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VENETIAN PAINTING IN AMERICA

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2011 with funding from

Boston Public Library

http://www.archive.org/details/venetianpaintingOObere

Giovanni Bellini. Madonna
Collection of the late Mr. Theodore M. Davis

VENETIAN PAINTING
IN AMERICA

THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY

BY
BERNARD BERENSON

'A > H

NEW YORK

FREDERIC FAIRCHILD SHERMAN

MCMXVI

PREFACE

"Now that we are on the subject of Venetian Paint-
ing," that would be a more exact title for this book.
For, in fact, I have made the stray pictures in our col-
lections the pretext for saying what I wanted to say
about their authors in general.

In some ways this form suits me as it suited my
master, Giovanni Morelli. Like him, I have a dis-
taste for including in my own writing questions that do
not vividly interest me at the moment, no matter how
important in themselves ; and like him, I prefer to avoid
such systematic treatment as entails dealing with ma-
terials either at second hand, or out of dimmed and at-
tenuated recollection. It goes against the grain to
write about anything that does not fascinate and absorb
me.

For the last few years it has been the painters of
Venice, and Giovanni Bellini in particular, that have
preoccupied my leisure and occupied my working
hours. I thought of making a book about him, and I
may still do it. But should I fail to achieve this pur-
pose the student will be able to gather from this book,
supplemented by certain essays in my third series of
"Study and Criticism of Italian Art," most of what I
have to contribute to the subject. He will see what

works I would ascribe to the great artist, in what chron-
ological order I would arrange them, how I would
reconstruct the whole of the master's career, and how I
would relate him to his contemporaries.

These contemporaries as well are treated in this vol-
ume nearly as exhaustively as suits my own researches
and reflections. I have however to some extent been
guided by the abundance or the scarcity of the materials,
and am happy that these permitted me to say so much
about Montagna, so much more still about Cima, and
as much as I have said about Basaiti and Catana.

Of the minor painters, and of such momentarily over-
appreciated ones as Lazzaro Sebastiani or Jacopo di
Barbari I have spoken only when works of theirs in
America demanded it. Most of them, however, are
represented.

I venture therefore to trust that this book will not be
mistaken for a sort of catalogue of Venetian pictures in
America. It is intended to be much more than that.

I hope to follow it with another volume on the Six-
teenth Century Venetians.

My thanks are due to private owners and to public
institutions for photographs and the permission to re-
produce them.*

B. B.
Settignano, July, 1916.

* Reproductions of nearly all the pictures referred to in this book will be
found in a work that should be in every student's hand: A. Venturi's "Storia
dell' Arte Italiana," Vol. VII, part IV.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface v

List of Illustrations xi

CHAPTER I

PAGE

The Transition i

I Caterino and Others 2

II Giovanni and Antonio da Murano 5

III Antonio Vivarini's Studio 9

IV Bartolommeo Vivarini 13

V Crivelli's Madonnas 18

VI Crivelli Pietas 22

VII Victor Crivelli 24

VVIII Jacopo Bellini 25

CHAPTER II

Antonello da Messina and His Imitators 28

I Johnson and Altman Portraits 29

II Mr. Frick's Pieta not by Antonello 31

III Mr. Walters' Female Head 35

IV Antonio de Saliba: Mr. Winthrop's Madonna ... 38

V Mr. Theodore M. Davis' Madonna 42

VI Mr. Piatt's South Italian Madonna 43

VII Antonio Solario 45

VIII Filippo Mazzola 49

IX Cristoforo da Parma 52

X Antonio da Serravalle 53

vii

CHAPTER III

\ PAGE

Giovanni Bellini 54

I Mantegna; Mrs. Gardner's "Sacra Conversazione" . . 54

II The Altman "Holy Family" 58

III Giovanni Bellini; New Theory of His Development . 60

IV The Davis Madonna 63

V The Johnson Madonna 65

VI The Lehman Madonna 71

VII The Piatt Madonna 74

VIII The Winthrop Madonna 78

IX The Huntington Madonna 81

X The Madonna of the Metropolitan Museum ... 84

XI The Salomon Madonna 89

XII The Willys Madonna . . 92

XIII Mr. Frick's "St. Francis" 95

CHAPTER IV

Pictures from the Studio of Giovanni Bellini, and Con-
temporary Copies 106

I Figures in Metropolitan Museum 109

II The Worcester Madonna 112

III Madonna of the Fogg Museum 115

IV Copies of the "Christ at Emmaus" 119

V Mr. J. P. Morgan's "Santa Conversazione," Formerly in

the Pourtales Collection 123

VI Mr. Walters' Altarpiece 136

CHAPTER V

The Contemporaries of Giovanni Bellini 143

I Mrs. J. J. Chapman's "Sposalizio" and "Adoration" . 144

II Lazzaro Bastiani 149

III Benedetto Diana 155

viii

PAGE

IV Carpaccio 156

Following of Carpaccio 162

Pietro Carpaccio 164

V Antonello Again 165

VI Alvise Vivarini 168

VII Bonsignori 170

VIII Montagna 173

Speranza 185

IX Cima da Conegliano 186

X Cima's Followers — Pasqualino — Jacopo di Barbari . . 206

CHAPTER VI

Giovanni Bellini's Pupils and Followers 213

I Rondinelli 218

II Giovanni Martini and Lattanzio da Rimini . . . .227

III Basaiti 231

IV Catena 243

V Bartolommeo Veneto 256

VI The Widener Head.— The Painters of Santa Croce . 260

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Giovanni Bellini: Madonna. Collection of the late Mr.
Theodore M. Davis, Newport, R. I Frontispiece

PAGE

i. Caterino; Triptych. Walters Collection, Baltimore . 2

2. Venetian, About 1400: Triptych. Walters Collec-

tion, Baltimore 3

3. Giovanni d'Alemagna and Antonio Vivarini:

Polyptych. Collection of Mrs. Dr. Henry Barton
Jacobs, Baltimore 7

4. 5, 6. Studio of Antonio Vivarini: Legend. Walters

Collection, Baltimore 10, 11

7. Bartolommeo Vivarini: Madonna. Collection of

Mr. D. F. Piatt, Englewood, N. J 14

8. Bartolommeo Vivarini: The Epiphany. Collection

of Mr. J. P. Morgan, New York 15

-9. Bartolommeo Vivarini : Madonna. Collection of the

late Mr. Theodore M. Davis, Newport, R. I. . . . 16

10. Carlo Crivelli: Madonna Enthroned. Collection

of Mr. Philip Lehman, New York 19

11. Carlo Crivelli: Madonna with SS. Francis and

Bernardino. Walters Collection, Baltimore . . .21

12. Carlo Crivelli: St. George. Collection of Mrs. J. L.

Gardner, Boston 22

13. Carlo Crivelli: Pieta. Metropolitan Museum of Art,

New York 23

14. Jacopo Bellini ( ?) : St. Jerome. Collection of Mr.

Augustus Healy, Brooklyn 25

15. Antonello da Messina: Portrait of a Young Man.

Johnson Collection, Philadelphia .29

16. Antonello da Messina: Portrait of a Young Man.

Altman Bequest, Metropolitan Museum, New York . . 30

17. Provencal : PietA. Collection of Mr. Henry C. Frick.

New York 31

PAGE

1 8. Palermitan Follower of Antonello: St. Rosalie.

Walters Collection, Baltimore 36

19. Palermitan Follower of Antonello: Madonna.

Salting Bequest, National Gallery, London ... 36

20. Antonio de Saliba ( ?) : Madonna Enthroned.

Collection of Mr. Grenville L. Winthrop, New York . 38

21. Antonio de Saliba: Madonna. Collection of the late

Mr. Theodore M. Davis, Newport, R. 1 42

22. South Italian: Madonna. Collection of Mr. D. F.

Piatt, Englewood, N. J 43

23. Antonio Solario: Madonna and Saints. Walters

Collection, Baltimore 46

24. Filippo Mazzola: Madonna. Walters Collection,

Baltimore 51

25. Cristoforo Caselli ( ?) : Ecce Homo. Walters Collec-

tion, Baltimore 52

26. Antonello da Serravalle: Madonna. Walters Col-

lection, Baltimore 53

27. Mantegna: Sacra Conversazione. Collection of

Mrs. J. L. Gardner, Boston 55

28. Mantegna: Holy Family. Altman Bequest, Metro-

politan Museum, New York 58

29. Giovanni Bellini: Madonna. Johnson Collection,

Philadelphia 66

30. Mantegna: The Circumcision. Uffizi Gallery, Flor-

ence 68

31. Studio of Philip Bellini: Triumphal Arch. Acad-

emy of Fine Arts, Venice .70

32. Giovanni Bellini: Madonna. Collection of Mr.

Philip Lehman, New York 71

33. Giovanni Bellini: Madonna. Collection of Mr.

D. F. Piatt, Englewood, N. J 74

34. Studio of Giovanni Bellini: Madonna. Collection

of Mr. Grenville L. Winthrop, New York .... 7^

35. Giovanni Bellini: Madonna. Collection of Mrs.

H. E. Huntington, New York 82

36. Mantegna: Madonna. Carrara Gallery, Bergamo . 82

37. Giovanni Bellini : Madonna. Metropolitan Museum,

New York 86

xii

PAGE

38. Giovanni Bellini: Madonna. Venice Academy . 88

39. Giovanni Bellini: Madonna. Morelli collection,

Bergamo 88

40. Studio of Giovanni Bellini: Madonna. Cook Col-

lection, Richmond, England 89

41. Giovanni Bellini: Madonna. Collection of Mr.

William Salomon, New York 90

42. Giovanni Bellini: Madonna. Oldenburg ... 90

43. Giovanni Bellini: Madonna. Collection of Mr.

John N. Willys, Toledo, Ohio 94

44. Antonio de Saliba: Madonna. Kaiser Friedrich Mu-

seum, Berlin 94

45. Giovanni Bellini: St. Francis. Collection of Mr.

Henry C. Frick, New York 96

46. Studio of Giovanni Bellini: Four Saints. Metro-

politan Museum, New York 110

47. Studio of Giovanni Bellini : Madonna. - Worcester,

Mass., Museum of Art 112

48. Giovanni Bellini: Madonna. National Gallery,

London 112

49. Studio of Giovanni Bellini: Madonna. Fogg Mu-

seum, Cambridge, Mass 115

50. Studio of Giovanni Bellini: Madonna. Layard

Bequest, National Gallery, London 115

51. Copy of Bellini. Christ at Emmaus. Wilstach Col-

lection, Memorial Hall, Philadelphia 121

52. Copy of Bellini: Christ at Emmaus. Walters Col-

lection, Baltimore 121

53. Studio of Giovanni Bellini: Madonna and Saints.

Collection of Mr. J. P. Morgan, New York . . .124

54. Variant of Late Bellini: Madonna. Collection of

Mr. Hervey Wetzel, Boston 137

55. Studio of Giovanni Bellini : Madonna with Saints.

Walters Collection, Baltimore 139

56. Follower of the Bellini: Annunciation. Gallery

of Turin 145

57. Follower of the Bellini: Sposalizio. Collection of

Mrs. John J. Chapman, Barrytown-on-Hudson, New

York 146

xiii

PAGE

58. Follower of the Bellini: Adoration of the Magi.

Collection of Mrs. John J. Chapman, Barrytown-on-
Hudson, New York 147

59. Lazzaro Bastiani: Annunciation. Collection of

Mr. Hervey Wetzel, Boston 153

60. Lazzaro Bastiani ( ?) : Martyrdom. Johnson Col-

lection, Philadelphia 154

61. Benedetto Diana: Holy Family. Collection of Mrs.

Frederic S. Van Urk, Kalamazoo, Mich 155

62. Carpaccio: Alcyone. Johnson Collection, Philadelphia 157

63. Carpaccio: Pieta. Metropolitan Museum, New York 158

64. Carpaccio: Pieta. Conte Serristori, Florence . . .158

65. Carpaccio ( ?) : Madonna. Collection of Mr. Robert

S. Minturn, New York 160

66. Follower of Carpaccio: Holy Family. Walters

Collection, Baltimore 162

67. Pietro Carpaccio ( ?) : St. George. Walters Collec-

tion, Baltimore ,. . . . 164

68. Alvise Vivarini: Madonna. Walters Collection, Bal-

timore 168

69. Alvise Vivarini: Head of a Man. Johnson Collec-

tions, Philadelphia 170

70. Bonsignori : Head of a Warrior. Walters Collection,

Baltimore 171

71. Bonsignori: Bust of a Warrior. Widener Collection,

Philadelphia 172

72. Bonsignori: Male Portrait. Walters Collection, Bal-

timore 172

73. Montagna: Madonna. Worcester, Mass., Museum of

Art 177

74. Montagna: Madonna. Metropolitan Museum, New

York 179

75. Montagna: Madonna. Collection of Mr. D. F. Piatt,

Englewood, N. J 182

76. Montagna: Portrait of Lady. Altman Bequest,

Metropolitan Museum, New York 184

77. Speranza : Christ Blessing. Walters Collection, Bal-

timore 185

xiv

PAGE

78. Cima: Madonna. Detroit, Mich., Museum of Art . 189

79. Cima: Madonna. Walters Collection, Baltimore . .195

80. Cima: Madonna. Johnson Collection, Philadelphia . 197

81. Cima: Madonna. Collection of Mr. Edward Tuck,

Paris 198

82. Cima: Madonna with SS. Francis and Antony of

Padua. Collection of George and Florence Blumen-
thal, New York 200

83. Variant after Cima: Madonna. Walters Collection,

Baltimore 202

84. Cima: Silenus. Johnson Collection, Philadelphia . . 203

85. Cima: Madonna and two Saints. Collection of Mr.

J. P. Morgan, New York 205

86. Follower of Cima: Madonna and Saint James.

Collection of Mr. Grenville L. Winthrop, New York . 208

87. Pasqualino: Madonna. Collection of Mrs. Felton,

New York . 210

88. Rondinelli: Madonna and Two Saints. Walters

Collection, Baltimore . .219

89. Rondinelli ( ?) : Two Saints. Walters Collection,

Baltimore 220

90. Rondinelli (?): Annunciation, Academy (from S.

Maria Miracoli), Venice 221

91. Follower of Bellini: St. Francis with SS. John of

Capistrano and Louis of Toulouse. Walters Col-
lection, Baltimore 224

92. Follower of Giovanni Bellini: Fra Luca Pacioli

and a Young Nobleman. Museum, Naples . . . 225

93. Follower of the Bellini: Madonna. Walters Col-

lection, Baltimore 226

94. Giovanni Martini da Udine ( ?) : Dead Christ.

Walters Collection, Baltimore 228

95. Lattanzio da Rimini ( ?) : Madonna, Saints and

Donors. Walters Collection, Baltimore .... 229

96. Basaiti: PietA. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston . . . 235

97. Basaiti: Madonna and St. Liberale. Johnson Col-

lection, Philadelphia 236

98. Basaiti: St. Jerome. Walters Collection, Baltimore . 237
" 99. Giovanni Bellini: St. Jerome. Collection of Mr.

Robert H. Benson, London 238

PAGE

ioo. Basaiti: Portrait. Collection of Mrs. Rutherford

Stuyvesant, New York 242

101. Catena: Madonna and Four Saints. Walters Col-

lection, Baltimore 244

102. Catena: Madonna and Two Saints. Collection of

Mr. William Salomon, New York 248

103. Catena: Bust of a Venetian. Collection of the late

Mr. Theodore M. Davis, Newport, R. 1 251

104. Catena: Christ Giving Keys to Peter. Collection

of Mrs. J. L. Gardner, Boston 253

105. Catena: Christ Giving Keys to Peter. Prado Mu-

seum, Madrid 253

* 106. Bartolommeo Veneto: Portrait of a Young Man.
Collection of the late Mr. Theodore M. Davis, New-
port, R. 1 258

