work is attributed, which, if it were really his, would go far to justify the neglect into which he has fallen. It is a predella in three parts, representing the Death of the Virgin (No. 6, belonging to Mrs. B. W. Gurrie). It is of a style and of a period when the Venetian school was not yet quite differentiated from the other North Italian schools which passed through the Squarcionesque mould. At first sight, therefore, these panels tempt one to think of some Ferrarese master — some crude brother of Ercole Koberti. Further examination reveals, however, certain mannerisms and something of the spirit — if such a word may be used in connection with so stupid a person ! — of Lazzaro Sebastiani, who, in his earlier years, was a close follower of the Vivarini, * Lorenzo Lotto, an Essay in Constructive Art Criticism. C. P. Putnam's Sons, London and New York, 1895. 14 and at the end of the fifteenth century became the abject imitator of Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio. Fortunately there is a real Alvise in this exhibition, and a work to do his fame no discredit ; but it passes, as a number of his portraits do, under the name of Antonello da Messina (No. 142, belonging to Mr. George Salting). It is the portrait of a boy of fifteen or sixteen, a little defiant and shy, yet frank in look, with a zazzara of blonde hair cropped short over the eyebrows, wearing a coat of pale turquoise with a dark band across it. To give all my reasons for assigning this portrait to Alvise would mean repeating the demonstration given in my " Lotto." Here it must suffice to draw attention to the colouring, the outline of the face, the precise look of the eyes, and the precise arrangement of the hair, in all of which points it is divergent from Antonello, and like the portraits, particularly such an one as Lady Layard's at Venice, which I have ascribed to Alvise, I trust on sufficient grounds. This little bust of Mr. Salting's is the only Alvise here, but not the only one in or near London. Another belongs to Sir Charles Robinson, who attributes it also to Antonello, and another still is at Windsor Castle, where it passes under the name of Leonardo. They are both among the greatest achievements which Venetian art attained before the triumph of the Giorgionesque.* VI. I am, happily, not the first to question the propriety of attributing Mr. Salting's portrait to Antonello. Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle have also rejected this attribution. Instead, they would assign this boy's head to Andeea Solario. Little as I can agree with them, their idea is not so far-fetched as it may seem. Solario, in his earlier phase, was more of a Venetian than a Lombard painter.f The few years he passed in Venice, during the last decade of the fifteenth century, left an indelible impression upon him. He seems, at that time, to have been greatly exposed to the influence of Alvise Vivarini; and, although it is scarcely likely that he was personally acquainted with Antonello, he appears to have been strongly attracted by such of his works as could then be * No. 236, the Bust of a Man, with long hair and brown beard, is a feeble work of Alvisesqne character. It is unascribed, and belongs to Mr. Henry Willett. + Cf. f< Lorenzo Lotto," p. 119, note. 15 seen in Venice. Of this we have a singular proof in a panel now exhibited in the New Gallery under the name of Antonello himself (No. 131, belonging to Sir Francis Cook), but really by no other than Solario. It is a bust of Christ, crowned with thorns, and tied to a column, with mouth open and eyes turned upwards — a fairly exact copy of the Antonello in the Yenice Academy (Sala XIV., No. 3, photographed by Anderson, No. 11536). At first sight, one can scarcely think of anyone but Antonello ; and the suggestion of the true authorship of this picture will probably give others as much of a shock as it did me, when it was first made to me by Signor Gustavo Frizzoni, the most competent living judge of Lombard art. But detailed inspection soon reveals the justice of its attribution to Solario. The execution, far from being, as we find it in the Venice panel, of a brutality to equal the conception, is rather dainty — almost refined. The glazes are far more transparent than those of Antonello, and the colouring very much paler. In technique and colour the panel before us is, in fact, absolutely identical with Solario's signed Madonna and Saints, in the Brera (No. 106), which was painted at Murano in 1495; and also with another early Madonna, belonging to Signor Crespi, of Milan. Sir Francis Cook's picture has, in common with these Madonnas, the almost white, porcelain-like flesh painting; and closely resembles another well-known Solario, the Ecce Homo of the Poldi-Pezzoli Museum, in the pearl-like tears rolling down the cheek of Christ — painted in a way so peculiar to Solario. An open-minded person, who could see all these pictures juxtaposed, would not hesitate to acknowledge the same hand in the Christ at the Column as in the other three undisputed Solarios.* VII. To Cima da Conbgliano, Alvise's closest and, barring Lotto, ablest follower, ten separate works are here attri- buted. Of these three only can be counted genuine — Lord Brownlow's unexpected and exquisite little Santa Conversazione (No. 53), and Mr. Mond's recent acquisitions * To Antonello, who really is not represented at all in this exhibition, three other works are attributed. The Veronica (No. 10, belonging to Mr. Gr. Donaldson) is a weak thing of Antonello-Alvisesque character, possibly by Filippo Mazzola. The Portrait of " Hans Memling" (No. 59) is a poor copy of the Antonello portrait in the National Gallery. The drawing for an Adoration of the Magi (No. 329) is not worth notice. 16 from the Eastlake sale, a St. Mark (No. 239), and a St. Sebastian (No. 245). Of the remainder, Mr. L. Lesser's Madonna (No. 28) is too painful an object, and of too recent a date, for us to linger over, while Mr. Charles Butler's Ecce Homo (No. 102) is nothing but a copy of a picture probably by Cima in the National Gallery (No. 1310), there ascribed to Giovanni Bellini. Mr. Salting's Virgin (No. 113) is a Cimaesque work by the desolatingly prolific and almost incredibly protean Girolamo Santacroce."* Sir Francis Cook's Head of Christ (No. 135) is a puzzling picture. The features strangely recall those of the young Diirer, the mannerisms suggest Barbari, the colouring makes one think, of Cima, while a certain mincingness and coldness seem to indicate a Flemish hand. Possibly we have here a work by some Flemish master, painted at Venice in the last years of the fifteenth century. As to Mr. Charles Butler's Saviour (No. 23), Sir B. Samuelson's Madonna and Saints (No. 143), and Sir M. S. Stewart's Madonna (No. 146), they are probably, as we shall see, by Bocco Marconi, Kondinelli and Basaiti respectively. Returning now to the real Cimas, there is little to be said about Mr. Mond's panels, except that they are excellent average specimens of Cima's art. Lord Brownlow's Santa Conversazione is conceived like a large altar-piece, but is executed in miniature, and, while retaining breadth of execution, is treated with gem-like precision. It is a fasci- nating composition. I can do no better than quote the description given in the catalogue: " Small full-length " figures in a landscape with buildings in the background; " in the centre, the Virgin seated under a tree with " the Child on her knee, who turns towards an angel in <( attitude of adoration ; behind them, St. Joseph ; and on the " right St. Catherine ; on the left another angel, her hands " crossed on her breast, and St. John the Baptist/' To this I would add that the Madonna and the rock * Were Girolamo Santacroce now living, he would undoubtedly be a chromo-lithographer, supplying popular devotion with the chromos of sacred subjects to be found in chapels, and in the houses of the lower classes in Catholic countries. Other paintings by him in this exhibition are a Resurrection (No. 55), lent by the Corporation of Liverpool ; a " Riposo" (Xo. 122) in his later manner, belonging to Captain Holford ; a Madonna and Saints (No. 7), belonging to the same owner, and ascribed to Titian ; and, finally, a Madonna and, Saints pilfered from Bissolo (No. 60, attributed to Previtali, lent; by Lord Northbrook). The Madonna and Saints (No. 139), which is exhibited by Mr. Charles Butler as Girolamo, is too poor even for him. 17 platform on which she sits are almost the same as in the Vienna altar-piece (Imp. Gall., No 156) ; that the landscape has Cima's best effects of mist hovering at the foot of the distant mountains ; and that the work to which this little jewel stands closest is the Dresden Presentation of the Virgin (No. 63). Besides these, there is exhibited a drawing from the Windsor collection (No. 307), which represents a Bishop enthroned in a chapel with Saints on either side of him. This drawing is probably by Cima, and of great value, as it is nearly if not absolutely unique. VIII. The only painter who has, thus far, been recognised as a follower of Alvise Vivarini is Maeco Basaiti. He was by no means the worst of Alvise's following, but a mediocrity all the same. He holds about the same relation to Alvise and his greater pupils that Lorenzo di Oredi holds to Verocchio and Leonardo ; indeed, the parallel between them is so exact that Basaiti may well be called the Oredi of Venetian art. Both these painters lacked not only the force to strike out for themselves, but even the wit to acquire what their masters could teach them. Only three pictures are attributed to Basaiti in this exhibition, and of these one (the