107. Bartolommeo Veneto: Bust of a Youth. Collec-

tion of Mr. James Parmelee, Washington .... 259

108. Bartolommeo Veneto: Bust of a Middle-aged

Woman. Collection of Mr. Augustus Healy, Brooklyn 260

109. Venetian (early 16th cent.) : Bust of a Youth.

Widener Collection, Philadelphia 261

110. Giovanni Paolo de Agostini: Double Portrait.

Fine Art Museum, Detroit, Mich 262

xvi

VENETIAN PAINTING IN
AMERICA

CHAPTER I

THE TRANSITION

NO history of Venice yet written — not even Mr.
Horatio Brown's evocative and illuminating
study — conveys half so vividly as does a glance at
Venetian painting, the sense of how isolated, during the
fourteenth century, was the Republic of the Lagoons
from the remainder of Italy. Thus, Giotto labored for
years in Padua, the nearest town on the mainland, and
his activity there quickly altered the typography, so to
speak, as well as the technique of the painter's art
throughout the whole of Northern Italy. In Venice
alone it took decades before a clear trace of his in-
fluence began to appear. And this, when it came, was
almost entirely confined to such general elements as
shape and composition, while the substance, the craft,
the technique, remained imperturbably Byzantine. The
green under-painting, the profuse gilding, the effects of
lacquer or enamel, suffered no change worth mention-
ing before the revolution started by Gentile da Fabri-

ano and Pisanello, continued by their pupil and fol-
lower, Jacopo Bellini, and achieved by his sons, Gentile
and Giovanni. This revolution, we may note in passing,
followed the conquest of Padua in 1405 and the initia-
tion of that continental policy which rapidly turned
Venice into a great Italian power. Even then, the
Vivarini and their spiritual kin retained a great deal
of Byzantinism in their art, and the last of them, Alvise,
betrays its continued hold upon him not only in the
hard polished surface of his work, but in his failure to
assimilate the new composition and even the new light-
ing.

These paintings of the fourteenth century and those
of the fifteenth which were least affected by the Bellin-
esque innovation, will form the subject of the following
chapter.

CATERINO AND OTHERS

We begin with the signed work of Caterino in the
collection of Mr. Henry Walters of Baltimore (Fig. 1),
which has been reproduced and minutely described by
Prof. Laudedeo Testi in the first volume of his very
compendious and most learned "Storia della Pittura
Veneziana" (p. 244). Its reproduction dispenses us
from a minute description. The same authority (ibid.,
p. 237) tells us that Caterino was known to be active
between 1362 and 1382. He was, in fact, one of the
prominent painters in the Venice of that time. A
glance at Mr. Walters' Polyptych will suffice to inform
us that painting in Venice during the decades just men-

Fig. i. Caterino : Triptych.
Collection of Mr. Henry Walters, Baltimore.

tioned was still playing the same subordinated and
modest role that it seems to have taken in the Mediaeval
Greek world. The general effect of type and color and
surface is overwhelmingly Byzantine, and the tech-
nique almost wholly so. The Madonna manifests signs
of Giottesque influence, coming, however, not directly
from Giotto himself at the neighboring Padua, but in-
directly through his Romagnol followers at Rimini
and its coasts. The few miles of land travel proved
so efficient a barrier, before the conquest of Padua and
the consequent closer communications, that all the
Italianism recognizable in Venice till after 1400 came
thither by the sea. As the Madonna in this picture is
so much more Italian than any other of Caterino's
known works, we may safely regard it as the latest we
possess.

Venetian paintings dating from before the Renais-
sance are so rare that we must not disdain a small
Triptych (Fig. 2) in the same collection of Mr. Wal-
ters at Baltimore, mediocre enough intrinsically, but
with some of the attractiveness of old icons, and not
devoid of interest. In the central panel we see Our
Lady seated on a flowered hillock, with the Child
eagerly clinging to her. Above is the Crucifixion. In
the right panel we have the Virgin Annunciate over St.
James, in his turn over St. Margaret; and in the left,
the Angel of the Annunciation over the Baptist and St.
Catherine. The ground, of course, is gold; the
enamel-like technique is still Byzantine. The florid
pinnacles, combined with a return to round arches,
enable us at once to date this modest achievement as of

about 1400. Who its author may have been, I have no
idea, except that he undoubtedly was a Venetian. The
Angel Gabriel recalls both of Lorenzo Veneziano's
angels in the Venice Academy (Nos. 9 and 10). The
Madonna, on the other hand, is distinctly of Bologna-
Marchigian origin, seated as she is on a hillock with
rays emanating from her and stars all about her — a
motive recurring in the dazzling decorative panels of
Andrea da Bologna and Francescuccio Ghisi at Pau-
sula, Fermo and Ascoli. I suspect, by the way, that
this motive of the Madonna sitting low, destined to be-
come almost universal toward 1400, was invented in
Bologna decades earlier. Our painter would seem to
have had direct contact with the source, for had he got
it from such a model as Giovanni da Bologna's panel
now in the Venice Academy (No 17), he would have
omitted the stars.

Passing over a rougher work more in the manner of
that embogged Byzantinist, Semitecolo, a Madonna be-
longing to Mr. D. F. Piatt of Englewood, N. J., we
come to the only other Venetian painting of fourteenth
century character that I can remember having seen in
America. It is an oblong panel in the gallery of the
New York Historical Society, which, many years ago,
when I last saw it, had the number 183, and was
ascribed to Taddeo Gaddi. Evidently a predella, it
represented the Crucifixion, with the Blessed Virgin
fainting into the arms of one of the six women sur-
rounding her, and on the other side the soldiers divid-
ing Our Lord's garment. At the time, the shapes, the
arrangement, the color and the technique all struck me

as Venetian, although under more than ordinary Italian
influence. I have no photograph, and the reproduc-
tion in the Artaud de Montor Catalogue (Plate 28) is
of that smoothed-out, rounded, blurred character which
made connoisseurship, until quite recently, so vague and
indecisive.

II
GIOVANNI AND ANTONIO DA MURANO

The most interesting painter of the transition from
the Greek Mediaeval style to that of the Italian Renais-
sance is not represented anywhere in America. This
was Jacobello del Fiore, who, in his sumptuous "Jus-
tice" of the Venice Academy, in his mighty "Lion" of
the Doges' Palace, and in a "Madonna" in my own col-
lection, advances upon his age to a largeness of planes
and a succulence of treatment curiously like Palma's.
The haphazard of saleroom, or of journalism, has
caused him to be overshadowed by a painter far less
gifted as an artist, and much less interesting as an his-
torical figure; for Michele Giambono was little more
than a docile imitator of Gentile da Fabriano and
Pisanello, and he is usually toothless, limp and woolly.
His technique, based doubtless on Byzantine practice,
retains, as does his color, something of the gorgeousness
of the East. But as this necessarily disappears in
black and white, we shall not reproduce the only frag-
ment of his I have found in America, the half length of
a "Sainted Bishop" belonging to Mrs. J. L. Gardner of
Boston.1

1 The "Dead Christ" in the Metropolitan Museum, as well as its variant at

By this time Continental influence was streaming in
and softening the crust of traditional craftsmanship
that lay hardened in the studios of Murano. Thither
came Giovanni d'Alemagna, an adept of the Franco-
Flemish School, hailing from its last great outpost,
Cologne, and made an alliance with Antonio Vivarini.
The pictorial practice which resulted from their part-
nership was destined to oppose the innovations of Bel-
lini with a resistance rather of inertia than of principle;
and it survived long enough to addle in its shell the
gift of the last man of talent it affected, Lorenzo Lotto.

It is not easy to distinguish between Giovanni and
Antonio, and to allot to each his share of a given under-
taking, and harder still to put into words the shade of
difference we may end by perceiving. On the whole,
the more sentimental and smoother faces, the softer
modelling, the flatter colors, are Giovanni's, while the
harder heads, drier effects and more serious attempt at
drawing, are Antonio's. Antonio, however, survived
his partner for many years, and his paintings gradually
took on more of the character described. But as he in-
stantly called to his aid his younger brother, Barto-
lommeo (of which fact we are informed by the signa-

Mr. Horace Morison's in Boston, are not by Giambono, but quite certainly by
a contemporary painter from the Marches, probably from Ancona itself. He
is a firmer draughtsman, better painter and more magnificent colorist than the
fluffy Venetian. The Metropolitan Museum version has been a bone of con-
tention between Prof. Laudedeo Testi and Prof. L. Venturi {Rassegna d'Arte,
June, 1911; February, 1913). Prof. Venturi is wrong in calling it a forgery,
and Prof. Testi in believing it a Giambono, and in regarding the Padua
version as a copy after this panel, when, as a matter of fact, it is an inde-
pendent original by Giambono. I note that in the heat of controversy Prof.
Testi goes so far as to distort the name of Bryson Burroughs into Brepon
Burroaglio!

ture of the Bolognese Polyptych dated 1450, the very-
year of Giovanni's death), we must still remain on
the look-out. Happily, confusion between the two
brothers is easier to avoid, for we have ample means
of knowing Bartolommeo's independent manner; and
besides, this partnership does not seem to have lasted
more than ten years.

An important work executed probably by Giovanni
and Antonio together may be seen in the collection of
Mrs. Dr. Jacobs at Baltimore (Fig. 3). It is a Polyp-
tych in ten parts, on gold ground throughout. The
central composition represents St. Michael in the act of
striking down the Dragon. On each side are two
Saints in full length. Above the Michael we see the
Madonna and Child, and on each side two further
Saints, all these figures (excepting naturally the Child)
being little more than half length. It must have been,
when in better condition, a gracious and sumptuous
as well as a typical creation of the first Vivarini.
Michael has much of the personal beauty and decora-
tive value of contemporary Catalan painting, and I
should be inclined to regard it as more especially Gio-
vanni's work. And so, possibly, may be the figure with
the palm. All the others are more probably Antonio's.
A comparison with the Polyptych at Parenzo (in
Istria) dated 1440, and with the "Coronation" at S.
Pantaleone in Venice dated 1444, inclines one to assign
Mrs. Jacobs' work to the same period.

In the Walters collection, also at Baltimore, there
are two panels attributed to our earliest Muranese.
The "Madonna" is undoubtedly an independent work

of Antonio's. She sits on a flowered hillock, against a
gold ground, worshipping the Child lying in her lap.
The influence here is that of Gentile da Fabriano, and
the quality of the picture is not unworthy of that inspir-
ation. The action of the Child is rather better than in
Gentile, but both the drawing and the color are less
delicate. The other panel shows "St. Jerome" stand-
ing in his cardinal's robes against a patterned back-
ground. In one hand he holds a book, in the other a
church with a round bell-tower. It is a variant of a
figure relatively frequent in the paintings of the Viva-
rini, typical instances occurring in the S. Pantaleone
"Coronation," in the great Venice Academy Triptych
and in the S. Zaccaria Polyptych. It is to the St. Je-
rome in the last that Mr. Walters' figure comes nearest;
but his panel is of a color at once more saturated and
softer than I am acquainted with in the works of Gio-
vanni and Antonio da Murano. I have, therefore, a
certain hesitation in ascribing this impressive and at-
tractive panel to either painter. If it be by one of
them, that one is Giovanni.

To a later phase of Antonio's career belongs a full
length "St. Bernardino" in the possession of Mr. J. G.
Johnson of Philadelphia. Mere mention will suffice,
as I have said what I have to say about it in my Cata-
logue of the Italian Masters in that Collection.

Finally, there is a "Dead Christ" belonging to Mr.
D. F. Piatt of Englewood, N. J. He is seen against
the Cross, naked from the waist up, rising out of the
tomb, with His side and hands pierced. There is quiet
feeling here and depth. We may ascribe it, despite

obvious faults, to Antonio in his latest years, when he
painted the same subject at Osimo and at Bari. On the
other hand, I feel somewhat timid about accepting as
Antonio's the four panels published by Mr. F. M. Per-
kins in the Rassegna d'Arte of 1909 (p. 88). They
belong to Mr. Francis L. Bacon of New York, and rep-
resent "SS. Christopher, Nicholas, James and Antony."
As I am not acquainted with the originals, and as the
reproduction gives me no color and no clear informa-
tion as to condition, I can only say that the Nicholas
and Antony may have been painted by Antonio and
soon after 1440, but not the other Saints.

Ill
ANTONIO VIVARINI'S STUDIO

Compositions of a narrative character, both lay and
ecclesiastical, must have abounded in Venice before
1480. Yet by an unlucky chance few of any earlier
date have been preserved. All the more precious, con-
sequently, are the few that have come down to us, and
this alone should lead us to give some attention to three
such paintings in the Walters Collection1 (Figs. 4, 5,
6), even if they were intrinsically less interesting and
entertaining than they are. They have, moreover, this
additional importance that, since they are too large to
have been chest fronts, we may imagine them to have
formed the decorations of a room. They thus may

1 Published by A. Venturi in L'Arte, 1905, p. 225, and ascribed to the school
of Piero della Francesca.

claim to be a rarity, since, in this kind, little even of
Tuscan work has survived.

Unfortunately I am unable to interpret these pictures
and say what they illustrate. I lack the necessary
familiarity with the tales and romances which the later
Middle Ages echoed from the remote past of Greece
and Rome. And besides, it is not likely that the subject
was exhausted in these three panels. They may well
have formed part of a more numerous series in some
consecutive scheme of decoration. Even the fact that
one of them is two feet wider than the others, and may
therefore have occupied a central position, gives me no
clue.

Let us begin with this wider panel (Fig. 4) . In the
foreground of a landscape of rock and grove and wood,
we see, a little to the left, an arched temple of rather
Brunelleschian architecture. Within, on an elaborate
pedestal, stands the statue of a naked goddess with a
globe in her hand. Below are two priests, one of them
wearing a high Byzantine hat. Outside are a number
of ladies and gallants all meticulously dressed in the
finery and foppery fashionable toward 1470 or so:
shaved foreheads and bulging head-dresses for the wo-
men, curls and ringlets for the men, and sumptuous
brocades for all. The gallants, with mincing gait, are
trying first to induce and then to force the ladies to em-
bark with them in a ship anchored on the right whose
pennons bear the crescent moon. This emblem served,
in the Renaissance, to indicate the presence of people
who were regarded as outside the pale of Graeco-
Roman civilization, ancient or contemporary, of Bar-

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barians in the classic, or of Paynims in the Christian
world.

We may perhaps assume that the narrative is contin-
ued in the panel (Fig. 5) which shows a group of ladies
harangued by one of their number. Have they just
landed from the galleon in the offing, and is the fool in
motley celebrating the event, and are the gallants going
to lead them into the town of toy blocks we see to our
left? If so, then the third panel (Fig. 6) shows the
same ladies in the royal square of the town, with their
leader kneeling at the feet of a King, while his Queen
and her ladies look on.

The faces are so ugly and the drawing so indifferent,
that we may fail to do justice to these decorations. Yet
apart from the quaintness and amusing absurdity which
appeal to us but naturally were not apparent to contem-
poraries, these paintings have considerable qualities of
narration and of arrangement and grouping as well.
Evidently the painter revelled in brocades as much as
the people he worked for, and one of the ladies, the
one nearest the clown, has insisted on being portrayed
from the back so that her gorgeous costume should be
fully displayed. For us again, these paintings have the
further value of revealing the ideal of elegant and
stately existence entertained by Venetians of rank and
fashion during the earlier Renaissance.

I assume that these decorations are Venetian, but as
I first knew them many years ago passing for Cossa's,
and as they entered Mr. Walters' Collection as "School
of Fiorenzo di Lorenzo," a word to substantiate my at-
tribution may not be out of place.

I venture to believe that no one but an irresponsible
amateur journalist or dealer would think of connecting
these compositions with Fiorenzo, seeing they have
nothing in common but their date. The ascription to
Cossa, however, was not so senseless, for the ladies here
are ugly in a way that reminds one of the faces in the
Schifanoja frescoes at Ferrara. There is this differ-
ence, though, that in the Cossesque frescoes the ladies
are ugly with energy, with humor and even with charm,
while here they are ugly without alleviation or excuse.
Moreover, the women at the Schifanoja are drawn and
modeled with much vigor and mastery, while here the
heads and faces are the weakest part of the work.

What we do find to be the case with the faces of the
men as well as of the women in these panels, is that
they have the pinched anxious look of Antonio Vivarini
in his later years. The women, being ladies of fashion,
do not occur in his known paintings, for these are all
ecclesiastical, but the men may be found in the S. Zac-
caria Polyptychs, in that of 1464 from Pesaro now in
the Vatican, and even in the much earlier "Epiphany"
in Berlin, to cite conspicuous examples only. The
landscape with its spur-like hills occurs in the Berlin
picture too, and the bushes and flowers are notably like
those in any of Antonio's paintings. The strongest link
in the chain connecting these decorative compositions
with Antonio Vivarini is the architecture, with its tend-
ency to the close repetition of perpendicular elements,
whether arched or square-topped. How characteristic
they are of the earliest Vivarini will be recognized by
everyone who has in mind the S. Pantaleone "Corona-

tion," the Venice Academy Triptych, or, better still,
the Predelle in the Vienna Academy with the ''Story
of the Passion."

It would be tedious to carry my demonstration
further. I do not ascribe these paintings to Antonio
himself, because I find them a little too poor in drawing,
and there are such slight divergences in type as one
would expect in work designed by a master and executed
by his pupils.

The date is clearly determined by the costumes as
being about 1470.

IV
BARTOLOMMEO VIVARINI

Bartolommeo Vivarini's more incisive hand can be
distinguished in a number of elaborate polyptychs he
helped his elder brother, Antonio, to paint for Istria,
Dalmatia, the March of Ancona, and other lands ac-
cessible by sea. In his first independent work, the "St.
John of Capistrano" of the Louvre, signed and dated
1454, the line is as sharp and raw as if cut in leather.
It is as keen as Crivelli's, but without the rhythm. The
crisp swirls of the scroll quite definitely recall Carlo
Crivelli. We may indeed assume a contact between
the two artists, taking place at Padua, whither Barto-
lommeo must have gone to make acquaintance with the
innovations of Squarcione and his great pupils, Pizzolo
and Mantegna. We detect the result through the rest
of his career, not only in the obvious paraphernalia of
fruits and garlands and other properties of the Squar-

cione studio, but in a more earnest attempt at construc-
tion and modelling. For a time Bartolommeo must
have given fair promise, but after some fifteen years he
ossified his art into heavy stupid shapes, and into stereo-
typed arrangements, which then seem to have been car-
ried out with mechanical dulness by the workmen of his
factory.

Happily in America we can study the best that he
achieved during his promising years of growth. If
Mr. Piatt's "Madonna" (Fig. 7) is not Bartolommeo's
masterpiece, it is surpassed only by Mr. J. P. Morgan's
"Epiphany."

In Mr. Piatt's panel we see Our Lady seated" on a
marble throne, the back of which is hung with creased
watered silk and garlands of fruit and leaves. She is
as far away and immobile as a Madonna by Perugino,
and the over eager Child seems to be unable to attract
her attention, nor does she listen to the music of the
four attending infant angels. As workmanship, the
substance of this painting is almost like lacquer, and
the color is brilliant and pure. Not these qualities
alone remind us of Crivelli, but also the arrangement,
the accessories and the details. On the other hand, the
Virgin's face and the Child's action are still close to
those in the Arbe polyptych which Bartolommeo
painted with Antonio in 1458. Mr. Piatt's picture is
thus very likely one of the earliest quite independent
works by Bartolommeo which has come down to us.1

1 Mr. F. Mason Perkins was the first to recognize the author and the quality
of this "Madonna." He published it on two separate occasions (Rassegna
d'Arte, 1908, p. 145, and 191 1, p. 146).

Fig. 7. Bartolommeo Vivarini : Madonna.

Collection of Mr. Dan Fellowes Piatt, Englewood, N. J.

Fig. 8. Bartolommeo Vivarini: The Epiphany.

Collection of Mr. J. P. Morgan, New York.

Mr. Morgan's small "Epiphany" (Fig. 8) expresses,
more completely than most other treatments of that
subject, the mingled hilariousness and solemnity which
to this day in Italy gives that festival the character of
a Northern Christmas. The Child turns to His
mother as if frightened by the attentions of the gray-
beard King prostrate at His feet. The youngest of the
Three Kings looks on with dramatic interest equally
ready to worship or to give way to repressed joviality,
while the train of horsemen and pages in the middle
distance is approaching merrily. In the background
a great spur of a cliff dominates a snug inlet, on the
other side of which rise the quadrangular palaces and
towers of a stately town. In the limpid sky we see a
choir of nude baby angels singing with music scrolls
unfurled before them.

The workmanship is of the highest quality attained
by Bartolommeo. The line, although biting, is yet so
softened by the color as to be devoid of harshness. The
color, for which the sumptuous apparel of the Three
Kings gives full scope, is bright and lucid, yet fused.
The effect is of enamel or lacquer. The arrangement
in height is agreeable and not interrupted, as it might
easily have been, by the pillars of the porch. The
action is never again, in Bartolommeo's known works,
so dramatic or so vital.

Indeed, this delightful painting was a great surprise
to all of us, for it was quite unknown when it appeared
several years ago at the Abdy Sale in London.1 It has
not only greatly enlarged and enhanced our notion of

1 First recognized by Sir Claude Phillips.

Bartolommeo's artistic personality, but given us the
means of judging the influence he received and exerted.
Thus, the landscape and the figures in the background
betray contact with Jacopo Bellini. On the other
hand, there is no certain trace of Mantegna. The Vir-
gin's homely face seems a study from the living model,
presented as it was seen, without schematization.
Nothing is perhaps rarer in the art of Italy at that time.
It is a face which was copied more than once by Barto-
lommeo's followers, notably in a "Madonna" in the
Venice Academy (No. 616), ascribed to the master
himself. The rectilinear solid masses of building and
the rich cornices we now can recognize as his, and they
are of no small aid in our efforts to classify the Vene-
tian paintings of the third quarter of the fifteenth cen-
tury.

A brief note taken so long ago as 1894 — since when
I have not seen the picture again — refers to the "Mag-
dalen" then at Mr. Quincy Shaw's in Boston as being
of a quality equal almost to Crivelli's; and that is still
the impression left in my memory.

A mere mention will here suffice for the two remark-
ably fine and strenuous full-length figures of "SS.
James and Francis" in the possession of Mr. Johnson.
They are discussed and reproduced in my Catalogue of
his collection; and we may pass on, therefore, to a pic-
ture (Fig. 9) in the collection of the late Mr. Theodore
M. Davis, of Newport, R. I., which closes Bartolom-
meo's golden period. The Madonna, seen between
a parapet and a red curtain, holds the Child uneasily
seated on a white cushion. He looks out of the picture

Fig. 9. Bartolommeo Vivarini : Madonna.
Collection of the late Mr. Theodore M. Davis, Newport, R. I.

eagerly and restlessly, and His Mother gazes at Him
forbodingly from half-closed eyes. There is a pathos
here which is characteristic of the seventh and eighth
decades of the fifteenth century in Venice, as may be
seen in the Madonnas by Giovanni Bellini of these
years, although modified, in him, by the restraint of a
great master. It is far removed from the meditative
placidity of Bartolommeo's earliest Madonnas such as
Mr. Piatt's, and the reason for its sudden appearance
would be worthy of study.

As a painting in the more specific sense, this panel
would deserve to rank not only with its author's best but
with the best Venetian work of the time, if its condition
did not rob it of most of its virtue. Even the signature
has been tampered with, and the date .may be read as
either 1472 or 1477. Either date might be correct, for
the type and the spirit is in accord with other works
of this period, both by Bartolommeo Vivarini and by
Giovanni Bellini. And it is scarcely to be doubted that
in these years Bartolommeo was following close upon
Bellini, as indeed the Child in this picture manifests
so unmistakably.1

From about 1480 till the end of his career Bartolom-
meo's own art became so dull and his studio so prolific
that it is hard to tell whether a given work is autograph
or not. It does not matter greatly, I confess. Thus,
whether a "Madonna" in Mr. Johnson's Collection,
dating from the eighties, and another in the Fogg

1 First published by Mr. Joseph Breck in the Rassegna d'Arte (1911, p. m),
in the course of an excellent article on the collection of Mr. Davis. I knew
the picture years before in the hands of the dealer who reduced it to its
present devitalized condition.

Museum of Cambridge of earlier date,1 were painted
as well as designed by Bartolommeo, may be left an
open question. Such, however, is not the case with the
elaborate polyptych surrounding a carved Pieta dated
1485, and signed as these articles for export generally
were, with the "FACTVM VENETIIS PER BAR-
TOLOMEUM," etc., which is in the Boston Museum
of Fine Arts. It is obviously a factory work, but, for a
factory work, not a bad one. Discreetly lighted in the
incense-laden atmosphere of a harmoniously colored
chapel, it must have been effective.2

CRIVELLI'S MADONNAS

In Carlo Crivelli the Byzantine painting of the West
reached its culmination and fullest fruition, Crivelli
no doubt owed much to the Paduans, but his gorgeous
polyptychs, filled with a sensuous splendor of decora-
tive detail, suggesting the iconostaseis of Greek
churches, are still in essence mediaeval Greek. There
is, however, in his art a quality of genius which the
Byzantine world never produced, and, without Renais-
sance leaven, probably never could have produced.
The stirring of the Quattrocento spirit, which in Flor-

1 It is probably a studio version of an original in the museum of Sassari
(Photo. Alinari 32687).

2 As this is going through the press I hear that Mr. Philip Lehman of
New York has acquired Lord Wemys' Madonna with the "Annunciation,"
"Nativity," and "Pieta." It is a welcome addition to our Vivarinis al-
though it does not come up to either Mr. Piatt's "Madonna," or Mr. Mor-
gan's "Epiphany." It must have been painted toward the end of Bar-
tolommeo's early period.

Fig. 10. Carlo Crivelli : Madonna Enthron*^'

Collection of Mr. Philip Lehman, New York.

ence, and under the influence of Florence, was so pro-
lific, produced, when in union with Eastern methods
and traditions, no signal offspring but Crivelli.

Fortunately he is represented in our collections by
works not only of the best quality but of the largest
variety. Many phases of his style may be studied with-
out leaving America.

The earliest example is the "Enthroned Madonna" 1
in the collection of Mr. Philip Lehman of New York.
(Figure 10.) It happens to be at the same time the
most sumptuous and the most magnificent. Indeed,
if other works of his earlier years equal or surpass this
gorgeous figure in vitality of contour and plasticity of
planes, none even approaches it for decorative splen-
dor. Therein it anticipates his maturest masterpieces.

It need scarcely be pointed out to the student for
whom I am writing how Muranese the throne in this
picture is, nor how the artist's evident joy in painting
garlands and his zest in solving puzzles of perspective
is related to the Paduan school of Squarcione. Not less
apparent is the Byzantine influence in the pattern of
the Virgin's entire silhouette and in her draperies ; most
of all, in the lower part.

The task remains to place this masterpiece among
its next of kin in Crivelli's career. In design it stands
closest to the more tentative "Madonna" in the Cook
Collection at Richmond, which I should date 1469,
but in every other respect it marks a more mature style.
The Child, for instance, is less pinched and anxious-

1 Published by R. E. Fry, Burlington Magazine, XXII, p. 308, and by F. J.
Mather, Jr., Art in America, I, p. 48.

looking than He is there, or in the earlier Massa
polyptych, or the still earlier Verona panel. On the
other hand, His movement is not so free and alive as
in the Macerata "Madonna" of 1470, or Mr. Robert
Benson's of 1472, or in the "Madonna" probably of the
same year at Brussels. The Virgin in the Ascoli
Polyptych dated 1473 stands very close to this one. The
picture is thus related to works whose dates spread over
four years or so, and this is not unnatural, since, as a
matter of fact, few artists pursue a course like a straight
line never turning. Most oscillate slightly back and
forwards, or even progress spirally, as it were, so that
it is never safe to take one detail as proof of a fixed date.
In this case, the balance of evidence seems to put Mr.
Lehman's picture just before the Macerata Madonna,
whom she so closely resembles in facial type, and would
thus place it as the first of a series marking Crivelli's
earliest maturity.

With the "Madonna" of 1476 in the lately recon-
stituted polyptych of the National Gallery 1 began a
more definitely ripe phase of Crivelli's art, lasting till
the Brera triptych of 1482. It is characterized by
greater facility with a scarcely noticeable loss of
poignancy, and one begins to meet with a certain minc-
ingness and the first signs of the forced yet charming
mannerism of his later years, the consequence, for good
or evil, of his provincial environment. The most
dainty and attractive work of this period is the exquisite

1 It is conceded that the uppermost tier never belonged to the rest. The
St. Catherine looks like a figure of much later date, close to the same saint
at Berlin.

Fig. ii. Carlo Crivelli : Madonna with SS. Francis and

and Donor.

Collection of Mr. Henry Walters, Baltimore.

Northbrook "Madonna." It is a phase unrepresented
in America.