St. Jerome, No. 62, lent by the Corporation of Liverpool) is nothing but a poor copy of a Montagna belonging to Signor Gustavo Frizzoni of Milan. The other two are genuine, Mrs. Benson's Bust of a Noble (No. 25, signed M. Basa) being a ruined work of his last years, and Mr. Salting's Madonna (No. 101, signed Maeco Basaiti, P.) being a very early work of little artistic quality, wherein all the Alvisesque mannerisms are exaggerated. But there are at least two, and possibly three other and more important works by Basaiti in this collection, all belonging to Mrs. Bobert Benson, and all attributed to Giovanni Bellini, two of them actually bearing the supposed signature of this great master. The most important of these is a large rectangular picture (No. 107), thirty-eight inches high by sixty wide. Until Morelli cast his eyes upon it, it passed as an un- questioned masterpiece by Giovanni Bellini. To Morelli it was, and to most of his following it remains, " the triumph of Bissolo's art." My intention here is not to demonstrate that this picture is not by Giovanni Bellini (I take it for granted that this will scarcely be questioned), but to prove that Bissolo had nothing to do with it, and that its real o 18 author was Basaiti * To begin with, let us glance at the composition. The Saints are arranged on either side of the Madonna in separate tiers, a form of grouping always affected by Alvise and frequently by his followers, but never by Bellini and his close followers, least of all by Bissolo. But the composition is by no means the only Alvisesque trait in this work. The Madonna, although she distantly recalls the type found in Bellini's Madonnas at S. Francesco della Vigna at Venice, and in the Brera (No. 297), recalls much more strongly Basaiti's National Gallery Madonna (No. 599), while the bend of her head and her kerchief, as well as the position and movement of the Child, vividly call up the Alvise Madonna belonging to M. Loeser, of Florence. The St. John, although he may have some- thing that suggests the Baptist in Bellini's picture at Santa Corona in Vicenza, yet has the Alvisesque peculiarity — never occurring in Bellini — of the pointing forefinger. The St. Catherine is not only a mere variation upon Alvise's St. Guistina in the Bagati collection at Milan, but partakes of most of the characteristics of Alvise's early picture in the Venice Academy, the St. Laurence. I would also call atten- tion to the striking likeness, not only in face but in form of hand, between this St. Catherine and Lotto's in the altar-piece by the latter in S. Bartolommeo at Bergamo.f Finally, the St. Peter is a type found in Basaiti's Madonna with SS. Peter and Liberate in the Museum of Padua, and his hand with the long thumb drawn as far away as possible from the fingers, is the typical Alvisesque hand. Now all these Alvisesque traits and all these likenesses to Basaiti point unmistakably to this painter, and not to Bissolo, who is strictly Bellinesque, with different forms and different sentiment. I have lingered so long over this picture because of its importance in itself, and as a factor in determining our estimate of the painter to whom we ascribe it. In so far as it recalls Bellini at all, it recalls pictures painted, as we know, about 1510, and thus leads us to infer that it was executed at about this date. Possibly Basaiti was then employed by Bellini, who, after the death of Alvise (in 1503), and of * This picture is reproduced in Morelli, Die Galerie zu Berlin, p. 88. t She should be compared with still another figure by an Alvisesque painter, with Bonsignori's Female Saint in the Poldi Museum, there ascribed to Costa. 19 Gentile (in 1507), remained the one great master to whom people in Venice, or nnder Venetian influence, would naturally turn for their pictures. How far he was from being able to supply the demand we know from the difficulty experienced by so high a patroness as Isabella d'Este, in getting from him something for herself. He seems to have been too busy to furnish even cartoons, and therefore to have allowed his abler assistants to paint what they liked, for him to sell as coming from his factory, and bearing his trade-mark. This may be the explanation of the signature on Mrs. Benson's altar-piece, which is in script — no universally accepted Bellini is thus signed — although the coarseness of its execution gives me some doubt of its authenticity. If this hypothesis of Basaitr's relation to Bellini be correct, it would perfectly account for the other of Mrs. Benson's Basaitis, which is signed Bellini, with a signature apparently old. This is a little St. Jerome (No. 1 69) of very Alvisesque character, with locks of hair exactly paralleled in the work of two of Alvise's other pupils, Cima and Jacopo di Barbari,* with an Alvisesque hand, sitting in front of a landscape which recall several of Basaitr's, particularly the one in the Venetian version of the Calling of Zebedee's Children (Venice Academy, Sala XV., No. 11). The rocks are horn-coloured, as we find them constantly in Basaiti and never in Bellini, and the deep blue sky resembles a very Alvisesque work hanging close by, Lotto's Danae (No. 80, belonging to Mr. Conway). If the date, 1505, be genuine, as is probable, then it proves that Basaiti lost little time in finding steady employment with Bellini, once having finished the altar-piece in the Frari left unfinished by Alvise upon his death in 1503. The third of Mrs.Benson'sBellinis that I believe to be by Basaiti, is the little Infant Bacchus (No. 167). I am led to this conclusion by the sharp blues, and the forms and tone of the landscape. At all events, even if by Basaiti, it is only a copy of a picture belonging to Mr. Mond (formerly in the Habich collection), the conception and execution of which are both so thoroughly in the manner of Carotto, that it is impossible not to believe that this Veronese artist must have originated the composition, as well as painted it.f * To Barbari a non-Italian portrait (No. 117) is falsely attributed. t Sir M. S. Stewart's Madonna (No. 146), attributed, as we have already noticed, to Cima, seems to be, in so far as the present condition of the panel permits of a judgment, also by Basaiti. o 2 20 IX. An interesting and powerful painter, whom, in my recent book on Lotto I have tried to bring into connection with Alvise, is Baetolommeo Montagna, an artist who happens to be remarkably well represented in this gallery. Seven pictures are attributed to him, and two drawings, and of these, four of the paintings and one of the drawings actually are by him, while his also are two charming little tondi ascribed to Carpaccio. Of all these pictures the first in date is Sir William Farrer's Madonna (No. 72), perhaps the freshest and most charming, as well as the earliest of all Montagna's existing works. The composition is the not infrequent Alvisesque one of the Virgin bending slightly over the Child whom she holds in her arms — a composition such as we have already seen in Mrs. Benson's large Basaiti. In the Montagna, as in that picture, and in most Alvisesque works, the Child is thin-haired, large-headed, and chubby-limbed. His ear has the nick into the cheek so rarely absent from the works of Alvise's followers. The Madonna's pupils are rolled a trifle too low, a fault not infrequent among the Yivarini, as in the Child in Alvise's Madonna of 1480, in the Venice Academy (Sala IX., No. 11), in Bartolommeo's Magdalen, in the same collection (Sala I., No. 15), and in the Madonna, from Alvise's atelier at Piove del Sacco, near Padua. The landscape, with its jagged peaks, cliffs, and little trees, remains within the Vivarinesque canon, reminding us of Alvise's own landscapes, of the landscapes of Basaiti, in Mr. Salting's Madonna already mentioned, of Lazzaro Sebastiani's landscape in his Nativity of the Venice Academy (Log. Pallad., No. 82), and even of the landscapes of Crivelli. Another Alvisesque trick that I must not forget to mention — Alvisesque, although afterwards so much exploited by Griorgione and his following — is the exposure of the last joints only of the fingers, as in the Madonna's right hand here. A little later, maturer, but, perhaps, somewhat less fresh, and certainly less gay in colour, is the Madonna belonging to Miss Hertz (No. 78), — one of the masterpieces of Venetian art, nevertheless. It is already so well-known that I need not linger over it here. Suffice it to say that, morphologically as well as qualitatively, it stands the most searching criticism, in spite of the fact that the Madonna is of a type which was adopted, with the soul gone out of it and the features caricatured, by the clod-hopping Marcello Fogolino. Of a later and nearly identical period of 21 Montagna's career are the Madonnas belonging to Lord Cowper (No. 17, signed opvs baetholomei m.), and to Sir B. Samuelson (No. 69), both of rich, bituminous colouring, with dark landscapes. The tondi, originally from a wedding cassone, belong, like the first Madonna, to Sir William Farrer, who thus possesses examples of Montagna's latest as well as earliest style. They represent the Story of Claudia (No. 132), and a Marriage Scene (No. 134), and although they pass under the name of Carpaccio, the heroic types, the large and angular draperies, and the powerful brick reds, leave no doubt what- ever as to their real authorship, especially as we have their exact mates in a well-known work by Montagna, the two tondi still remaining on the original cassone in the Museo Poldi-Pezzoli at Milan (photo graphed by Marcozzi). Of the drawings, the Head of the Virgin from the Windsor collection (No. 310, in charcoal) is, it is true, authentic, although it is not, as stated in the catalogue, a study for the picture in the Brera. Of the other works attributed to Montagna, the drawing of a Male Figure holding a Globe (No. 311), is by nobody in particular; Mrs. Horner's little St. Gabriel (No. 38), rejuvenated though it has been, clearly betrays both in the draperies and in the sky, the hand of Michele da Verona; and the Duke of Norfolk's two organ shutters with St. Bartholomew on the one (No. 36) and St. Augustine on the other (No. 45), are Montagnesque indeed, but feeble in drawing and of an entirely different scheme of colour from his. Although Montagna may have supervised the execution of these figures (originally in San Bartolommeo at Yicenza), the hand that I recognise in them is that of one of his pupils, interesting not only on his own account but for the race of artists whom he begat, I mean the elder Francesco da Ponte, surnamed Bassano, with whose authenticated works, now preserved in the gallery of his native town, these organ shutters have striking points of resemblance. In this connection, I must speak of those of Montagna's other pupils who happen to be represented in the New Gallery. Although Giovanni Buonconsiglio, surnamed Mareschalco, is not once mentioned in the catalogue, he was the author of at least two, and probably four, pictures in this exhibition. One of them is even signed. It is an JEcce Homo (No. 54, belonging to Mr. T. Humphry Ward), of a very Montagnesque character, a variation on his master's treatment of the subject in the Louvre (No. 1393,) but melodramatic as 22 is the character of Buonconsiglio, although not so passionate as his later Ecce Homo in Lady Layard's collection at Venice. Clearly though the colour and treatment and spirit of Mr. Ward's picture prove it to be by Buonconsiglio, it is yet ascribed to Speranza, because the latter also was called Giovanni, and the signature, is ioannes vicentinvs pinsit. Now not only is Speranza's style different from and inferior to this, but he is not so likely to have signed " vicentinvs " as Buonconsiglio, who in the flower of his years worked away from home in Venice, where he would have been sufficiently designated, as Speranza living in Vicenza would not, by the name " John of Vicenza/'' A later work by the same master is the very poor Holy Family with the Infant John and two other Saints also belonging to Mr. Ward (No. 14). In this picture we have a hasty work of Buonconsiglio' s declining art, but a work which still in types and forms recalls his grand altar-piece of 1502 in San Eocco at Vicenza. As Mareschalco was still living in 1530, it is natural that in his later years he should have attempted to adopt the vogue of Giorgione sque subjects and treatment. In this light we see him in an almost charming open-air Concert in the Vicenza Gallery (Sala III., No. 94), in a Resurrection in the Carrara Gallery at Bergamo, and in an Agony in the Garden in the Rovigo Gallery (No. 127, ascribed to Mantegna). It is in this on the whole painful phase of BuonconsighVs career, when as an old man, and always rather uncouth, he was trying to imitate the mere trappings of the everlasting youth- fulness of Giorgione, that we see him, if I mistake not, in Captain Holford's Lady with a Man in Armour (No. 75) (the colour, cut of mouth, and look betray Mareschalco), and in Mr. Charles Butler's " Mistress of Giorgione" (No. 275, attributed to Giorgione himself). Speranza, whom I have already mentioned, an impotent imitator of Montagna, is the author of a very small Holy Family (No. 81), belonging to M. Leon Somzee, which has all the characteristics of niggling outline and chromo-like colouring of his signed pictures in the Br era and at Vicenza. X. Putting aside for the moment Catena, who, although he began with Alvise, yet did most of his work under the influence of the Bellini, Carpaccio and Giorgione, we have now examined all the Alvisesque pictures in this exhibition, 23 and are ready to turn to the paintings of the Bellineschi, first to those of Gentile and his following, and then to those of Giovanni and his.* To Gentile four different works are attributed. Of these, the two slight portraits lent by the Oxford University Galleries (Nos. 39 and 43) are nondescript works of the Veronese school, while "the black chalk drawing of Two Portraits of Men (No. 325, lent by Sir 0. Kobinson) is nothing at all. The fourth, however — Mr. Ludwig Mond's Virgin and Child (No. 47, signed opvs gentilis bellini veneti, eqvitis) — is a well-known genuine work, which was until recently in the Eastlake collection. In its present condition, this picture is more interesting than delightful, and it must always have been spoiled by the uncouth throne, in the worst Italian taste, upon which the Virgin is seated. Nor was this the subject to be well treated by Gentile. Although (as the title in the signature indicates) he must have painted this picture at the beginning of the eighties, at a time when Giovanni was already portraying his most unconventional and touching Madonnas, Gentile's Virgin is hieratic, almost Byzantine, and betrays no advance upon the model left him by his father Jacopo, vividly recalling, in fact, a Virgin by the latter which is now in the Tadini Gallery at Lovere (Photographed by Oliari of Brescia) . It is not to paintings like this that we must turn if we wish to form an adequate conception of this, perhaps greatest of pre-Giorgionesque Venetians, but to his few portraits and to his historical paintings, which are, unfortunately, even rarer — most of his works having been destroyed by fire and other accidents. Considering the scarcity of this great master, we the more eagerly study his faithful follower and vulgariser, Vittoke Caepaccio. XI. We do not see him here in his most characteristic capacity, that of a raconteur, but as the author of one figure of a saint, and of a couple of drawings. The saint is a charming representation of a woman, dressed in the gay costume of the time, seated by a lake side, reading (No. 49, * There is no genuine work by Jacopo Bellini in this exhibition. The Domenican Preaching (No. 3, lent by the Oxford University Galleries) is of the school of Domenico Morone of Verona. The church represented is, by the way, Sant' Eufemia of that town. 24 lent by Mrs. Robert Benson), perhaps the fragment of some Santa Conversazione. The drawings are — one from the Windsor collection (No. 306, pen and bistre, washed), repre- senting the Presentation of the Virgin, and containing a fanciful version of Bramante's St. Peter's in the back- ground ; while the other is a fine sketch for a " Portrait of a Bearded Man," which is lent by Sir C. Robinson (No. 341, black chalk and bistre, heightened with white). The catalogue, however, attributes to Carpaccio four more paintings and two more drawings. Two of the pictures, Sir William Farrer's tondi (Nos. 132 and 134), we have already seen to be by Montagna. Lord Battersea's St. Bernardino (No. 246) is not by Carpaccio. Mrs. Horner's Allegorical Scene (No. 68) is, as is proved by the general tone, the types, the hands, the draperies, and the landscape, a work by Michele da Verona, whose frequent good fortune it has been to attain Nirvana under the name of Carpaccio. Sir C. Robinson's drawing of a Man with a Staff (No. 323) is too feeble for Carpaccio, and the same holds true of Mr. G. Donaldson's Figure of a Man (No. 333). XII. Carpaccio was not, of course, the only follower Gentile Bellini had, but he is the only one of importance represented in this exhibition, Bartolommeo Yeneto being not only an inferior artist, but of a later generation, and subject to so many influences beside Gentile's, that our best plan will be to treat him, not at this point, but later. We shall therefore turn now to Gentile's brother, Giovanni — the Bellini — whom fate has dealt with more indulgently, the bulk of his work having come down to us. Indeed, were we to trust all exist- ing catalogues, the number of his pictures would be legion ! In this exhibition alone, for example, some eighteen or nineteen works are attributed to him. Of these, only three, as a matter of fact, are by him — this proportion of about one to six being the usual ratio of genuine Bellinis to merely attributed pictures! Basaiti, as we have already seen, is responsible for three of these so-called Bellinis (Nos. 107, 167 and 169, all belonging to Mrs. Benson) ; Rondinelli was the author of two others (Nos. 2 and 103) ; Catena of two more (Nos. 84 and 251) ; Rocco Marconi, perhaps, of three (Nos. 19, 111 and 149); while one, a Madonna (No. 26, lent by Lady Lindsay), may be by Filippo Mazzola, whom we 25 have already encountered as the possible author of the Veronica (No. 10). Another " Bellini/' a Holy Family (No. 81) is, as we have seen, by Speranza; another still (No. 168), is a copy of the Castle Howard Circumcision; and finally, the Cristoforo Mow, belonging to Lord Rosebery (No. 63), is a valueless work, of no assignable character. Of the drawings ascribed to Bellini, Sir C. Robinson's Head of a Young Man (No. 347) seems to be the achievement of some Venetian schoolboy, and Mr. G. Donaldson's Head of a Man (No. 336) is not even Venetian, being obviously by Leonardo's early assistant at Milan, Ambrogio de Predis. We must now examine all these pictures in connection with their real authors, and, first of all the three genuine Bellinis. The earliest of these (No. 67) is Dr. J. P. Richter's half length figure of the Virgin, who bends slightly over, adoring the Child lying fast asleep on a parapet before her. It is a quiet composition, severe, yet tender in feeling. The Madonna is solidly constructed, the