A fourth period begins with the Brera triptych just
mentioned, and ends with the Berlin Altarpiece, not
dated, but painted just before 1490. In these years
Crivelli gets more and more sumptuous, more gorgeous,
more magnificent. He has greater recourse to emboss-
ing in the striving for effects germane to the arts of
ornamentation rather than of decoration. The manner-
isms in pose and expression increase, and a slight list-
lessness begins to enfeeble his hand.

To this moment of his art belongs the panel (Fig.
11) in the collection of Mr. Walters. The Madonna
appears in an arch in front of a curtained niche; she
supports the Child on an embroidered cushion on the
parapet. St. Francis is on the one side and St. Bernar-
dino on the other. On the parapet we discover the
miniature figure of the Donor, a Friar whose initials
"F. B. D. A." may have stood for Frate Bernardino, or
Benedetto da Ascoli, or Amandola, or Ancona.

It is a delightful work of soft but rich color and
lacquer-like effect. The feeling is still delicate in the
Virgin's face, but in St. Francis it is over-externalized,
and started already on the easy road that led to Guido
Reni. In the modelling, too, there is a relative empti-
ness. The closest affinities of this work are with the
South Kensington and Bergamo "Madonnas" and the
great Berlin altarpiece. It must have been painted
toward 1488.

The pleasant enough but somewhat empty panels of
the Metropolitan Museum, portraying a combative

"St. Dominic" and an operatic "St. George," illustrate
this phase of Crivelli's career; while to the end of the
period belongs a very different "St. George" (Fig. 12),
the marvellous fairy-tale in gold and lacquer and flam-
ing line, holding a place of honor among Mrs. J. L.
Gardner's masterpieces. Here is not an attitudiniz-
ing page-boy, but the ever youthful defender of eternal
right against regardless might. His face of beauty and
passion and his slim body are outlined against the
golden sky, while he bestrides a gorgeously caparisoned
steed, himself in shining armor that can never lose
the purity of its luster. He is now hacking away at
the Dragon, already transfixed by his lance. The
young knight, too, is nearly spent, but his victory is
sure. Under the bastion towers of the undevastated
city kneels in prayer the Princess for whom he is fight-
ing. Stately trees stand dark against the sky. What
a pattern — and what an allegory!

CRIVELLI PIETAS

Mr. Babbott's "St. James," * an eager, gnarled,
apostolic figure, takes us back to the earlier years
of Crivelli's career, toward 1473 or 1474; and to the
same period, or indeed a trifle earlier, belongs the first
of the three Pietas by him that we own in America.
It is the heartfelt tender picture at Mr. J. G. Johnson's,
which for reasons detailed in the Catalogue of the col-

1 Mr. F. L. Babbott of Brooklyn. This picture is reproduced in the Ras-
segna d'Arte for 1911 (p. 207).

Fig. 12. Carlo Crivelli St. George and the DragOn^

Collection of Mrs. John Lowell Gardner. Boston.

Fig. 13. Carlo Crivelli : Pieta.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

lection I would place no later than 1473.1 Twelve
years after this, during the time when Crivelli had at-
tained his greatest mastery and was more than ever
magnificently ornate in his accessories, he painted the
most original of all his treatments of this sublime sub-
ject, the famous Pieta of 1485, which years ago passed
from the Panciatichi Collection in Florence to the Mu-
seum of Boston.

In this panel Our Lord is not seen as in the others,
settled into the tomb while supported by bystanders.
Here His entire figure — a nude, by the way, not un-
worthy of Signorelli — is still visible, and the consequent
action is more dynamic, while the arrangement admi-
rably helps on the impression of upward-lifted weight.

The Crawshay Pieta (Fig. 13), recently acquired by
the Metropolitan Museum, is a compacter work of more
relaxed feeling, although the action of Our Lord's
Mother is passionate enough. But the Saviour of this
Pieta, like the one in the still later Vatican version, is
as calm and noble in His bodily sleep as the Dead
Christs of Bellini. Crivelli's "Annunciation" of i486
would make one suspect that, just before painting it,
he had paid a flying visit to Venice, his old home.
Could we be sure of this, it would account for the un-
usually Bellinesque feeling.

1 Reproduced there as well as in Prof. A. Venturi's compendious history of
Italian Art (Vol. VII, part IV, p. 393). The same volume contains repro-
ductions of nearly all the Crivellis mentioned here.

VII

VICTOR CRIVELLI

No example is known to me in American collec-
tions of Crivelli's last phase, occupying the four
years between 1489 and his death in 1493, and charac-
terized by a more somber splendor of aspect, and by an
increased mincingness and affectation in pose and ex-
pression, as may be seen in typical works in London and
Milan. Of his later style, his well-known pupils and
followers, Victor Crivelli and Pietro Alemanno, were
the natural heirs; and, as is frequently the case with
disciples, they at times anticipated and always outdid
their master's exaggerations. Victor, the better work-
man, was the most prolific, producing flattened and
lusterless imitations of his namesake's masterpieces. In-
trinsically they are agreeable. Pietro was unequal, and
his better moments revealed a painter who was almost
an artist.

I have not come across anything in America that can
be ascribed to Pietro Alemanno. Victor, on the other
hand, is represented by several specimens, including one
that may rank with his best. This is a polyptych in the
Wilstach Gallery at Philadelphia.1 In the central
panel, dated 1489, we see Our Lady holding the Child
standing on her knee, while four Angels adore Him.
In the side panels stand SS. Louis and Francis, the
Baptist and St. Bonaventura. Of nearly the same value
are two figures, a "Baptist" and a "Bishop," in the

1 Published by F. M. Perkins in Rassegna d'Arte, 1908, p. 120.

Fig. 14. Jacopo Bellini (?) : St. jERoli*i{£
Collection of Mr. Augustus Healy, Brooklyn, N. Y.

Walters Collection. The small bust of a youthful
''Franciscan Friar Reading," ascribed in the Metro-
politan Museum to Niccolo da Foligno, is earlier and
more subtle than the others.

The full-length figure of a bony and parched "Bap-
tist" in the Walters Collection is by still another fol-
lower of Crivelli, who elsewhere has signed himself
"Nicola di Maestro Antonio de Ancona." The at-
tribution to Verrocchio is no doubt a tribute to the
structure, drawing and modelling, which are perhaps
more suggestive of Florence than of the Marches. It
would take me too far away to relate this panel to other
works by the same hand. I shall do this elsewhere.1

VIII

JACOPO BELLINI

Before concluding this chapter in which we have
studied the painting of Venice in its waning phases
of Byzantinism finally diminished, in Bartolommeo
Vivarini and Crivelli, to an influence rather than to
an obvious manifestation, we must turn back to a pic-
ture which it was not convenient to discuss earlier, a
full length "St. Jerome" (Fig. 14) belonging to Mr.
Augustus Healy of Brooklyn, New York.

I saw it for but a minute at the end of a fatiguing
day, and although impressed by the vigour of the con-
ception and the great beauty of the cardinal's red robes,
my tired brain grasped only its obvious resemblance to

1Rassegna d'Arte, Aug., 1915, and my forthcoming "Study and Criticism
of Italian Art," 4th series.

Antonio Vivarini. Directly I received a photograph,
I perceived that this virile prelate had nothing of the
senility that always enfeebles Antonio's conception of
St. Jerome, that the lion was closer to nature and far
more alive than his, and that the draperies, instead of
his caligraphic arrangements, displayed a real and fruit-
ful interest in the logic of structure.

Adding to these observations my recollection of the
strong yet harmonious colour, I quickly was led to won-
der whether Jacopo Bellini was not the author of this
in its kind splendid achievement. I am inclined to
think that he was.

I fear, however, that I scarcely can offer satisfactory
demonstration, for Jacopo's undisputed paintings are
few, and we know little of his chronology. All I can
say is that these paintings, supplementing the wider in-
formation extended by his two sketch-books and scat-
tered drawings, leave on my mind the impression of an
artistic personality which in its most advanced moments
could have designed and executed this picture. I dis-
cover nothing in it which he might not have done. The
ear, the hands might be his, and the lion reminds me of
his drawings. The draperies are somewhat more func-
tional than in any of his extant works, but Jacopo might
easily in his last years have attained to them.

I feel confirmed in the belief that Jacopo Bellini may
have created this picture by the fact that, although
Venetian, it cannot be attributed to any other known
artist of Venice. Only the transitional ones, those un-
touched by the Squarcionesque movement, are in ques-
tion, and of them not one could have done it: neither

Jacobello, nor Giambono, nor Francesco de Franceschi,
nor Negroponte, nor Giovanni or Antonio da Murano.
It may be argued that it is by still another quite for-
gotten man. To me, however, it seems improbable that
an artist of such worth would have been so forgotten.
It is easier to believe that Jacopo painted it as part of
some gorgeous polyptych long since scattered.

CHAPTER II

ANTONELLO DA MESSINA AND HIS IMITATORS

WE have now dealt with that branch of Venetian
painting which clung to Byzantine craftsman-
ship even after it had deserted the more obvious char-
teristics of Byzantine art. But before we proceed to
study the main current of Quattrocento painting in
Venice — almost wholly derived, as it was, from Conti-
nental Italian sources — it will be convenient to give our
attention to an infiltration from Sicily, which had, ac-
cording to early contemporary accounts, no small effect
upon the art of the Island City. Unfortunately it is
not easy to measure this influence now. The epoch-
making masterpieces that Antonello da Messina left in
Venice have disappeared, and with them the chief docu-
ments for the study of the changes, amounting almost to
a revolution, that were traced to his visit. It would
be extremely interesting to take the one course remain-
ing open and to examine minutely the residuum that
is left over in Venetian painting after all that the Vi-
varini and the Bellini contributed had been deducted,
and to compare this residuum with the indisputable
works of Antonello and his pupils and followers. The
solution of few problems in Italian art would contribute

i $

Fig. 15. Axtoxello da Messina : Portrait of a Young Man.

Collection of Mr. John G. Johnson, Philadelphia.

more illuminating results, provided it were undertaken
by a scholar of long experience, armed with inexhausti-
ble patience and endless leisure.

But we are not at this juncture called upon to
be put to the proof. Our humbler task is to study the
pictures of the great Sicilian master that have come over
to America, as well as those of his pupils and followers
and obvious imitators, whether Sicilian, Venetian or
South Italian.

JOHNSON AND ALTMAN PORTRAITS

Antonello himself is represented in America by two
busts, one in the Johnson and the other in the Altman
Collection. Mr. John G. Johnson's "Portrait" (Fig.
15) is already well known. It represents a full-fleshed,
broad-faced, smooth-shaven young man, with strong
nose and sensitive, sensual, determined mouth, who
looks out at us with agreeable curiosity, and does not
resent being looked at in return. But, as in nearly all
the portraiture of the Quattrocento — as, indeed, in
nearly all great portraiture of any time — the sitter here
makes no appeal for admiration or sympathy. He is
there for you to study; and if he has secrets, he is not
secretive; pay out line enough to plumb him, and he
will not seek to elude you.

So much for the human presentment. Plastically,
the planes could scarcely be larger and simpler, or the
contour more supple. With the drapery falling down
from the folded cloth cap, Antonello produces the effect

of conical mass which he constantly strove for, and
realized so impressively in Mr. Robert Benson's "Ma-
donna" and in the "Virgin Annunciate" at Munich.
Indeed, all that is most characteristic of the great Sicil-
ian, in his brief years of complete realization, is amply
revealed by this powerful head.

The Altman "Portrait" (Fig. 16) is perhaps more at-
tractive. It is of a youth with a Luinesque face and a
look and smile saved from being like Luini's by the
sobriety and self-restraint of the painter. It is probably
only the resistance a pretty face like this opposes to ar-
tistic values that accounts for the slight inferiority of
this painting to Mr. Johnson's picture.

As it is less well known, it may not be amiss to place
it in line with Antonello's other works. The nose is
drawn and modelled as in the Louvre and Borghese
"Heads," and the mouth as in the Cefalu "Portrait,"
the Benson "Madonna" and the Munich "Virgin An-
nunciate." The likeness in contour and plastic treat-
ment to the Johnson "Head" need not be insisted on.
From all these indications, we can be fairly certain that
the Altman "Portrait" dates from Antonello's maturest
period. We get further support for this view from the
closer resemblance in the hair to the so-called "Hu-
manist" of the Milan Castello (certainly a late pic-
ture) than to any other of Antonello's portraits, as well
as from the curious Luinesque aspect of the sitter. Is
it too fanciful to suppose that this pretty type of face
really existed in the Milan of that time, before Leon-
ardo went there, and before Luini was born? If the
youth were Milanese, then we could assume that he

Fig. 16. Antonello da Messina : Portrait of a Young

Altman Bequest, Metropolitan Museum, New York.

sat for Antonello during the artist's sojourn in Milan
in 1476.

II
MR. FRICK'S PIETA NOT BY ANTONELLO

Antonello, while great in portraiture, was no less
great in composition. Much as we admire his heads,
we admire even more such subjects as the Syracuse
"Annunciation," the Antwerp "Crucifixion," the Correr
"Pieta" and the National Gallery "St. Jerome." Like
the portraits, they hold the attention by the inexhausti-
ble stimulus of the essential art values, and they add
to these, symphonic effects of orchestration, as it were,
that relax and repose. Fortunate should we be if one of
these rare treasures were to be enjoyed on this side of
the Atlantic. But it is not the case. The one composi-
tion ascribed to him, Mr. Frick's "Pieta" (Fig. 17)
(sometime exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum), is
not by him or by any other Italian. It is almost cer-
tainly, as MM. Hulin and Vitry declared years ago,1 by
a Provencal painter. Seeing, however, that Mr.
Frick's picture has slipped into the new Murray edi-
tion of Crowe and Cavalcaselle as by Antonello, so that
the authority of that time-honoured but seldom trust-
worthy guide may impose upon students, it will be worth
while to discuss the attribution here.

Let us, to begin with, make ample acknowledgment

1 Hulin in "Catalogue Critique" of Bruges Exhibition, 1902 (No. 32, p. 9).
Vitry in Les Arts, April, 1904, p. 42. In the catalogue of the "Primitifs
Frangais" exhibition of 1904 (p. 40, No. 84), Bouchot wrote that it might be
the work of a Fleming painting at the foot of the Alps.

to the fascination of this "Pieta" It has a poetry and a
pathos, a restraint and a distinction that place it among
the masterpieces of imaginative art. The painter,
knowing the emotional effect produced by a silhouetted
horizon seen at a certain distance, has used it as an en-
veloping background for the dominant masses. Behind
these he places huddled and hushed figures that add
to the sense of awe and suspense. The shaft of the cen-
tral Cross commands the horizon, its mysterious in-
completeness accentuating the touching humanity of
the Magdalen fondling the hair thrown back from the
head of the dead Christ, and the other crouching Mary
sobbing in her close-wrapped cloak. The great sheet
that extends under the folds of His Mother's mantle
carries and unites all the figures, except that of the
kneeling Donor, who remains of purpose outside the
group as a piteous and devout spectator. No doubt
there is an insistent though vague perfume of Venice
in this picture. Close analysis reduces it, in so far as
it can be given definite form, to something as little as
the evocation, in the figure of the Magdalen, of the
Blessed Virgin in Bellini's great Brera "Pieta." True,
the masterly combination of figures, buildings and land-
scape to produce a definite emotional appeal is very
Venetian, although of a later date than the probable
one of this picture, for it only comes to completion with
Giorgione.