colouring is light and pleasant. The landscape recalls some of Bellini's very earliest works, such as the Transfiguration and the Dead Christ (with the forged monogram of Diirer), both in the Correr Museum at Venice. The contours throughout are timid, as might be expected in a very early work such as this, and it is this earliness that may account for the awkward drawing of the Child, as it is hardly probable that a master would leave such an important part of his work to a pupil, when he himself had executed the rest. Next in date to this Madonna stands (No. 119), Mr. Ludwig Mond's pathetic picture of the Dead Christ supported by two Angels, the noblest of all Bellini's versions of this subject, with the exception, possibly, of the kindred picture at Berlin (No. 28). The angels are of almost the precise type of the Child in the Madonna with the Greek inscription of the Brera (No. 261), and the Greek inscription, as well as the general technique of Mr. Mond's picture also recall the Brera Madonna. They were probably painted at about the same time, somewhere towards 1475. The third and last genuine Bellini of this exhibition must have been painted at least seven years later. It is the impressive (although somewhat retouched) Madonna (No. 79, signed ioannes bellinvs), which recently passed from the Eastlake collection into the hands of Mr. Ludwig Mond. Both the Virgin and the Child recall the types Giovanni made use of before his S. Giobbe and Frari altar-pieces, such, for instance, as we find in the Madonna in the Venice Academy (SalaXIV., 26 No. 19), and the earlier of the two Madonnas in the Morelli collection at Bergamo. XIII. While discussing the Basaitis signed with the name of Bellini, I explained these signatures, it will be remembered, as being a sort of trade-mark of the Bellini factory. The first assistant known to us who seems to have been thus privileged to put the master's name on his own pictures, was the Ravanese Niccolo Rondinelli, of whose twenty-five works known to me, a fair proportion bear the inscription ioannes bellinvs. A good instance is the Madonna lent to this exhibition by Louisa, Lady Ashburton (No. 103), signed in the orthodox way, ioannes bellinvs p. In this picture the draperies, which seem to be made of paper, the colouring, the types, the big-bellied, curly-haired child, all agree, detail for detail, with Rondinelli' s perfectly authen- ticated works at Rome, Forll, Ravenna, and Milan. An equally indisputable Rondinelli is the pretty Portrait of a Boy (No. 2, lent by Captain Holford), where the soft, humid look, as well as the drawing and colour, betray unmistakably the style of Rondinelli. That it could not be by Bellini seems to have struck some connoisseur of the distant past, for one of its former owners had the marble ledge in front of this bust inscribed with the indignant protest : " opvs bellini ioannis VENETI NON ALITEE." Judging from most of his pictures signed Bellini, Rondinelli must have been Giovanni's assistant before 1500. After that date he retired to Ravenna, and there became a sort of apostle of Venetian art in jpartibus, succeeding only in helping to deck out work of such dullards as Palmezzano and the Zaganellis with some of the less desirable trappings imported from Venice. In his own pictures, painted at home, Rondinelli gives more than one sign of having come, during his stay in Venice, under the influence of Cima, and we have in one of the pictures here an example of this style. No. 143, a Madonna and Child with 88. Catherine and Bartholomew, lent by Sir B. Samuelson, is actually attributed to Cima himself, although it is clearly a Rondinelli of a late period, with a style remotely suggesting Cima, although Bellinesque enough. Of Rondinelli's influence as a disseminator of Venetian art in the Romagna we have an interesting proof in Mrs. Benson's Adoration of the Magi (No. 74), signed baldasar 27 forliviensi pinsit — a picture which reveals its author, Baldassare da Forli, as a tenth-rate painter, who churns together the mannerisms of Rondinelli and Palmezzano. XIV. Francesco Bissolo held much the same relation to Giovanni Bellini after 1500 that Rondinelli had held before, and it is a question which one of these two assistants was the feebler and more dependent. As for Bissolo, Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle have aptly described his style as Sassoferrato-ish, and himself as the " Lo Spagna of Venice. " They have not, however, so well understood his evolution. Noting the striking resemblance between his Annunciation, now belonging to Mrs. Robert Benson, and here exhibited (No. 35, signed teanciscVs bissolo) and certain pictures of Catena, they therefore concluded that it was Bissolo's earliest work, starting, it seems, with the purely a priori assumption that Bissolo was Catenesque before rather than after he was Bellinesque. To this theory there is the insurmountable objection that Catena himself did not acquire the manner which Bissolo is imitating in the Annunciation, which appears in the way of painting the chamber, the landscape, and the general scheme of colour — until his later years, when Giovanni Bellini was already dead.* Incapable of doing anything for himself, Bissolo always had to lean on somebody, and Bellini being dead, on whom could he lean so well as on the one painter who, while not ignoring the new, yet remained faithful to the old traditions, through which he himself was never able to break — I mean on Vincenzo Catena ? In his earlier, his purely Bellinesque manner, we see Bissolo in a feeble but pleasantly coloured and otherwise inoffensive picture, a Madonna with iSS. Paul and Catherine (No. 155, lent by Mr. Ludwig Mond). This work partakes of the precise character of the picture by Bissolo still attributed to Bellini in the Redentore at Venice, in type recalling indeed, that great master's San Zaccaria altar-piece of 1505, soon after which it may have been painted. * A further confirmation of this Annunciation being a late picture rather than an early one, is the Italian, or half-Italian, form of the signature— the Latin form being de rigeur during Giambelliao's lifetime. 28 XV. Suggestive of Bissolo in sentiment and colour, but of altogether superior character, are three pictures in this exhi- bition, all ascribed to Bellini, and all of them, if I mistake not, by the same hand. The Virgin and Child (No. Ill, signed ioannes bellinvs), belonging to Sir Michael Shaw Stewart, is a charming panel of delicate sentiment, and refined, very blonde amber colouring. The same colouring and the same style of landscape reappear in one of the most delightful portraits of the Venetian school (No. 149, belonging to Mr. J. P. Carrington), — the bust of an alert, self-possessed, sympathetic, youngish man, with bushy brown hair, wearing a black cap and a black coat slashed with white — in concep- tion not unworthy of Bellini himself, although widely different from him. In Lord Northbrook's Madonna (No. 19, signed ioannes bellinvs), with, its exquisite landscape, we find the same delicacy of sentiment, and the same beautiful ambered lights. " A replica of the central group of a picture in the Kedentore at Venice " says the catalogue. Quite so : the compositions are identical, but the execution is not. In this respect, as well as in the blondness of the hair, in the slight difference of axis to the eyes, and in the landscape, Lord Northbrook's Madonna stands much closer to a Madonna, identical in composition, in the Strasburg Gallery (No. 8, photographed hy Mathias Gerschel, Strasburg), signed eocvs de marchonib. It is to this hitherto little known painter, Rocco Maeconi, that I venture to ascribe the three pictures we have been discussing. Thus far he has passed as a mere imitator of Palma and Paris Bordone, and in his later years he, doubtless, deserved this bad reputation. In the Strasburg Madonna, however, we see him starting from Belliui, but with a tendency of his own towards a very blond colouring — a tendency which we find amply developed in his masterpiece, the Deposition from the Gross of the Venice Academy (Sala VII., No. 30). Delicate and refined as is Mr. Carrington's portrait, the faces of the dead Christ and of the Virgin will bear comparison with it ; and as to its greater spirit, this would not be the first instance of a painter surpassing his usual self in portraiture (cf. Cordeliaghi and Grirolamo Santacroce in their portraits in the Poldi-Pezzoli Museum at Milan) . A further confirmation of my hypothesis may be found in still another work exhibited here. It is the full-length figure of the Saviour, ascribed to Cima (No. 23, lent by 29 Mr. Charles Butler). Although the figure certainly is copied from Cima's Saviour at Dresden, the execution and the landscape clearly betray Marconi's hand, as we know it in his pictures at Yenice — not only the Deposition already mentioned, but the works in San Cassiano and San Giovanni e Paolo as well. Now careful scrutiny reveals more than one point of likeness between this Saviour and the three other pictures I have ventured to ascribe to Rocco Marconi. Nor are these the only pictures in London in which I recognise the same hand, presumably that of Rocco. Others are the pretty land- scape, called a Griorgione, belonging to Lord Ashburnham (now on exhibition at the "Old Masters/' in Burlington House, No. 115), containing in the foreground two men fencing and another piping; and, finally, the picture in the National G-allery, representing the Death of St. Peter Martyr (No. 1252), signed Ioannes Bellinus, and executed in his atelier. XVI. Rocco Marconi was already a painter belonging to a period of transition, and subject to other strong influences besides Bellini's. The two or three other painters whose works we have to examine before arriving at Griorgione also have the transitionary character and pr oneness to eclecticism (within the limits of the school) which characterise Marconi. The oldest and most important of these artists is Vincenzo Catena, a personality of considerable weight in Venetian art, to whom scant justice has hitherto been awarded, most of his finest pictures still passing as Bellini's or Griorgione' s. Unfortunately this is not the place for a reconstruction of his artistic personality, and, tempting as the subject is, I must content myself with a brief analysis of his eight pictures in the New Gallery, four of which, only, bear his name. The earliest of his works here is a large panel of ivory tone and ivory-like hardness, representing the Madonna with her hand on a Donor, recommended by St. John, while the Child glances at another Donor overtowered by a female saint (No. 46, lent by Miss Hertz, signed vicenzivs chaena p.) The Madonna, in type, dress, and action, is the one which seems to have been in peculiar favour at the beginning of the sixteenth century, for she is found in Lotto, Basaiti, Marco Veneto, and in Catena more than once.