It was a tradition to think of Antonello da Messina
directly we felt a something Venetian in a Quattrocento
work of Northern character; but how much that is
specifically and solely Antonello's does the Frick

"Pieta" contain? The answer is "Nothing at all," and
I will now attempt to justify this answer.

In the first place, Antonello was not an imaginative
artist. As was the case with Piero della Francesca and
Velasquez, his greatness consisted in presenting objects
more directly, more penetratingly, more connectedly
and more completely than we could see them for our-
selves, and not in making a dramatic or moving ar-
rangement of his vision that might make a further ap-
peal to our emotions. He was more bent upon extract-
ing the corporeal than the spiritual significance of
things, and while he at times, and not very successfully
(as in the "Ecce Homo" at Piacenza, and the other in
Baron Schickler's Collection), attempted to portray the
emotion of others, he invariably refrained from convey-
ing his own or trying directly to affect ours. Call to
mind, his Antwerp "Crucifixion." The crucified fig-
ures to right and left, although suggested by Franco-
Flemish models intended to evoke a strong emotional
response, have in his hands become the occasion for the
painting of firm, supple, youthful nudes in attitudes
singularly suited to display tactile values and movement.
The Mother of Our Lord and the Beloved Disciple ap-
peal for no sympathy in their grief. Our Lord on the
Cross has none of the tender and exquisite pathos of Mr.
Frick's Dead Christ. The landscape does not transport
us, but rather, like all objective works of art, unobtru-
sively draws us into itself. And, with differences, the
same is true of the London "Crucifixion," and even of
the ruined but sublimely designed "Pieta" in the Correr
Museum at Venice.

In other terms, the music of Mr. Frick's picture is
more equivalent to Beethoven than to Bach. Closer
analysis makes the distinction clearer. In Antonello
the feeling for tactile values is almost at its highest,
while in this work it is indifferent and far inferior to
the imaginative conception. It is almost absurd to
think of Antonello in the presence of such dubious draw-
ing and petty planes as we find in the faces here, the
Madonna's in particular. It is no less difficult to recog-
nize in the stiff, dry nude, with its trivial realism and
ugly extremities, the Antonello who painted the almost
classically plastic "St. Sebastians" at Dresden and Ber-
gamo, or the crucified figures at Antwerp. Further-
more, in no period of his career as it is known to us was
Antonello so Northern, not even in his National Gallery
"Head of Christ," his earliest extant work which he no
doubt copied from a design by Rogier de la Pasture.
There, he is as Flemish in technique as he is in type, but
the plastic sense and the touch remain Italian — italian-
issimo.

Nor is the detail in Mr. Frick's panel specifically An-
tonellesque, nor, even, in the last analysis, Italian. The
folds of the sheet and of the Virgin's mantle come near-
est to Antonello, but how unfunctional they are com-
pared with his. The superficial likeness is due to the
fact that both artists have taken their system of draper-
ies from common Northern tradition; but Antonello
never fails to Italianize them and to impart to them the
quality of his firm, purposeful drawing. The pendent
figures upon the crosses may be accounted for by the
same common traditional origin. The huddled weep-

ing woman, on the other hand, is surely a daughter of
some Burgundian pleureuse, and the mountain land-
scape I have seen in many a picture in the Southeast of
France. As for the town, with its steep, Gothic church,
I cannot believe an unprejudiced and instructed eye
would see in it an Italian invention.

And yet, this masterpiece of imaginative art does
undeniably exhale a perfume of Italy. Such Italian-
ism was not infrequent in Provence and the Nicois.
How Sienese and close to Sassetta was Jacques
Durandi, and how reminiscent of Venice was the later
and inferior Antoine Ronzen. So everything brings us
back to the conclusion already arrived at by M. Hulin
and M. Vitry, than whom Flemish and French Quat-
trocento paintings have no more able students. They
rightly pointed to a "Nativity with Bishop and Donor"
at Avignon as a work of closely similar origin.1

Ill

MR. WALTERS' FEMALE HEAD

I suspect that a picture like Mr. Frick's would never
have been attributed to Antonello if it had not been the
common assumption that he was all but a Fleming who
happened to be working in Italy. And it is to be feared
that such errors will keep reappearing until the exact
origins of Antonello and his entire chronology can be
firmly established. Documents found in Sicily have

1 See Les Arts, April, 1904, p. 37. There, on the two next pages but one,
are reproduced two French "Pietas" which have significant points of contact
with Mr. Frick's.

already aided us unexpectedly with most important in-
formation ; saving us also from a cataract of misinforma-
tion just then poured out by other documents found at
Venice. Although obviously not applicable, the latter,
had they been taken at their first valuation and not rele-
gated to their proper place by other information, would
have thwarted all efforts to set the Antonello problem
straight.1 Sicilian scholars may again succeed in dis-
covering archives which will still further help us out.
Much, too, may be expected from a more systematic
study than has yet been made of Sicilian painting during
the whole of the fifteenth century. And, as this, like
all South Italian painting, was subjected to Aragonese
influence, we may hope to get considerable assistance
from the study of Catalonian painting, as well as the
painting of Sardinia, which it so largely influenced,
and of Provencal art, to which it was so closely related.

A picture of the kind (Fig. 18) which may ultimately
serve such studies is to be seen in Mr. Walters' Collec-
tion at Baltimore. It is the bust of a thoughtful young
woman — perhaps of one just deceased — represented as a
female saint intent upon her prayer-book. Two angels
hold a jewelled crown over her blond head, and this
crown is filled with roses. The colouring is rich, satu-
rated and harmonious, with something of the juiciness
of a Van Eyck.

Fortunately, another picture by the same hand is in
existence, and one that helps to explain their origin. It

*La Corte-Cailler, "Antonello da Messina," 1903. Di Marzo, "Di An-
tonello da Messina," etc., 1903; "Nuovi Studi su Antonello, 1905" Dr. Lud-
wig, "Antonello da Messina und deutsche niederlandische Kunstler in
Venedig," 1902.

jOSTQ^
DSLIC

Fig. 18. Palermitan Follower of Antonello da Messina : Portrait
of a Lady Represented as St. Rosalie of Palermo.

Collection of Mr. Henry Walters, Baltimore.

ig. Palermitan Follower of Antonello da Messina : Madoni
and Child.
Salting Bequest, National Gallery, London.

is a "Madonna" (Fig. 19) that passed with the Salting
Collection to the National Gallery. Here we have a
much more massive, more powerful human type, but
in other respects the two pictures are as close to each
other as possible while remaining independent creations.
As both are here reproduced, I shall not insult the
student's intelligence by insisting on the identity of pic-
torial purpose and craftsmanship in both. They betray
the spirit and handiwork of a painter of solid attain-
ments and vigorous grasp, reinforced, perhaps, by a cer-
tain provincial self-sufficiency.

When the Salting picture first appeared, its mixture
of Italian and Flemish traits, and its somewhat rustic
heartiness led many critics to regard it as by a Catalan,
and a Catalan working in Sicily. Since the rediscovery
of Antonello's "Annunciation" (now at Syracuse) and
the publication of Mr. Benson's "Madonna" by Mr. Bo-
renius as a work of Jacopo, Antonello's son, and by my-
self as Antonello da Messina's own1 there can be no fur-
ther question that the Salting "Madonna" was painted
in Sicily by some one, no matter from whence, who was
acquainted with the work of Antonello. For not only
in conception, but in treatment as well, we see the close
relationship with the great master, and with the Benson
"Madonna" in particular.

The Walters picture would seem the later of the two
by a short interval, for it is at once less frankly "primi-
tive" and farther away from Antonello. The fact that

xRassegna d'Arte, June, 1912; Gazette des Beaux Arts, March, 1913, re-
printed in "Study and Criticism of Italian Art," Third Series. See also Mr.
Benson's admirable catalogue of his own collection.

it represents a saint whom angels are crowning with
roses,1 intended probably to be St. Rosalie, the Patroness
of Palermo, makes it likely that the painter was con-
nected with that capital. The technique, too, with its
richer medium, leads one to a school closer to Catalonia
than was Messina, and thus again to Palermo. The
author of this and the Salting panel was probably an
artist of that town who, in these two works, shows close
contact with Antonello. For the present we can say no
more. But, as no other of Antonello's Sicilian fol-
lowers has anything like the vigour and accomplishment
displayed by this artist, it were highly desirable to know
more about him. It is a wish that can be realized only
by discovering further works by the same hand.2

ANTONIO DE SALIBA: MR. WINTHROP'S MADONNA

1 am not acquainted with any other painting which,
while certainly not by Antonello, comes as close to him
as the small "Madonna Enthroned" (Fig. 20) belonging
to Mr. Grenville Winthrop of New York. She sits in
the foreground of a park-like landscape, on a spacious
throne decorated with sphinxes, and holds little flowers
on the flat palm of her hand. The Child on her knee
pays no attention to her offering, but blesses with His
right hand.

!The whole motif is taken over from Antonello's "Madonna" of 1473 at
Messina, and this head may represent a "Virgin Annunciate" crowned with
roses. It is a most unlikely but not an impossible subject.

2 In the collection of Mr. John G. Johnson there is a "Madonna" (No. 161)
by an unknown Sicilian master who resembles Antonio da Palermo.

CJ5L

Fig. 20. Antonio de Saliba (?): Madonna Enthroned.
Collection of Mr. Grenville L. Winthrop, New York,

The proximity of the figure to Antonello's "Ma-
donna" of 1473 is evident. The Virgin's open hand,
the silhouette of the spreading folds, the platform itself
— although less simple, less stiff, if you will — were, in
the one, obviously suggested by the other. Her halo
has the minute particularities of the halo of "St.
Gregory" out of the same Polyptych. The Child, on
the other hand, although partaking of the same action,
is closer to the one in the Antonellesque "Madonna" x at
Vienna, or to the odiously affected one in Jacopo d' An-
tonello's "Madonna" at Bergamo.

Although reminiscent of the "Madonna" of 1473, Mr.
Winthrop's is clearly of somewhat later date. Except
very faintly, in the shape of the platform, there is no
trace of Gothic in the architectural forms, which, on the

1This important work (Imperial Gallery, No. 89) was ascribed by me
twenty-five years ago to Boccaccio Boccaccino. When publishing the "North
Italian Painters," I inserted it with a question mark into the list of the
"Pseudo-Boccaccino's" paintings. Soon afterwards I turned back, for the
first time in twenty years, to the systematic and continuous study of the
Venetians, and I perceived that this picture was intimately related to An-
tonello. As it was in lamentable condition, and had, indeed, been cut down
even since it was copied by Teniers, I made every effort, before pronouncing
an opinion upon it, to have it properly restored ; but I fear that this may not
be done soon under the present unfortunate circumstances. I may as well
confess here and now to a faint hope that a picture which produces in ruin
such an impression, and which entered the collection of the Archduke Leopold
as a Bellini, i. e., as a Quattrocento picture from Venice of great value, may
turn out to be a fragment of Antonello's famous S. Cassiano Altarpiece.
Only the most serious students of Italian art can appreciate what a chasm
the disappearance of that epoch-making work made in our history of Vene-
tian painting, and how invaluable any attempt to fill it would be. Mean-
while Dr. Borenius published, in May, 1913, in the Burlington Magazine, his
own independent conclusions regarding the Vienna picture, pointing out its
probable affinities with Antonello's lost masterpiece.

When the above paragraph was already in print I had word from Dr.
Gluck, the director of the Vienna picture gallery, that the restoration had
been made. It would take too long to discuss the results here. They will
be found in the third series of my "Study and Criticism of Italian Art."

contrary, are elaborately Renaissance. The folds have
lost their Flemish angularity and are rounder. The
kerchief is worn as in Mr. Walters' "St. Rosalie" and
its companion "Madonna" in the National Gallery.

We thus have in Mr. Winthrop's "Madonna" a little
masterpiece of distinctly Antonellesque inspiration, and
it would be interesting to discover its painter. If Prof.
Toesca had not done Antonello's son, Jacopo, such a
bad turn as proving him to be the author of a picture
which shows him up as a simpering and affected sub-
mediocrity, one would naturally think of him.1 But
one dare not assume that, even after the lapse of ten or
twelve years, the painter of a picture so simple and
direct as Mr. Winthrop's could have declined to the
dulcified and mannered "Madonna" at Bergamo. Pos-
sibly it was painted by some quite unknown man, but
we cannot resist the temptation to see whether another
close follower of Antonello, his nephew, Antonio or
Antonello de Saliba, could not have been its author.

Although Antonio de Saliba was, as documents state,
the pupil of the great Antonello's son, Jacopo, who
seems to have done nothing of consequence but transmit
his father's influence, we find little in de Saliba's works
that does not go back to Antonello himself or to the great
Venetians of his time. He not only imitated Antonello
deliberately and closely, as in the Vienna "Pieta" but,
as in the "Virgin Annunciate" of Venice, he copied him
outright.

iRassegna d'Arte, 1911, p. 16. In the Bergamo Gallery: signed and dated
1490. In the inscription Jacopo boasts of being the son of a more than
human painter, which is a tactful way of confessing that he knew his own
place.

Comparison with other works undisputably by An-
tonio de Saliba — the "Madonnas" of Catania (1497),
of Catanzaro (1508), of Spoleto, of Berlin (about
1488), of the Davis Collection at Newport (about the
same date) — does not preclude the possibility that Mr.
Winthrop's is an earlier work by the same hand.
Neither the types nor the draperies, nor, least of all, the
landscape, would oppose such a conclusion. A signifi-
cant point in favour is the treatment of the wings of the
sphinxes who form the supporting arms of the throne.
As in de Saliba's "Pieta" at Vienna, these are painted
with much display of feathers, and are not so general-
ized as in Antonello's Correr "Pieta" or in his "An-
nouncing Angels" at Messina and at Syracuse. I may
add that Mr. Winthrop's panel, when I first saw it,
made on me a strong impression of being by de Saliba,
and that I have learned to give, I venture to confess, a
certain value to first and spontaneous impressions, for
they generally represent almost unconscious and hence
unprejudiced rapid syntheses of buried memories.

I am thus inclined to assume, with certain reserves,
that this interesting and attractive panel was painted by
Antonio de Saliba soon after the one in the Collection
of Baron Cowado Arezzo at Ragusa Inferiore in
Sicily, and some years before the "Madonna of the
Rosary" of 1489, which happily escaped from the last
Messina earthquake.

MR. THEODORE M. DAVIS' MADONNA

A work by de Saliba of unquestionable authenticity,
although not signed, is the "Madonna" (Fig. 21) al-
ready referred to in the collection of the late Theodore
M. Davis, of Newport, R. I. Our Lady, an imposing,
pyramidal mass towering over the horizon, worships
the Child, Who lies naked on a parapet playing at
once with His coral amulet and the folds of her dress.
She is more impressive than any other of this paint-
er's Madonnas, thanks to a happy harmony of the An-
tonellesque sense of geometrical bulk with the Bell-
inesque feeling for the spiritually significant. Even
the Berlin "Madonna" shows a decline from this
height.