* The St. John is * At Naples, Stuttgart, Berlin, Bergamo, and in the former Pourtalis collection respectively. 30 surprisingly crude, a caricature of Cima's Baptist, as he appears in the Madonna with SS. Paul and John, in the Venice Academy (Sala IL, No. 48), or in his Conegliano and Parma altar-pieces. The female saint is, however, almost agreeable, and in type she recalls Cima, as in the altar-pieces just mentioned (photographed by D. Anderson, Eome), and in his Munich Madonna with St. Jerome and the Magdalen (No. 1033). The Child, again, is like a caricature of Cima, particularly of such a Child as the one in the Berlin Madonna and Donor (No. 7) . The ivory tone and ivory-like hard- ness also have a relation to Cima's technique, and in the landscape there is much to suggest Cima (witness the Berlin picture just mentioned), and Basaiti. In the portraits of the Donors, however, there is something of Gentile Bellini. Catena, then, as he reveals himself in this early work, is a feeble artist closely allied to Cima and less closely to another of Alvise Yivarini's pupils, to Basaiti, and at the same time somewhat influenced by Gentile. The Liverpool picture here exhibited (No. 98, signed vincencivs chatena f.), a Madonna with SS. Nicholas of Bari, Francis, a female Saint, and a Donor, shows Catena in scarcely a better light. He appears (in the Francis especially) even more closely affiliated with the school of Alvise Vivarini, and he is here even cruder and harder and less interesting. Both these pictures belong to an early group, of which two other examples are in the Buda-Pesth Gallery, and one in the Baczinski Collection at Berlin. Considerable advance is in- dicated in the Madonna with the Magdalen and St. Catherine (No. 123, lent by the Corporation of Glasgow, and labelled " School of Giovanni Bellini"),* in both expression and colour, if not in draughtsmanship. The Child has the firmly-shut mouth so characteristic of Catena. Here, for the first time, we encounter the emerald green and the soft pinks that make up so much of Catena's charm. In such a work as this he is already not far away from the Madonna with Saints (No. 19) of Berlin, and on the high road to such a masterpiece as the Warrior adoring the Infant Christ of the National Gallery (No. 234, called " School of Giovanni Bellini "). To about this period of Catena's career belongs a ruined altar-piece, a Madonna with two Saints and a Donor, in the collection of Lord Ashburnham (now exhibited at the " Old " Masters " in Burlington House, No. 116), whose authorship * In the second edition of the authorised catalogue correctly ascribed to Catena. 31 becomes clear the moment we compare it with Catena's signed altar-piece in the Ducal Palace at Venice. It is true that Lord Ashburnham's picture is inscribed ioannes bellinvs, mcccccv., but this proves, if anything, no more than that in 1505 Catena, like Basaiti, was also turning out pictures for Bellini's factory. It is to about this date — somewhat later rather than earlier — that I would ascribe the famous Castle Howard Circumcision (No. 84), which still enjoys the reputa- tion of being Bellini's splendid original of a large flock of copies scattered over the length and breadth of Europe. True, this picture is also signed ioannes bellinvs ; but the types are not Bellini's, and are in fact, strictly speaking, not even Bellinesque. Where among Bellini's unquestionable works shall we find such a heavy-featured Madonna, or one wearing a kerchief such as she wears here ? Where such a Child ? I venture to say nowhere. On the other hand, the forms — hands, ears and folds of drapery in particular— are clearly Catena's. His also are the types, the Child being remarkably like the one in his signed picture at Buda Pesth. As to the technique, so far as its very bad condition permits any judgment, it certainly is much more like that of Catena's authentic works than of Bellini's, and the colouring, with its vivid pinks and greens, will be sought for in vain in Bellini, while it is highly characteristic of Catena. It seems there- fore safe to assert that in this Circumcision we have a work by Catena and no other, and a work, moreover, of transition from pictures such as those we have already examined to works such as we shall take up presently. That Bellini may have painted this subject is possible, nay, highly probable, and it is likely that the Castle Howard Circumcision is a free version of some such original; but the point to be remembered is that this is not Bellini's original, but at the most a version by Catena. Nor is this the only version of the same composi- tion from Catena's own hand. Another, also provided with Bellini's signature, and dated 1511, is in the Groldschmidt collection at Paris. Moreover, the best copies of this subject, such as the one in the Doria Palace at Rome, and the one exhibited here under Bellini's name (No. 168, lent by Mr. John Stogdon), are pretty exact copies of the Castle Howard version, which would rather point to the conclusion that this is the only original that ever existed, and that Catena himself, therefore, actually invented the composition. In the four remaining pictures by Catena here exhibited, we see him in his last phase — a phase in which he reveals 32 himself as an artist of extraordinary suppleness of mind, never too old to learn, nor, what is more wonderful, too old to feel afresh, to appreciate new ideals and new senti- ments. He is Giorgionesque in his last phases, not slavishly, but tactfully, adopting as much of Giorgione as he really can make his own, and never merely copying him. It is not in his types — always the easiest thing for a copyist to lay hold of — but in the more subtle qualities of a heightened sense of beauty, a greater refinement of line, enchantment of colour, and magic of feeling that he gives evidence of contact with Giorgione. Of the four pictures here belonging to Catena's Giorgionesque phase, one only is attributed to him, Mr. J. P. Heseltine's Holy Family (No. 161). In this work the types, the draperies, the colours, and the painting of the foliage are all start! ingly like the Warrior adoring the Infant Christ, a picture which, despite the phenomenal agreement of Morelli with Crowe and Cavalcaselle as to its being a Catena, is never- theless refused that attribution by the authorities of the National Gallery. Delightful as is Mr. Heseltine's Holy Family, it is even surpassed by Lord Brownlow's Nativity (No. 251, ascribed to Giovanni Bellini). Few pictures of the Venetian school have a more idyllic charm and loveliness ; few are executed with greater daintiness. All the wood- work is as delicately painted as in Catena's St. Jerome in the National Gallery (No. 234). The effects of light are even more poetical than in Mr. Heseltine's picture. The kneeling shepherd is a Venetian gentleman of almost Lottesque refinement. There can be no doubt whatever that this Nativity is by Catena. The Virgin, whose drapery, by the way, is most characteristic of the master, is of the type of the St. Christina in Catena's altar-piece in Santa Maria Mater Domini, at Venice ; tho Child so fast asleep is absolutely identical with the one in the undisputed Madonna and Saints at Berlin ; the painting of the foliage is precisely the same as in the National Gallery Adoring Warrior, or as in Mr. Heseltine's picture, and the same boy who is seen approaching in Lord Brownlow's Nativity appears also in the middle distance of Mr. Heseltine's Holy Family. Even more Giorgionesque in outward characteristics, as, for instance, in the drapery and colouring, although by no means so close to Giorgione in quality of magic, is Mrs. Benson's small Holy Family (No. 148, attributed to Giorgione). The type of the Virgin is thoroughly Catenesque, and although the large sweep of the draperies recalls Giorgione, it is 33 identical in flow with the draperies of the kneeling shepherd and of St. Joseph in Lord Brownlow's picture, while the smaller folds of the Virgin's skirt are such as may be found almost everywhere in Catena. In the Brownlow Nativity Catena goes as far as he can in the natural, unforced assimi- lation of the Giorgionesque. In Mrs. Benson's Holy Family he is already a trifle on the downward path, and he appears in a still later, and almost degenerate phase in such a picture as the Christ at Emmausin the Bergamo Gallery (Carrara, No. 11, photographed by B. Lotze, Verona), where the old and the new seem no longer to assimilate but to remain more or less apart and episodic. In the New Gallery we see Catena in this phase in Mr. Charles Butler's Christ anal the Woman of Samaria (No. 154, attributed to Altobello Melone), a picture which in colour and in form of hand and ear is characteristic of Catena's late works. In types and draperies it is identical with the Christ at Emmaus, but of an even more unequal quality, awkward enough to suggest Cariani. This suggestion is enforced by the touch in the figures of Palma, with whom Catena may well have come in contact. XVII. Catena was already a combiner. More of the charm which lies in his fine last works is due to his almost un- conscious combination of the styles of Alvise, the Bellini, and Carpaccio, than one might think. In him nature may have been trying her hand at a Giorgione, but he was born at least a decade too early for success. All that he failed to accomplish was left to be triumphantly carried out by Giorgione, who succeeded in combining into an harmonious whole almost all of what was best in the various schools of Venice, all of Alvise, all of the Bellini, and all of Carpaccio that could keep house together. Nor could this combination have been at all conscious, for we find it already in his very earliest existing works, the Judgment of Solomon and the Trial of Moses. Before turning, however, to the consideration of the pictures in the New Gallery attributed to this most fascinating of Venetian artists, we must mention the works of two painters, both of whom were of that type of people, common at all times and in every walk of life — even in art criticism — who are a good generation behind the most advanced people of their day. In future ages the opinions, practices and 34 performances of these retardataires are almost always utterly- forgotten, because our interest in the past is an interest in the most forward and not in the backward activity of a period. Among these retardataires there are various kinds : some are so because of unalloyed stupidity ; others because of vested interests ; and others still because of the picturesqueness of their own temperaments. We find a retardataire of the first class in Francesco Santacroce, and of the last, in Bartolommeo Veneto, both of whom, younger than Giorgione, remained pre-Giorgionesque for thirty or forty years after his death. By Francesco Santacroce, whose earliest known work is the Bergamo Annunciation, dated 1504 (Carrara, No. 70), there are in the New Gallery two pictures. Mr. Charles Butler's Virgin, Child, and Donor (No. 12, attributed to Previtali"*) has the types and colouring of Francesco Santacroce of about 1512. Mrs. Benson lends a Marriage of St. Catherine (No. 16), which is ascribed to Catena — were it really by Catena then there would be ample justification for ascribing the little Holy Family to Giorgione ! — but which is by Francesco Santacroce in his maturest phase, as the landscape, the eyes of the St. Catherine, the golden amber tone, and the modelling throughout clearly prove. The always picturesque Bartolommeo Yeneto, who in his earliest known work, the Bergamo Madonna of 1505 (Lochis, No. 127), shows considerable affinity with the Bergamask painters, is represented here by more than one work. The earliest is a picture showing even closer affinities with the Bergamasks, although painted some five or eight years later, the Madonna with two Angeh (No. 11, lent by Mrs. Benson), per miracol mostrare ! actually attributed to its real author. The face of the Madonna in this picture seems to be already that of the Jewess of German type, whom we find in Bartolommeo' s signed picture in the Melzi collection at Milan — a woman represented in the act of breaking a ring with a hammer — some wedded Jessica with whom Bartolommeo may have played the part of Lorenzo. Very close to that picture stands another version of the same model, this time represented as St. Catherine (No. 8, lent by the Corporation of Glasgow). Her hair is less like twisted * There is nothing by Previtali in this exhibition. Lord Northbrook'a Madonna and Saints (No. 60) is by Girolamo Santacroce. The Portrait Group (No. 293), lent by Mr. Archibald Stirling, of Keir, is Bergamask, but not by Previtali. 35 wire than in the Melzi portrait, but, on the other hand, she serves as a connecting link between the latter and the Frankfort Courtesan (No. 13), who, like the St Catherine, has her head engarlanded— and completes the demonstration, complete though it had been, that the Frankfort picture is by Bartolommeo. Even MM. Thode and Miintz would be won from their fond belief that the Frankfort Courtesan is by Durer, if they compared it with the photographs of these other unquestionable works. Still by Bartolommeo, although attributed to Sebastiano del Piombo, is the fine portrait of a Venetian Noble wearing a large velvet hat (No. 61, lent by M. Somzee). Here we have the painter in a later and much higher phase, in his grey manner, exactly as we see him in the Dresden Salome (No. 292), and in the portrait attributed to Beltraffio in the Ambrosiana at Milan.* Coming, at last, to the centre point of Venetian art, to the shadowy, fluctuating, half -mythical figure of Giorgione, concerning whom there seems to be so little certainty that it may well be said : Every critic has his own private Giorgione, — coming, at last, to him, we find that the catalogue, with becoming immodesty, ascribes to him no less than eighteen distinct items. Well, their private Giorgione is, I hasten to say, not mine. Mine makes up in quality what he loses in quantity. But let us now examine these eighteen hypothetical Giorgiones. Two of them we have met with already, Mrs. Benson's Catena (No. 148), and Mr. Butler's Buouconsiglio (No. 275). Lord Malmesbury's Judgment of Paris (No. 29), is a wretched copy after a picture attributed to Giorgione, but probably by Polidoro Lanzani, in the Palazzo Albuzio at Venice (pho- tographed by Brusa, Venice) .f Sir Edward Burne-Jones , Europa (No. 94) is the merest wreck, and could never, at the best have been more than a daub by Andrea Schiavone. Louisa, Lady Ashburton's Landscaije with Figures (No. 147) is of more than doubtful antiquity. The Musicians (No. 99) lent by the Corporation of Glasgow, has but slight connection with Giorgione, although it is a pleasant picture of considerable merit. As to its authorship I have no clue whatever. Sir William Farrer's Three Ages (No. 82) is obviously a copy, * The abuse of new names appears in the utterly unwarranted attribution to Bartolommeo of a portrait belonging to Mr. George Salting (No. 30). t This, in turn, is only a copy of some now lost original by Giorgione, or, more probably, Titian. Other copies exist at Dresden and Christiania. 36 probably by Polidoro Lanzani, after Titian's original in Bridgewater House.* Perhaps of all the " G-iorgiones " here, the one that is best placed and that attracts the most attention is Louisa, Lady Ashburton's Portrait of a Lady Professor of Bologna (No. 91). To begin with, this portrait is neither of a lady, nor of a Professor, nor of Bologna. It represents a smooth shaven, sentimental young man, dressed in the costume of the time, with bushy, curly dark hair. His left hand rests on a skull before him. The tone of this picture is between ivory and amber — a tone with which we are familiar in the works of the hitherto but little known, although prolific painter, great colourist and poor artist, Bernardino Licinio. Charac- teristic of him is also the cranium of this young man, the pose of the head, and the extreme awkwardness in the drawing of the mouth. As to the hand, never was one hand more like another hand than the one here is to that of St. Elizabeth in the Borghese Santa Conversazione (No. 171, photographed by Anderson, Rome, No. 4240) . The dark blue velvet of his dress is identical not only in colour but in folds with the sleeve of St. Catherine in the same picture. That Licinio and no other was the author of this portrait is, in fact, proved more and more by every comparison with his other works that may be made. And this, by the way, is not his only picture in the New Gallery, although his name does not appear anywhere in the catalogue. In Captain Holford's Adoration of the Shepherds (No. 224, ascribed to Bonifazio), we have Licinio in his Bonifaziesque phase, and dazzling as a colourist — a phase known to us by a series of pictures of which Duke Scotti's at Milan are good examples. In nearly the same phase we see him in a Portrait of a Man also belonging to Captain Holford (No. 194, ascribed to Palma Vecchio) ; and we have him again, this time in his Pordenonesque manner, in a wretched Portrait of a Senator. ascribed to Sebastiano del Piombo (No. 191. also belonging to Captain Holford). * Other pictures here, by this brilliant follower of Titian and Bonifazio, are four works ascribed to Titian, and one unattributed. The " Titians " are Sir William Farrer's Holy Family with two Donors (No. 179) ; the Glasgow Holy Family and St. Dorothy (No. 133) ; Captain Holford's Holy Family (No. 158), a replica of -a Polidoro in the Louvre (No. 1580, there ascribed also to Titian) ; and Lord Battersea's Madonna with the Infant John (No. 227). Polidoro' s masterpiece — a pleasant fusion of much that is charming — but charming only— in Titian and Bonifazio, is the unascribed Madonna with St. Catherine and the Archangel Michael (No. 225), belonging to Mrs. R. H. Benson. 