The Davis "Madonna" would thus seem to have been
the fruit of de Saliba's earliest maturity, following upon
his first contact with Venice. If the Ragusa picture be
his, and Mr. Winthrop's, they betray no certain trace
of Venetian influence. Here, on the contrary, it is man-
ifest, although not so obvious as in the Berlin "Ma-
donna," which, indeed, I suspect of being a free copy of
a lost Bellini.

Mr. Robert Minturn, of New York, has a "Ma-
donna,"with regard to the authorship of which I am still
in doubt. It was reproduced and briefly discussed in
the Rassegna d'Arte for April, 1913, and there the opin-
ion was expressed that, while bearing considerable re-
semblance to the one of the Davis Collection just pre-

Fig. 21. Antonio de Saliba;'!MAdonna.

Collection of the late Mr. Theodore M. Davis, Newport, R. I.

Fig. 22. South Italian : Madonna.

Collection of Mr. Dan Fellowes Piatt, Englewood, N. J.

sented, it was quite likely a more purely Bellinesque
work.

On the other hand, the "Holy Face" in Mr. Johnson's
Collection at Philadelphia is certainly Messinese, and
I am inclined to give it to de Saliba, while admitting the
possibility that it may be by his teacher and cousin,
Jacopo. The curious will find it reproduced and dis-
cussed in Mr. Johnson's Catalogue.

MR. PLATT'S SOUTH ITALIAN MADONNA

A picture of large pattern and vigorous colouring
(Fig. 22) in the collection of Mr. D. F. Piatt, at Engle-
wood, N. J., has always made on me the impression of
being South Italian. My excuse for speaking of it here
is that no South Italian picture painted between about
1480 and 1520 is entirely free from Antonellesque in-
fluence. Often enough it is hard to isolate and extract,
but it is always there. And that is the case with Mr.
Piatt's "Madonna."

She sits in front of a parapet before a curtain, to right
and left of which appears a rich landscape with fern-
like trees. For one who cannot get the effect of the
original, perhaps the most noticeable thing in this panel
is the tendency to resolve itself into a series of three
widening curves, containing the head, the shoulders and
the mantle. The striving for geometrical design is of
itself suggestive of Antonello and is paralleled in the
Antonellesque "Madonna Enthroned" in the Cathedral
at Syracuse. (Photo. Alinari 33342.) The hood re-

sembles the one worn by Mr. Walters' "St. Rosalie."
The billowing draperies, too, remind me of the "An-
nouncing Angel" in Antonello's Polyptych at Messina,
as well as of Salvo d'Antonio's "Dormition of the Vir-
gin" and Rinaldo Quartarero's "Peter and Paul" at
Palermo. Finally the luxuriance and featheriness of
the landscape are to my eye distinctly Neapolitan.

By other critics, however, this picture has been
ascribed to the Lombard school, and even to Boltraffio.
No doubt the face has a certain likeness to Boltraffio's,
and one who was determined to have the panel Lombard
would find a resemblance in the draperies to Braman-
tino's. These I have already accounted for as Antonel-
lesque, being ultimately, like Bramantino's, of Flemish
origin, but the face, although heavier, is closer to the
"Pseudo-Boccaccino's" (as, for instance, in the Murano
Altarpiece) than to the type of any other Lombard,
while, curiously enough, neither the draperies nor the
landscape are unlike his. The Child, on the other
hand, sturdy in frame, with His arms crossed over His
chest, is unlike any pure Lombard Child that I can re-
call, but would be quite at home in Venice or the
Romagna.1

We may compromise and conclude that the author of
Mr. Piatt's picture was a painter of Antonellesque deri-
vation, who in Venice came under the influence of the
"Pseudo-Boccaccino" (Giovanni Antonio da Lodi),
and, to make good measure, we may add that he may
have been acquainted with Solario as well.2

1 He recurs in the "Pseudo-Boccaccino," who was more than half Venetian
and strongly influenced by Antonello and Alvise Vivarini.

2 Since these paragraphs were first printed I came across a piece of evi-

VII

ANTONIO SOLARIO

There happens to be a painter whose training was the
exact opposite of the one I have imagined for the author
of Mr. Piatt's "Madonna." Instead of beginning in
the South and ending in Venice, Antonio Solario began
at Venice and ended in the South. He is but an aster-
oid recently presented to view. When this little lumi-
nary first was noticed, the spectroscope — if one may con-
tinue the astronomical metaphor — seemed to show the
same rays as Andrea Solario, and I was inclined to
believe that they were one and the same. But more and
more works by this hand kept appearing, and finally
Ettore Modigliani's study, published in the Bollettino
d'Arte for December, 1907, convincingly showed that
we had to do with a personality distinct from Andrea's.
We could even trace his wanderings, from Venice to the
March of Ancona, and thence to Naples, where he was
the painter in chief of the fascinating, if unequal, series
of frescoes in the cloister of SS. Severino e Sosio. His
end is unknown.

In the Leuchtenberg "Madonna" acquired by Mr.
Wertheimer, sold to the late Mr. Salting, and now in
the National Gallery, and in the even earlier "Nativity"
ceded by Dr. J. P. Richter to Herr Fritz von Gans of
Frankfort, Antonio is so close to the Venetian phase of

dence to strengthen and indeed to clench my argument. It is that the author,
while designing the work, had Carpaccio's Berlin Madonna in mind. The
action is nearly identical and the resemblance extends even to dress. He may
thus have been Salvo d'Antonio himself but at all events a Carpacciesque
from South Italy or Sicily.

his famous namesake, Andrea, that one might without
disgrace, seeing the still fragmentary state of our knowl-
edge, have failed to conclude that they were separate
personalities. But other works, even apart from the
consideration that they are signed, reveal the same artist
drawing farther and farther away from Andrea, and
show an increasingly Venetian character, while Andrea
himself, as we know, grew more and more Lombard.
In his travels South, Antonio — an artist, by the way,
inferior to Andrea, of far more uncertain style and
feebler attainments — picked up Romagnol and Urn-
brian traits, while at Naples a certain Southern lethargy
invaded his never too alert spirit. There, too, he re-
verted to those Antonellesque influences from which his
beginnings were not free, whether they were drawn
from direct study of the great Sicilian himself, or from
contact with the two Venetianized Lombards, Andrea
Solario and the "Pseudo-Boccaccino," who surely in-
spired and perhaps accomplished his initiation. For
these reasons he comes into our present survey.

The collection of Mr. Walters contains an important
work of his (Fig. 23). It is an oblong panel wherein
may be seen the Holy Child sitting on an inlaid casket
resting on a pedestal, while He plays with a bird. His
Mother supports Him, and a lady presents the infant
Baptist, who clutches at His thigh. On the left is an
elderly man represented as a pilgrim. The background
consists of a curtain to left and a landscape to right.
The woman and man are probably portraits. Not only
are they individualized enough to be real likenesses, but
the painter, although giving them in the composition

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the importance of saints, has left them without haloes.

One is hardly called upon to demonstrate that this
panel is by Antonio Solario, for it is obvious to those
who are acquainted with the Leuchtenberg "Madonna,"
now in the National Gallery, and the somewhat later
one in the Naples Museum. With all the differences,
the types retain the same Venetian features, and the
landscape the same Lombard character. The Child is
taken over with as little change as the subject will per-
mit from Bellini's "Presentation of the Holy Child in
the Temple." These affinities, or borrowings, are what
we expect from Antonio. The bird, too, attached to a
string, occurs in the Leuchtenberg "Madonna," and is
derived from a Bellinesque picture of which we have
several variants. This picture of ours is, however, later
than that, and than the Naples one, both of which we
may confidently place before Antonio's sojourn in the
Marches. Mr. Walters' painting is not only more
largely but much more carelessly handled, as is the case
with Antonio's frescoes at Naples, certainly his latest
works. It can, moreover, be dated with fair proximity
as toward 1513.

A brief paragraph must be devoted to this question
of dates, as Antonio's chronology has not yet been care-
fully looked into, and without a proper chronology we
can have no trustworthy connoisseurship and no history
worth the name.

There exists in the Ambrosiana at Milan a signed
work by Antonio, dated 1508, which is so obviously an
imitation of his namesake, Andrea,1 that one may assume

1 Louvre, No. 1533.

a renewed contact between them. And, as Antonio was
in the Marches till 1506, and Andrea, to our knowledge,
never went there, we may infer that they met at Milan.
This Ambrosiana "Head of the Baptist on a Charger"
differs, quality apart, in one striking respect from
Andrea's. It is more bejeweled, as one might expect
from an artist subjected to provincial and Southern
taste.1 Now we discover a similar jeweled charger in
a picture in the Doria Gallery representing "Salome"
which is now universally accepted as Antonio Solario's,
for this and other obvious reasons the most determining
of which is that a companion panel representing a Muse
in the same collection is signed and dated 1 5 1 1 . ( Photo.
Anderson 5412 and 5413.) I used to ascribe this
"Salome" to Michele da Verona, and the resemblance
of her face to that painter's type is manifest. I am
tempted to infer that, after such intimate contact with
Andrea Solario as is displayed in the Ambrosiana
"Head of the Baptist," Antonio stopped for a while at
Verona, where, sensitive as he was to kindred inspira-
tion, he did actually fall under the influence of Michele.
I venture to believe that this suggestion will turn out
fruitful for students who would pursue the subject
further in Naples.2

1 Antonio's predilection for jewelry and jeweled ornament would be ex-
plained if he started as a jeweler. On page 38 of the tenth number of the
Bollettino d'Arte for 1907 was announced the purchase of a "Madonna" sup-
posed to be by Antonio Solario, and signed "Hoc opus fecit Antonius Aurifex
de Venetiis." But as this picture, never exhibited and never published, has
mysteriously disappeared, one is led to wonder whether, like a certain pic-
ture belonging to the late Sir Hugh Lane supposed to bear the earliest signa-
ture of B. Vivarini, it was not of recent manufacture?

2 Kindred works by Antonio under the influence of Michele da Verona,
which I used to ascribe to Michele himself, are the two panels in the National

Here we must return to the question of chronology,
and argue that if the Doria "Salome" dates from 151 1,
the Walters picture, which resembles it significantly,
but is more loosely and even sloppily handled, must
have been painted at least a year or two later, say in
15 13. Perhaps it was a commission Antonio picked up
on his way southward, possibly when again in the
Marches, or conceivably when already in Naples.

VIII

FILIPPO MAZZOLA

Antonello da Messina spent less than a year in Venice
during his visit of 1475-6, but Venetian painting was
never the same again. His pervasive influence, how-
ever, was naturally more visible and appreciable in
treatment and technique than in type or composition.
It is, in fact, far from easy to lay one's finger on anything
more than accessory in a Venetian painting, which,
when reproduced in black and white, will instantly re-
call Antonello. Where there is anything definite to
suggest him, it is apt to be in the work of men like Alvise
Vivarini or Cima, whose interest and importance are
far from being measured by the fact of this imitation.
Even among the parasitic painters, it turns out, curiously
enough, to be none of the artists who could have known
Antonello in Venice, but two painters from Parma, who
probably knew only his pictures, whose chief interest

Gallery (Nos. 646 and 647), representing "St. Catherine" and "St. Ursula."
Their attribution as "Umbrian School" is no doubt a witness to the fact
that they come from Central Italy, and would go to prove that Antonio
painted them in the Marches after a visit North.

lies in their intimate dependence upon the Southern
master. These painters were Filippo Mazzola, of
whom I must speak at some length, and Cristoforo
Caselli, or Temperelli.

Mazzola, in his portraits, where he appears at his
best, approaches Antonello more closely than any other
except Alvise Vivarini of the latter's deliberate imita-
tors. In his other pictures, conspicuously in his Agram
"St. Sebastian" and his Budapest "St. Christopher,"
Mazzola leans upon the Sicilian master, but in his Ma-
donnas and religious figures in general this influence
gets more diffused. As Mazzola was born toward 1460
and Antonello never returned to Northern Italy after
1476, and as, moreover, the Sicilian influence in his
works increases rather than diminishes till the end of his
life, in 1505, it is reasonable to assume that he knew
Antonello's works, though not their author, and that, on
repeated visits to Venice, he may have become ac-
quainted with Antonio and Piero de Saliba, and possibly
with Jacopo, the son of Antonello.

It is to be regretted that none of Mazzola's most strik-
ingly Antonellesque works, his portraits, are at hand for
the present discussion. Although it is a temptation to
ascribe to him every tolerable Venetian portrait even
vaguely recalling Antonello, we must resist it in the case
of the only one of this description that falls within our
scope, the pleasant head of an adolescent, belonging to
Mr. D. F. Piatt (reproduced in the Rassegna d'Arte for
191 1, p. 148). As far as I know, there is no other por-
trait in our collections that could be ascribed to Maz-
zola.

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But in "Art in America" (1916 p. 112 et seq.) Prof.
Mather publishes the likeness of a lady belonging to
Mr. George Breck, and suggests on the strength of a
half defaced signature that it may be by Filippo Maz-
zola. While the pattern is distinctly Florentine and
perhaps already Raphaelesque, the singularly bad draw-
ing of the bust, the folds of the curtain and the charac-
teristically Lombard castle in the background incline
me to believe, even though I am not acquainted with the
original, that this work is Emilian; but it surely is too
feeble and perhaps too late for Filippo himself, and
should the reading of the inscriptions be confirmed as
"Mazzolus" it may have been inscribed by one of his
relations, who also were painters, rather than by himself.
I must, by the way, protest against identifying this young
woman with Isabella d'Este.

We have, on the other hand, a religious composition
which is by him. It is an oblong one belonging to
Mr. Walters (Fig. 24) wherein we see the Madonna
seated between St. Jerome and a Franciscan monk, hold-
ing the Child, who blesses with His right hand and
clutches a bird in His left. The arrangement of the
heads is conspicuously Bellinesque, and so is the St.
Jerome as a type. The Virgin has perhaps an indefin-
able Antonellesque element in her face, although the
oval and the expression have a certain tincture of the
Morones of Verona, which, indeed, is visible in the head
of the Franciscan as well. This scarcely comes as a
surprise, for these same influences, along with that of
the Vicentine Montagna, may be traced elsewhere in
Mazzola.

The attribution of this "Madonna and Saints" to
Mazzola is inevitable if one has clearly in mind his
National Gallery picture (No. 1416), which so closely
resembles it in general effect, or his Berlin Altarpiece
of 1502, the nearest of all in details of types, draperies
and action, with a Child that is almost identical. The
study of his other works, whether at Parma or Corte
Maggiore or Naples, brings confirmatory evidence. I
am inclined to believe that we may date it soon after
1502.

CRISTOFORO DA PARMA

It is with some hesitation that I venture to introduce
yet another picture in the Walters Collection as a possi-
ble work by Mazzola's fellow-townsman, Cristoforo
Caselli, who was moulded under the same Veneto-Sicil-
ian influences. If I am mistaken, no great harm will be
done. I record merely an impression for which I can
offer no sort of proof.