37 Much closer to Giorgione than this a Lady Professor" stands Lord Lansdowne's Concert (No. 110), although it is far enough away, as far away, in fact, as Cariani is from Giorgione. The picture is thus described in the catalogue : " A young man with a viola across his lap, is seated under a a tree ; opposite to him are two young women, one holding an " open book ; all are seated on the banks of a stream ; on the f f other side of the stream, which occupies the middle distance, tc are houses with a hilly landscape. " It is impossible to read even this bare description without visualizing something very romantic, if one has any acquaintance with the Giorgionesque way of treating such a subject. We feel here, although to a less degree, the high idyllic charm of that most wonderful of all painted idylls, Giorgione' s Fete Ghampetre of the Louvre. Looking closer, however, we find that the colour scheme is by no means Giorgionesque, but Palmesque, the bright yellows and the greens being essen- tially Bergamask. But Palma himself is excluded from the authorship of this picture, not only because he never catches so much of Giorgione's spirit, but because he never draws so badly, or uses so fluid a vehicle. In all these points this Concert is thoroughly characteristic of Cariani' s manner at a time when he appears to have been absorbed in studying Giorgione, while changing over from the style of Lotto and his flowing medium to that of Palma and his slow, thick medium. As to the spirit of the picture, we have Cariani in precisely this phase in a canvas at Bergamo, A Woman playing and a Shepherd asleep (Lochis, No. 146, photo- graphed by P. Lotze, Yerona). Even the forms and folds are thoroughly characteristic of Cariani, and peculiar to him are the short noses and the way the faces are modelled, especially the youth's face, whose modelling is identical with that in the Vienna Bravo (No. 240), the Borghese Madonna (No. 164), and the Louvre Santa Conversazione (No. 1135) still attributed to Giorgione, although obviously by Cariani."* * Besides the three paintings attributed to Cariani in the catalogue — Mr. Salting's admirable replica of the Portrait of a Noble (No. 144), (the version in the Casa Suardi at Bergamo is even .better), Captain Holford's crude Portrait of a Man (No. 27), and Mrs. Benson's Portrait of a Man (No. 230) — beside these there are on exhibition another picture entirely by Cariani, and three more which he executed in great part, although they were begun by Palma. The work, entirely by Cariani, is Mrs. Benson's Holy Family and Donor (No. 9, ascribed to Romanino). Here the Madonna is of the type in the Louvre so-called " Giorgione"; and the Donor is strikingly like the portrait that used to be in the Leyland collection (under the name of Giorgione), which now belongs to M. Aynard, of Paris. The landscape — a 38 Of the remaining works attributed to Giorgione, only one is a painting, the rest being drawings. But that one is, in my opinion, by Giorgione himself. It is the Head of a Shepherd (No. 1 12) from the Hampton Court Gallery.* A recent writer on the pictures of this collection has spoken of it in words that I cannot do better than quote: — "The face is so radiantly " beautiful that even retouching and blackening have not " been able to hide the fine oval, the exquisite proportions, " the warm eyes, the sweet mouth, the soft waving hair, and i( the easy poise of the head/'t This is not too enthusiatic a description of the supreme beauty and poetic charm of this wonderful head. I can scarcely hope that many of those who see it in the wretched place given to it in the New Gallery will feel so ecstatic about it as I do ; but then they have not had my good fortune of studying it under the full light of the sun. This picture, whose first discoverer was Morelli, is no longer accepted as a Giorgione by the Morellians. If their master, they say, had seen it in a good light, he never would have taken it for a Giorgione. It is easy to say such a thing now that Morelli is dead ; but its being disputed compels me to defend it. Let us in the first place turn to a morphological comparison of this head with those few pictures by Giorgione that are least called in question. Perhaps the most striking resemblance of all is that of this head to the head of the Sleeping Venus at Dresden, the same broad face, broad brow, the same modelling of the lids, the same shape of nose and mouth. With the Knight of Malta in the Uffizi it has in common the broad brow, and the precise way of opening the eyes, and of modelling the lids ; with the Loschi Christ bearing the Cross (at Vicenza), it has in common the eyelids, the mouth, and the folds of the drapery ; with the Castelfranco and Madrid Madonnas it has in common the mouth ; with the Berlin portrait there is also view of Bergamo, seen from Ponteranica — the loose index finger of the Madonna, the high light on St. Joseph's forehead, and the hot colouring, are all characteristic of Cariani. Three Sante Conversazioni (No. 92, lent by Mr. Wickham Flower ; No. 128, lent by the Glasgow Corporation ; and No. 221, lent by Mrs. Benson) — all attributed to Palma — were, it is true, laid in by that master, but left (probably by his death) in various stages of incompleteness, and finished by Cariani. The share of each painter in these works is perfectly distinguishable. * A mediocre but still adequate reproduction of it will be found in my " Venetian Painters of the Renaissance." f Mary Logan. Guide to the Italian Pictures at Hampton Court. The Kyrle Society, 1894 (Price 2d.), p. 13. 39 a great likeness in the folds (cf . particularly the R. sleeve), and in the mouth ; and, finally, the Hampton Court Shepherd shares with all of Griorgione's universally-accepted works, the dome-shaped cranium. What, then, is the fatal flaw in this picture ? Alas ! it is the hand holding the flute, which, as it happens, is not at all unlike Griorgione's hand — he, by the way, has a number of characteristic hands — but which is, unfortunately, in the opinion of some critics, more like Palma' s hand, and, in the opinion of others, more like Pordenone's. Therefore, despite the diametrical opposition in every other morphological detail, and, above all, in spirit, between this head and any and every authenticated work by either Palma or Pordenone, the fatal hand condemns it to be a work of one or the other of these inferior painters. This, truly, is being more Morellian by very much than Morelli himself ! But let us enquire a little more closely into this question of the hand. In so far as Griorgione has at all a stereotyped hand, what is its most peculiar characteristic ? It is the tendency to give great prominence and looseness to the forefinger, as we see in the Knight of Malta, and, to an exaggerated degree in the lulus of the Evander and Aeneas (alias the " Three Magi ") of Vienna. Now, what is the greatest peculiarity in the hand of the Shepherd ? Precisely this looseness and prominence of the forefinger. In so far as the hand is unsatisfactory in other respects, I think it is due to the condition of the picture. There is, at all events, nothing surprising in the fact that people who exploited Griorgione so much as did Palma and Pordenone, should have adopted some bvious mannerism — always the easiest thing to imitate — of the supreme master. But if we really must make the hand the palladium of identity, what shall we say of the now universally accepted Portrait of a Young Man at Buda-Pesth ? That masterpiece has a hand quite unlike any other in Griorgione, but very close to Cariani's most characteristic hand, and closer still to the hands in such a Pordenone as the altar-piece in the Cathedral of Cremona. Were one to go by the hand, the Buda-Pesth portrait would certainly be a Pordenone, particularly as in no other accepted work do we find Griorgione so grey in tone and so self-consciously melancholic as in this portrait, while this spirit is close to Pordenone, and this grey tone is singularly like the Cremona altar-piece. Nevertheless, I cannot let myself be run away with by these outer resemblances, nor 40 even the resemblances of spirit, because I know Pordenone, and I know that great though he was, he was utterly inade- quate to such an achievement as the Buda-Pesth portrait. Its likenesses to Pordenone I account for in this way. Of the various sides of a supreme master, each follower finds one that appeals more strongly than any other to his own temperament. Pordenone, inclined to be haughty and over self-esteeming, found himself set in vibration by the Buda-Pesth Young Man, and naturally said to himself, " This is what I want " to say about things, and this is therefore the way to say it." And thereupon he began to exploit that one segment of Giorgione's art. Now that I have done what I could to prove by internal evidence of a morphological nature that the Shepherd with a Pipe is by Giorgione ; now that I have explained how it may happen that the hand should remind some people of Palma and some of Pordenone, let us see what outside evidence there may be for the authenticity of this picture. That subjects akin to this were treated by Griorgione, we know well from the Anonimo, who saw in the Palace of Zuane Ram " the head of a boy who holds in his hand an arrow, " and " the head of a shepherd who holds in his hand a flute. "* But we have something even more precise. The self-same head that occurs in the Hampton Court Shepherd, is found in a picture in fche Imperial Gallery at Vienna (No. 243), which represents " the young David whose luxuriant hair falls down " on both sides of his face. He wears a breastplate " — the catalogue continues — and holds the sword of Goliath in his " R. hand, while with his L. he places the giant's head on "the parapet behind which he is standing."! Now this picture is obviously a copy (let anyone who is tempted to think the Hampton Court Shepherd only a copy, compare it, by the way, with the Vienna picture !), but it is an old copy, for we find it mentioned in the collection of the Archduke Leopold William at Brussels. Yet, copy though it be, it is of interest to us, for if we have the imagination to supply this copy with a quality of execution adequate to the quality of conception, we arrive at nothing less than a masterpiece by Giorgione himself. And here Vasari comes to our aid. Among the pictures he saw in the house of the Patriarch of Aquileia, he mentions as being by Giorgione " a David with a shock of * Anonimo, ed. Frizzoni, p. 208. f E.v. Engerth, Vol. I. p. 171. 41 " hair, such as used to be worn in those days, down to the " shoulders, lively and coloured, so as to seem flesh and " blood. He has an arm and the breast covered with armour, " and holds the head of Goliath."* Allowing for the difference in exactness between the casual Yasari and the scrupulous accuracy of the modern cataloguer, Vasari's and Yon Engerth's descriptions certainly apply to the same picture. The Vienna David is, therefore, indubitably a copy after a Giorgione. Now, as the head in the Yienna picture is identical with that of the Hampton Court Shepherd, it follows that the latter is also an original, or a copy after an original by Giorgione. As to which of the two it may be, that is no longer a matter of quantitative reasoning, and argument concerning it is, therefore, useless. All that can be done is to beg the competent in this matter, as I have already done, to compare the one with the other, and to note the gulf between the quality of the David and that of the Shepherd, giving them only this further hint, that Giorgione, while always supreme in his conceptions, did not live long enough to acquire a perfection of draughtsmanship and chiaroscuro equally supreme, and that, consequently, there is not a single universally-accepted work of his which is absolutely free from the reproaches of the academic pedant. In my eagerness to vindicate for Giorgione this wonderful head, I forgot to speak of a portrait bust attributed to this master, of exquisite quality, but deplorably bad preservation, which belongs to Mr. A. H. Savage Landor (No. 15). It may have been a work by the young Titian, or else only a copy after such a work, the copy by Polidoro Lanzani. Of the seven drawings ascribed to Giorgione only one is really by him, the early sketch for the martyrdom of a saint, from the Chatsworth collection (No. 319), reproduced in Morelli.t Of the remainder, Nos. 312, 334, 342, and 348 are nothing in particular ; the red chalk sketch for a Death of Peter Martyr (No. 320, also from Chatsworth) is Por- denonesque, and a Saint Preaching (No. 321, from the same collection) is of the school of Gentile Bellini, possibly by his follower, Benedetto Diana. * Vasari, ed. Sansoni, IV., p. 93. f Italian Masters : Munich and Dresden Galleries. English Translation, p. 225. ° (N.B.— The drawings from Chatsworth, Nos. 838-883, are not referred to in this essay, having been added to the exhibition at a date subsequent to the writer's visit to England.) 42 We have now ended our survey of the pre-Titianesque works exhibited in the New Gallery. A detailed examination of the sixteenth century Venetians would reveal an even greater number of questionable attributions, and would entail the resuscitation of many wholly or half-forgotten painters — the real authors of a large proportion of the pictures here which pass under the ringing names of Titian, Bonifazio, Palma, Paris Bordone, and Paolo Veronese. Such a study would require not a pamphlet but a book, and as it would chiefly concern artists whose names thus far have been but seldom heard, it could not hope to have the least interest for any but specialists. BERNHARD BERENSON. February lth } 1895. INDEX TO THE PICTURES MENTIONED. No. in Catalogue. 2 rage. ... 26 3 23, note 4 9 5 ... 12 6 ... 13 7 ... 4, 16, note 8 ... 34 9 37, note 10 15, note 11 ... 34 12 ... 8, 34 14 ... 22 15 ... . ... 41 16 ... 31< 17 ... ... 21 19 ... ... 28 20 ... 5 21 ... 9 22 ... 7 23 ... ... 28 24 ... 9 25 ... ... 17 26 ... ... 24 27 ... 37, note 28 ... 16 29 ... ... 35 30 ... 35, note 32 ... 12 33 ... . " 11 • 35 ..... 27 36 ... 21 38 ... 21 39 ... 23 40 ... 12 42 ... 11 43 ... 23 44 ... 11 45 ... 21 46 ... 29 47 ... 23 48 ... ... 12 49 ... 23 50 ... ... 11 53 ... ...15, 16 21 54 ... ino. in Catalogue. 55 ... 16, note 59 ... 15, note 60 ... ...16, note; 34, note 61 ... 35 62 ... 17 63 ... ... 25 67 ... 25 68 ... 24 69 ... 21 71 ... 9 72 ... 20 74 ... 26 75 ... 22 77 ... 6 78 ... ... 20 79 ... 25 80 ... 19 81 ... 22 82 ... 35 84 ... 31 86 ... ... 12 87 ... ... 12 88 ... 12 91 ... 36 92 ... 38, note 94 ... 35 95 ... 4 96 ... 7,8 98 ... 30 99 ... 35 101 ... 17 102 16 103 ... 26 107 ... ... 17 110 ... 37 Ill ... 28 112 ... 38,41 113 ... 16 117 ... 19, note 119 ... 25 122 ... 16, note 123 ... 30 124 ... 4 125 ... 8 128 ... 38, note ii INDEX. No. in Catalogue. Page. 3 15 21 36, note 21 16 3 16, note 14 26 37, note 19, note 35 32 28 3 33 27 4 36, note 32 5 19 31 19 3 note 36 6 4 4 4 38, note 36 36, note No. in Catalogue. 227 230 234 236 239 241 244 245 246 248 251 257 275 293 302 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 319 320 321 323 325 333 334 336 341 342 347 348 Page. DRAWINGS INDEX. Ill INDEX TO EXHIBITOBS. (The names in brackets give the attributions the pictures bear in the official Catalogue.) Her Majesty the Queen. (Hampton Court), Giorgione, 38-41. ( Windsor). Drawings, 9, 17, 21, 24. Ashburton, Louisa, Lady. Crivelli, 12. ? Giorgione, 35. Licinio (Giorgione), 36. Mantegna, 7. Kondinelli (Bellini), 26. ? Titian, 4. Battersea, Lord. Brusasorci (Moroni), 5. ? Carpaccio, 24. Polidoro (Titian), 4. Benson, Mrs. B. H. Baldassare da Forli, 26. Bartolommeo Veneto, 34. Basaiti, 17. Basaiti (Bellini), 17-19. Bissolo, 27. Cariani, 37, note. Cariani(Romanino), 37, note. Carpaccio, 23. Catena (Giorgione), 32. Crivelli, 12. Palma, 38, note. Polidoro (Unknown), 36, note. Santa-Croce, F. da (Catena), 34. ? Titian, 3. Brownlow, Earl. Catena (Bellini), 32. Cima, 15, 16. ? Titian, 3. Bume-Jones, Sir E., Bart. PSchiavone (Giorgione), 35. Butler, Charles. Buonconsiglio (Giorgione), 22. Catena (Altobello Melone), 33. Cima, copy after, 16. ? Mantegna, 9. Rocco Marconi (Cima), 28. Santacroce F. da (Previtali), 8, 34. ? Santacroce, G. da, 16, note. ? Vivarini, 11. Carlisle, Earl of. Catena (Bellini), 31. Carrington t J. B. ? Mantegna, 9. Rocco Marconi (Bellini), 28. Conway, W. M. Lotto, 19. CooTt, Sir Francis, Bart. ? Flemish (Cima), 16. Solario (Antonello), 15. INDEX. Cowper, Earl, E.G. Montagna, 21. ' Titian, 3. Crawshay, B. Crivelli, 12. Cullum, G. Milner-Gibson. Crivelli, 12. Currie, Mrs. B. W. Lazzaro Sebastiani (Vivarini), 13. Devonshire, DuJce of, E.G. Drawings, 41. Donaldson, G. PMazzola (Anton ello), 15, note. Drawings, 24, 25. Farrer, Sir William. Montagna, 20. Montagna (Carpaccio), 21, 24. Pietro Alamanno (Crivelli), 12. Polidoro (Giorgione), 35. Polidoro (Titian), 4. Schiavone (Titian), 4. Flower, Wiclcham. Palma, 38, note. Glasgow, Corporation of, Bartolommeo Veneto, 34. ? Campagnola, 35. Catena, 30. Palma, 38, note. Polidoro (Titian), 4. Hertz, Miss Henrietta. Catena, 29. Montagna, 20. Heseltine, J. P. Catena, 32. Holford, Capt., CLE. Beccaruzzi (Titian), 4. Bnonconsiglio (Unknown), 22. Cariani, 37, note. Licinio (Bonifazio), 36. Licinio (Palma), 36. Licinio (Sebastian del Piombo), 36. Polidoro (Titian) 4, 36, note. Romanino (Titian), 4. Rondinelli (Bellini), 26. Santacroce (Unknown), 16, note. Santacroce (Titian) 4, 16, note. Horner, Mrs. Michele da Verona (Carpaccio), 24. Michele da Verona (Montagna), 21. Landor, A. H. Savage. ? Titian (Giorgione), 41. Lansdowne, Marquess of, E.G. Cariani (Giorgione), 37. Lesser. L. ? Cima, 16. Lindsay, Lady. ? Mazzola (Bellini), 24. Liverpool, Corporation of. Catena, 30. Montagna, copy after (Basaiti), 17. Santacroce, G. da, 16, note. INDEX. V Malmesbury, Earl of. Calisto da Lodi (Bordone), 5. ? Giorgione, 35. ? Titian, 4. Markham, R.A. ? Mantegna, 9. Mond, Ludwig. Bellini, Gentile, 23. Bellini, Giovanni, 25. Bissolo, 27. Cima, 16. Giambono, 6. Mantegna, 7, 8. Titian, 3. Murray, C. Fairfax. Giambono (Stefano da Zevio), 6. Norfolk, Duke of, E.M., K.Q. Ponte, F. da, the Elder (Montagna), 21. Northbrook, Earl of. Crivelli, 11, 12. Rocco Marconi (Bellini), 28. Santa-Croce, G. da (Previtali), 16, note ; 34, note. Oxford University Galleries. School of Verona (Bellini, Gentile), 23. School of Verona (Bellini, Jacopo), 23, note. Pembroke, Earl of. ? Mantegna, 8. Powerscourt, Viscount, K.P. Beccaruzzi (Titian), 4. Richter, Dr. J. P. Bellini, 25. Robinson, Sir Charles. Drawings, 24, 25. Rosebery, Earl of, K.Q. ? Bellini, 25. Rosenberg, Madame Catherine de. Caprioli (Titian), 4 Rushforth, G. McNeil. PVivarini, 11. Salting, George. Alvise Vivarini (Antonello), 14. ? Bartolommeo Veneto, 35, note. Basaiti, 17. Oariani, 37, note. Santacroce, G. da (Cima), 16. Samuel, Stuart, M. Crivelli, 12. Samuelson, Sir B., Bart. Montagna, 21. Rondinelli (Cima), 26. Shaw- Stewart, Sir Michael, Bart. ? Basaiti (Cima), 19, note. Rocco Marconi (Bellini), 28. Somzie, M. Lion. Antonello, copy after, 15, note. ? Barbari, 19, note. Bartolommeo Veneto (Seb. del Piombo), 35. Speranza (Bellini), 22. ? Titian, 3, 4. ? Veronese, Paul, 4. vi INDEX. Stirling, Archibald, of Keir. ? Previtali, 34, note. Stogdon, J. Catena, after (Bellini), 31. Ward, T. Humphry. Buonconsiglio (Speranza), 21. Buonconsiglio (Unknown), 22. Westminster, Duke of, E.G. ? Titian, 4. Willett, Henry. Unknown, 14, note.