The picture in question represents the "Ecce Homo"
( Fig. 25 ) . The Saviour is seen down to the waist, hold-
ing an elaborately jewelled cross in His pierced right
hand, while His left is held up appealingly. The
thorn-crowned, richly curled head looks up, showing
far too much of the whites of the eyes. Behind extends
a beautiful landscape, with the domes and towers of a
town by a stream, and distant marble mountains.

The sentimental look slightly excuses the silliness of
the old label which reads "Bolognese School, 17th Cen-
tury." One need not be a clerk to see that, despite sen-

Fig. 25. Cristoforo Caselli (?): Ecce Homo.

Collection of Air. Henry Walters, Baltimore.

rSSTO ;

Fig. 26. Antonello da Sekravalle: Madonna.
Collection of Mr. Henry Walters, Baltimore.

timentality, the conception is far closer to 1500 than to
1600, and that the tightness of the drawing and of the
treatment is distinctly in the Quattrocento tradition.
My reasons for guessing it to be by Cristoforo Caselli
are too vague and uncertain to be given. Something in
the whole conception, the folds of the sash, the richly
jewelled cross and clasp, are not my reasons but my
excuses for jumping to such a conclusion. If by him
— and I trust the guess may prove well founded — he
may have painted it as late as 15 10.

ANTONIO DA SERRAVALLE

In closing this chapter, I must mention yet another
panel in the Walters Collection (Fig. 26) . It is a very
poor thing indeed, but not without a certain suggestion
of grandeur. It represents the Madonna and happens
to be inscribed "Antonellus Pinxit."

Needless to say this Antonellus is not the one of Mes-
sina. He is but a tenth-rate painter, happily rare, by
whom we know one and only one other signed work, a
fresco at Serravalle in the Friuli, dated 1485. Mr.
Walters' picture makes a slight advance upon that one,
and may be a few years later. Our profit in making this
painter's acquaintance is to recognize him if we find
him masquerading under another name. Our excuse
for bringing him in here, apart from convenience, is that
parochial pride and parochial presumption at one time
maintained that he was identical with the great Sicilian.
The panel before us offers merely a distorted reflex of
the style of the Vivarini.

CHAPTER III

GIOVANNI BELLINI

AFTER plodding over hot stubble or cold tundra,
as we did through much of the last chapter, it will
be a relief and a joy to encounter the splendours of the
earth once more. For which reason I shall not linger
over such vestiges of Squarcionesque painting in its
cruder phases as we may discover in America, but hasten
to Mantegna, the genius of the Paduan School. His in-
fluence on the Bellini was enormous : to understand their
evolution, while ignoring him, is impossible. Happily
our collections include two of his works, one belonging
to Mrs. J. L. Gardner of Boston, and the other in the
Altman Bequest to the Metropolitan Museum. These
we shall proceed to study. They will by no means suf-
fice to give an adequate idea of his career or his quality.
Europe alone can give that. But at least they will give
no false idea of the artist.

MANTEGNA; MRS. GARDNER'S "SACRA CONVERSAZIONE"

The earlier of the two is a smallish panel (Fig. 27)
in Mrs. Gardner's Collection, dating from Mantegna's
later middle years, say from towards 1485. It is a

Fig. 27.

Collectio

Mantegna : Sacra

of Mrs. John Lowell

Conversazione.

Gardner, Boston.

singular, elaborate, rather puzzling work, highly fin-
ished— over finished, even — touched up in the high
lights with silver, executed for his Gonzaga patrons.
One is tempted to fancy that the painter contrived it
deliberately as an epitome of his entire career up to
that point; and doubtless it pleased them, for it re-
mained with them until it was acquired by that exquisite
dilettante, Charles I. Yet if this unusual work has a
fault, it is just that with all the qualities of a most
admirable manual it has something of its dryness.

On a level space, overshadowed by two cliffs which
frame in a hillside with a town nestling under the sky
line, the Blessed Virgin is seen in the midst of six other
holy women, all sitting low or on the ground. The
Holy Child, resembling an infant Apollo, stands against.
His Mother's right knee and addresses Himself to the
Infant Baptist. The elderly woman next to Our Lady
is probably St. Elizabeth, but I have no clue to the iden-
tity of the others, or to their function in the symbolical
or allegorical economy of the picture. Nor is it our
concern. It can not be too firmly maintained that a
work of art can pretend, as a work of art, to no mean-
ing, broadly human or narrowly artistic, beyond what
is spontaneously suggested to the cultivated mind.
Theologians and gossips innumerable may attach any
meaning they please to the parts or the whole of a -pic-
ture. Professors Peano and Forti have taken our dear
familiar old alphabet and numerals and attached all
sorts of harrowing significations to them, intended only
for students of symbolic logic. We who use the alpha-
bet and numerals for homely human purposes are not

called upon to be conversant with all possible abuses to
which they may be subjected, and no more is it our busi-
ness as humanists, aestheticians or dilettanti, to know
what theological subtleties, what scholastic symbols, or
what neomystico-nonsensical cobwebs may be made to
adhere to a picture. In the one before us it is enough to
see what Venetian art lovers, at the highest moment of
Venetian art, called a "Sacra Conversazione" that is to
say, a social gathering of holy persons. These ladies
have come together to adore, to worship, to meditate and
to pray. To my recollection, this is the first instance of
a motive destined to acquire so wide a vogue a genera-
tion or two later. Did Mantegna mean to invent a new
type or composition? If he did, he surely would have
followed it up with others, which he failed to do. It is
possible that in a court, whose first lady, when Man-
tegna arrived there, was a Brandenburg Princess, such
a favourite subject of German art as "Die Heilige
Sippe" — the Holy Family in the most comprehensive
sense — was known and liked, and that Andrea took his
cue from a German painting of this theme, simplifying
and classicizing it according to the dictates of his genius.
Quite likely, too, he was ordered to include just so many
figures and so many episodes in the panel. On no other
ground can one understand the Christopher crossing the
stream, the George fighting the dragon, and the Jerome
beating his breast, which we descry in the middle dis-
tance. They are treated conventionally and perfunc-
torily, not at all as a genius like Mantegna would have
dealt with them had they been of his own choosing and
of interest to him.

Mantegna's art meets our eye from its first beginning,
like Minerva, all armed. In a duration of nearly sixty
years it suffered singularly little change, so little in form,
contour or even type, that it requires careful and
cautious scrutiny to perceive its evolution, although
there was, it is true, a development in colour to warmer
and warmer, ending rather hot. Mrs. Gardner's
panel, coming, as we shall see presently, toward the
end of his middle years, contains elements harking back
to the beginnings and pointing forward to the end of
the artist's career, as we shall perceive for ourselves if
we attempt to settle the date of this "Sacra Conversa-
zione."

The landscape gives us no too precise indication of
time. It reminds one, it is true, of no works preceding
the Mantuan period, but, on the other hand, it might
have been painted at almost any time during Mantegna's
middle years. It recalls at once the frescoes in the Ca-
mera degli Sposi and the Uffizi Triptych, but even more
closely the Uffizi "Madonna of the Quarries" and the
Copenhagen "Pieta." The "Madonna of the Quarries"
is recalled again by the hands and the folds and even
the pose of the Virgin here, but the oval and expression
of her face are singularly like the "Madonna with
Cherubs" of the Brera. The curls of the female Saint
looking down upon the Infant Baptist are found in
Mantegna's works from the Verona Polyptych to nearly
the end of his career, but her elegance and her draperies
point forward to his "Parnassus" and other late works.
The other Saints recall the "Madonna" in the Simon
Collection at Berlin and the women in the Hampton

Court "Triumphs." The crumpled sharp folds, as in
the Verona "Madonna," mark the beginning of his later
years. The evidence, intelligently weighed, thus points
to the end of Mantegna's middle period. One of the
pictures with which Mrs. Gardner's has most in com-
mon is the Brera "Madonna with Cherubs," and there
is good reason for assuming that this is the panel re-
ferred to in a document as having been painted in 1485.
We shall not be very far out if we assign something like
this date to the painting at Fenway Court.

I leave the picture with a feeling that I should like to
say a good deal more about it, but not before it had been
submitted to a scrupulously honest and adequately com-
petent cleaning away of perhaps quite recent restoration.
What remained would necessarily be convincing, and
might cease to be so perplexing.

THE ALTMAN "HOLY FAMILY"

There is nothing perplexing about the Altman canvas
(Fig. 28) . It is what it is ; not at all one of Mantegna's
greatest achievements, but a typical work of his last few
years, when his hand was beginning to fail slightly and
his colour to grow hot. In other respects he is seen as
his Roman, pagan, imperial self.

The picture in question represents the Empress of
Heaven seated a little sideways against an arbor of
golden fruit, while the Infant clings to her. On one
side a male bust of Roman aspect represents St. Joseph,
and on the other, a most fascinating, even alarming, fe-

Fig. 28. Mantegna : The Holy Family.
Altman Bequest, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

male face, answering better to the visual images evoked
by Catullus than by the Gospels, was perhaps intended
by Mantegna for the Magdalen.

The drawing of the Child's head is a little out, the
contour of His shoulder rather functionless, the hands
are a trifle wooden. These defects are due to the slack-
ness of old age. Nevertheless the work, as a whole,
could scarcely be more characteristic. Its feeling we
have already indicated. Its colour has the typically
warm — over-warm — tone of his last years. Its draw-
ing, although rather slack, is no less quintessentially
his.

Maturer, more Cinquecento in amplitude than any
other "Holy Family" of Mantegna's, it yet clings close
to precedents, and in details varies but slightly from sim-
ilar works of his last fifteen years. Thus, as composi-
tion, it is closest of all to the Verona "Holy Family,"
one of the earlier of his latest paintings. The motif of
the cushion takes us back to a much earlier work still,
the "Madonna with two Saints" of the Andre Collec-
tion. On the other hand, the Virgin in the Altman can-
vas goes with his last work of all, the Northampton
"Adoration" * and the "Holy Family" in the Mantegna
Chapel at Mantua, only that in our picture she is at once
haughty and disconsolate.

Thus, here as everywhere, Mantegna remains true to
a style formed in his youth which suffered but little al-
teration. There are few works, however, in which
change is more visible than here. It was, in the measure

1 A studio copy of this masterpiece may be seen at Mr. J. G. Johnson's
in Philadelphia.

that it was progressive, change above all to a warmer
colouring and to a more pagan, more imperially Roman
vision of the world.

Ill
GIOVANNI BELLINI ; NEW THEORY OF HIS DEVELOPMENT

No two artists near enough to each other in their en-
vironment to be brothers-in-law were so separated in
their art as Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini. Where
the former was all dogma, the other was all faith ; where
the one worked on a programme, the other relied on
spontaneity; where the Paduan had a schematic outline
that the figure had to fill, the Venetian had a contour
that was the vibrating exteriorization of an indwelling
energy. Mantegna was professionally intellectual;
Bellini may never have harboured an abstract thought.
The Paduan was a bigoted Roman, the Venetian was
not deliberately and intentionally of any time or place.
Hence the growth of the former was necessarily limited,
while that of the latter never stopped. The history of
Art knows almost no great master whose end was so
close to his beginning as Mantegna's, or so far away as
Bellini's. For fifty years Giovanni Bellini led Venetian
painting from victory to victory. He found it crawling
out of its Byzantine shell, threatened by petrifaction
from the drip of pedagogic precept, and left it in the
hands of Giorgione and Titian, an art more completely
humanized than any that the Western world had known
since the decline of Greco-Roman culture.

The two works by Mantegna that we can see without

crossing the Atlantic suffice to give a fairly adequate
idea of his character and even of his career. The nine
autograph paintings by Bellini, on the other hand, even
when supplemented by several important studio pic-
tures, do not begin to represent his manifold phases or
convey an adequate sense of his quality.

Three of the nine autograph works belong to Bel-
lini's first period. I wrote ''earlier years," and then
cancelled and replaced the words with "first period,"
because it fringes on the absurd to designate pictures
painted toward the fortieth year of an artist's life as
youthful achievements. For it is probable that Mr. J.
G. Johnson's panel was painted toward 1470. Never-
theless this "Madonna" is so tentative, so immature in
some respects, that serious and able students have re-
garded it as the earliest of all Bellini's Madonnas that
have come down to us.

The truth is that the first part of Giambellino's career
is a blank. All the extant works which may plausibly
be placed before 1470 could easily have been painted
after 1465, and in point of style they resemble each other
sufficiently to admit of being thus crowded together.
Even if we grant that some of these panels, the Correr
"Crucifixion," for instance, were done earlier, they are
at once too few to stand for twenty years of activity,
even allowing for normal losses through time and
chance, and too close to each other to be, if spread over
so long a time, more than a confession of slow and feeble
development. For myself, I find it easier, in view of
what we know of his rate of advance during his middle
and later periods — a time when, as a rule, growth is apt

to slow down and stop — to believe that not many years
elapsed between any of the paintings of this group, than
to assume that Giovanni Bellini was something of a
dullard in his early life.

It certainly is not easy to account for his youth, yet a
possible clue may hide in the fact that Gentile Bellini's
earlier career is at least as hard to explain. His first
dated work, the "Lorenzo Giustiniani" of 1465, is still
clumsy and even uncouth, despite extraordinary obser-
vation and vigorous line, and the Mond "Madonna,"
painted probably when Gentile was about fifty years of
age, is chiefly interesting for its fidelity to his father's
teaching. It would seem likely, therefore, that the de-
layed maturity of both brothers, as well as the exceeding
scarcity of their earlier works, were in each case due to
the same cause, namely that they had had no inde-
pendent career till they were middle-aged men, because
they remained until then in their father's employ as his
assistants. As late as 1460 both were certainly with
Jacopo, for in that year all three signed the now lost
altarpiece for the Gattamelata Chapel at Padua. It
was after this that the sons started out for themselves,
and it really would seem as if only then did they cut
themselves loose from their father and begin to develop
their own artistic personalities. Such an hypothesis,
further, might help to account for the curious borrow-
ings, sometimes quite petty, from Mantegna, at the
very moment when Giovanni Bellini was creating
such sublime masterpieces as the Brera "Pieta"
It looks as if he had already developed a great intensity
of feeling and an adequate mastery over his instruments,

but — somewhat like Cezanne so recently — still lacked
those current fashionable stage-properties of the new
painting which perhaps his father, Jacopo, true to his
own transitional style and all its charm, severely
avoided.

THE DAVIS MADONNA

The "Madonna" in the collection of the late Mr.
Theodore M. Davis (Frontispiece) which I believe to
be the earliest of Giovanni Bellini's Madonnas now
extant, is also one of the best. One may go further
and say that she is the best of the first period.
She rises like a pyramid, filling nearly the entire
arch formed by the panel, thus securing an effect of
monumental grandeur worthy of the invincible concept
of a superhuman Great Mother, while, at the same
time, she adores her own Child with a watchful
tenderness that communicates a sweet sense of home-
like humanity. The slight deviation from frontality,
the gentle inclination of the head, in such a mas-
sive figure, are principal factors in the impression.
The featureless landscape, with its simple arabesque of
light and shade under the open sky, furnishes the visual
equivalent of a bass accompaniment to a solemn melody.
The quiet pearly colour, singularly free from opposi-
tions and contrasts, enriches and harmonizes the whole.

It is a work worthy of the Brera "Pieta," than which
there is perhaps nothing more sublime in art. It has
the same greatness of soul and beauty of substance.
There is a continuity in mood and mode between these

two masterpieces which makes it probable that they
were conceived almost simultaneously and executed
successively, the "Madonna" first, the "Pieta" after-
wards. How strikingly alike, for instance, is the sweep
of the folds in both paintings, combining, as it does,
flow and rhythm, and with the most magnifying results.

The Davis "Madonna" is as free from Mantegna's in-
fluence as the "Pieta" itself. There is no trace of it,
save perhaps in the ruins on the right. On the con-
trary, the whole pattern, the frontal Madonna adoring
the Child fast asleep — is traditionally Venetian, and
not of infrequent occurrence in the early works of the
Vivarini and their kin. The Child is rather ugly and
sprawling, and not properly relaxed, but is modelled
with praiseworthy contour instead of facile chiaroscuro
— and all so sincerely!

It is a work which seems to have impressed contem-
poraries and followers, for I recall several versions of
it, or possibly of variants, as, for instance, Quirizio da
Murano's in the Venice Academy, another belonging
to Mr. Henry White Cannon at Fiesole, which I would
ascribe to Andrea da Murano, and still another in the
Sacristy of the Redentore at Venice, which I would,
more tentatively, ascribe to the same author.

Finally, I may be permitted to record that when I
first knew this masterpiece, it passed for an Alvise
Vivarini, and that it, along with the Bagatti "S. Gius-
tina" at Milan, also passing for a work of Alvise, was
chiefly responsible for the very high estimate I formed,
half unconsciously, of this painter and his place in
Venice. Dr. J. P. Richter, who then owned the pic-

ture, first recognized that it was by Bellini, and his at-
tribution has long since found general acceptance.
The "S. Giustina" I myself attempted to restore to Bel-
lini a couple of years ago (Gazette des Beaux Arts;
June, 1 9 13, and Study and Criticism of Italian Art,
3d series).

THE JOHNSON MADONNA

It would seem as if it were only after painting this
Madonna and the even greater Brera "Pieta" * that Gio-
vanni Bellini fell under the spell of Mantegna. Of
course he must have known him and his art years and
years before, for they had been brothers-in-law since
1453. But if Giovanni remained with his father till
well after '60, it is likely that Jacopo, having noth-
ing to say to the too definite, too rigid, too de-
termined style of his overbearing son-in-law, pre-
vented his sons from following it. Then when
Giovanni became his own master, his instinctive
eagerness to be in the foremost ranks of his
close contemporaries drew him into the orbit of Man-
tegna. And there he remained for ten or perhaps fif-
teen years — till towards 1480 — but happily quite unaf-
fected by it as to essentials, keeping his soul his own,
his form unschematized, his touch uncontaminated.
Mantegna was for him not so much a dynamic influence
as a purveyor of novelties. And that is the natural,

1 Most of the pictures referred to in this chapter are reproduced in Adolfo
Venturi's "Storia dell' Arte Italiana," Vol. VII, Parts III and IV. The re-
productions of themselves would render this work indispensable to students.
Dr. Gronau's monograph on the Bellini is equally indispensable.

perhaps inevitable relation between conscious and less
conscious genius.

So Giovanni Bellini borrowed not a little from Man-
tegna, turning it to his own purposes — using episodes
and figures with only slight changes, and entire ar-
rangements with all the alterations required to render
them suitable to his own character.

Among the earliest of Giovanni's paintings to betray
contact with Mantegna are Mr. Philip Lehman's "Ma-
donna with the Festoon" and Mr. Johnson's signed "Ma-
donna." We shall first study Mr. Johnson's (Fig. 29),
although slightly later if anything, because we can se-
cure more facts for determining its date. It is an
appealing and sensitive creation, but in its present con-
dition this ghost of a picture seems a little meagre and
even scraggly. Less monumental than the Davis panel,
less convincing than the Lehman one, it lacks the
breadth of the somewhat later Trivulzio "Virgin and
Child."

Mr. Johnson's "Madonna" is seen from the waist up
supporting the Child between her hands. He stands
on a parapet on which lies a fruit like a quince. He
wears a tunic open at the sides, and has very little hair
on His head. His attitude, with His finger in His
mouth and something like a squirm of His body, is un-
explained. It would almost seem as if, like a shy baby,
He were turning away from a stranger. The Blessed
Virgin, on the contrary, although rather dolorous and
vague now, may have had a limpid but not simple-
tonish countenance in her time. The silhouette of her
all-enfolding mantle is impressive, and the prominence

Fig. 29. Giovanni Bellini: Madonna.

Collection of Mr. John G. Johnson. Philadelphia.

of the hands, unfortunately too spidery, is singular,
perhaps novel. The opinion may be hazarded that
few artists made so much of hands as Bellini did. My
first impression is that even among Italians no other
insisted more on making them dramatis persona. They
are, in representations of the Madonna especially,
scarcely less important for the expression, and perhaps
even more important for the design, than the face.
Their play was evidently a matter of the greatest solici-
tude, and their relation to the pose and action of the
Holy Child determined the entire composition. To
Mr. Johnson's "Madonna," now before us, all this ap-
plies so well that it is easier to think the head away
than the hands. It is they that determine the move-
ment of the arms, and thus the whole pattern. At the
same time they vie in eloquence with the face itself.
To few pictures more than to this could be better ap-
plied the title of "Madonna of the Hands."

Bellini's father, Jacopo, did not neglect the hands,
and Donatello made as much of them as anyone. Their
example may have sufficed, but I suspect that Giovanni
got his stimulus not from them directly but from their
follower, Mantegna, who in his earlier life and middle
years rivalled Donatello himself in the attention he
gave to hands. If that be so, it was by far the greatest
debt that Giambellino owed to his brother-in-law. It
is even possible that Mr. Johnson's panel and its sister
works, the Lehman and Trivulzio "Madonnas," were
inspired by pictures of Andrea Mantegna now lost,
like the one, for instance, of which we have two free
copies, one in the Berlin Museum (No. 27), and an-

other far better version in the former Butler Collec-
tion. But while this suggestion must be left to its
chances, Mr. Johnson's painting bears witness to Gio-
vanni's pettier borrowings from Andrea in a way that
cannot be disputed. It will be remembered that we
found the action and the expression of the Child un-
explained. Nothing certainly in the picture before us
accounts for His peevish squirm. It is intelligible
enough in Mantegna's original, the standing child
frightened by the sight of the High Priest's knife and
nestling up against his mother's knees, in the " Circum-
cision" of the Uffizi Triptych (Fig. 30). Bellini re-
versed the silhouette and, naturally, adapted it in other
respects to his needs, but changed the motive as little as
possible.

It will be admitted that a picture containing an
imitation of another must be of later date than that
other. It would follow that if we knew when Mantegna
painted the Triptych now in the Uffizi we could tell
when at earliest Giambellino designed the Johnson
panel. Its date is a question of importance, for, as we
have seen, it has been supposed to be a labour of his
earliest years, while I feel called upon to assign it to a
time when its author was perhaps approaching his
fortieth year.

Unfortunately, we do not know the exact date of
Mantegna's Uffizi Triptych. There is a fair proba-
bility, however, that it is the work referred to in April,
1464, as just finished. Internal evidence is hard to
obtain because of the relative fixity of Mantegna's style.
I note that in my "North Italian Painters," published

Fig. 30. Mantegna : The Circumcision.

Ufhzi Gallery, Florence.

in 1907, I placed it after 1470. Since then, further re-
search in connection with contemporary Venetian
painting has inclined me to favour an earlier date for
some of his works, including the Triptych, and I
should now find no difficulty in conceding that it was
painted in 1464. To a still earlier date no one would
think of assigning it.

Mr. Johnson's Bellini would then necessarily be no
earlier than the same date, that is to say 1464, when
Giovanni Bellini was thirty-three or thirty-four years
old. But I believe, in fact, that we have reasons for
assuming that it was painted several years later. In
our endeavour to justify this later dating, which, within
the field of our interests, is of serious importance, we
must have recourse to a study of minutiae which, if no
longer subject to the contemptuous hilarity of the
dilettante, is still boring to ourselves.

To begin with, the pattern as a whole, based, as it is,
upon the extension of the arm to one side, connects
Mr. Johnson's picture with the next group of Bellini's
Madonnas, the earliest of which is Dr. Frizzoni's at
Milan, and the most typical, the one in the Verona
Gallery. As I hope to demonstrate elsewhere, they
range in point of time from after 1470 to about 1476.
Mr. Johnson's was perhaps originally nearer to the Friz-
zoni or Verona "Madonna." What remains of her
nose recalls St. Dominic's in the Correr "Trinity," a
studio work painted in 1471,1 or the nose of the Baptist

1 See my "Quatre Triptyches Bellinesques a Venise" in the Gazette des
Beaux Arts for September, 1913, where most of the panels are reproduced,
as well as Study and Criticism of Italian Art, 3d series.

now in the Venice Academy but of the same series.
The nearest parallel to her rather spidery hands may
be found in those of St. Joseph in a "Nativity" at the
Venice Academy — a picture, once more, of the same
series. The Child was the prototype of the imps hold-
ing shields in a neglected but delightful picture of a
"Triumphal Arch" (Fig. 31) commemorating the
principate of Doge Tron (Venice Academy, No. 53).
As his reign began in 1471, this panel painted in Bel-
lini's studio cannot be earlier, and if the children are
so reminiscent of the one in the Johnson picture, we
may safely assume that no great interval could have
intervened between the two works. It would be easy
to adduce further points of close resemblance in Man-
tegna, as, for instance, in his Andre or in his somewhat
later Bergamo "Madonna," but as their chronology
is disputable, I will end this tedious paragraph with a
reference to two dated works painted in Venice in 1469
and 1471. The earlier one is a Bellinesque "Saviour
Enthroned between Sts. Augustine and Francis" (Ven-
ice Academy, No. 614, Photo. Naya 182). Here the
pleating of the tunic under the throat of the Saviour
is of the kind in our "Madonna," but of slightly simpler
and earlier fashion, nearer, in fact, to the Davis "Ma-
donna." The work of 1471 was designed by Bar-
tolommeo Vivarini and painted with the aid of as-
sistants (Rome, Colonna Palace, Photo. Anderson
4596). It is singularly Bellinesque, and looks like a
close imitation of an original of the time by Giovanni.
The resemblances to our "Madonna" are manifold, in

OVSE-IECJ-ST/WG !<:}>

. J_ ■ ■ i ■ . :. . •■'■ - :-■-::■; SSQ?**-.

Fig. 31. Studio of Giovanni Bellini: Arch in Honor of Doge Tron.

Academy of Fine Arts, Venice.

Fig. 32. Giovanni Bellini : Madonna.

Collection of Mr. Philip Lehman, Neiv York.

big and in little, even to the pleated folds of the tunic
and the garments under it.

If this kind of evidence may be allowed to count —
and achaeological pursuits could not exist without it
— then Mr. Johnson's "Madonna" is scarcely earlier
than 1470. And if we may assume that date to be fairly
well established, it follows that at about forty years
of age Giovanni Bellini was painting what we used to
regard as his adolescent efforts.

THE LEHMAN MADONNA

Mr. Lehman's Madonna (Fig. 32) was discovered
by Count Umberto Gnoli in Prince Potenziani's Villa
at Rieti, and published in the Rassegna d'Arte for
November, 191 1.1 The reproduction in black and
white left no doubt that it was one of the most incisive,
most personal, and most appealing of Bellini's earlier
achievements. The sight of the original was dazzling.
It had a vivacity and a wealth of colour that were a
revelation. A student of Bellini, expecting his rather
subdued scheme of pearly greys and blues that is sel-
dom disturbed by intrusions of brighter hues, is almost
taken aback by the crash of the strong coral reds, the
fresh juicy greens, the shining whites. But neverthe-
less the subtler and more delicate harmonies hold their
own, and I can scarcely recall a note of blue more tell-

1 The reappearance of this work was more of a delight than a surprise, for
I had long been acquainted with a crude but nearly contemporary copy. It
is in the collection of the Bavarian Minister at Vienna, Baron Tucher. We
reproduce the original from a photograph taken for Count Gnoli.

ing yet more exquisite than the one on the sash of the
Child. For the radiance of the colours is equalled by
their coolness, and transparency.

Far more than the design, does the colour scheme
betray the influence of Mantegna. We are reminded
of him spontaneously and irresistibly, but with this dif-
ference, that while even in his best preserved works he
is relatively opaque and heavy, not to say murky and
even hot, here Bellini remains as clear, as light, as fresh
as he always tends to be in his first period.

And yet the design is as Mantegnesque as Bellini ever
made, for if no one element in the figure is so obviously
taken over as the Child in the Johnson picture, the
festoon is lifted, so to speak, bodily from Mantegna.
We are reminded not only in that respect of his Andre
"Madonna" * and of two others known only in almost
contemporary copies at Berlin and in the former Butler
Collection, but in every other way as well. It is in-
deed likely that the entire pattern of our Madonna was
given by one of Mantegna's now lost, one in the style
of his most beautiful painting known to us, the Berlin
"Presentation of the Holy Child." That, by the way,
is a masterpiece which must have profoundly impressed
Giovanni Bellini, for it would seem as if he made a
version of it — or at least had it made under his own eye
— which is still to be seen.2

All in all, Mr. Lehman's panel is Bellini's most Man-
tegnesque wOrk. It is the more singular that he has

1 Reproduced as Fig. 381 in Venturi's "Storia" Vol. VII, part 3.

2 Querini-Stampalia Palace, Venice. The version is so remarkable that
I can scarcely blame Morelli for having believed that it was an original
(Photo. Alinari 13621).

taken so little of Mantegna's structure, for as a torso
this Madonna's would scarcely compare with a Greek
herma. We should liken it rather to something so
rudimentary as the wooden idols, the xoana of the
more primitive Greeks. It has scarcely more articu-
lation or projection than a board, and indeed is so
silhouetted as to suggest a flat back. Yet the painting
is to my mind none the worse, for manifestly the artist
was absorbed in his colour and his feeling, both of
which he renders with supreme success. These faults,
however, are among the chief reasons why I place it
slightly earlier than the kindred Johnson "Madonna"
already so much more supple and free, as if its author
had suddenly shaken off his limitations.

The resemblances between these two works are too
obvious to require pointing out, and in consequence we
are dispensed from the laborious task of dating Mr.
Lehman's. But, even if Mr. Johnson's "Madonna"
were unknown, we should have had no difficulty in
coming to the same conclusion with regard to its chron-
ology. Clearly an early effort, it yet could not have
been painted much, if at all, before 1470, and for the
following reasons. In general character of drawing,
design, and form it is close to the "Pieta" of the Doge's
Palace, painted as we know in 1472. The Virgin's
right hand anticipated that of the earlier Morelli "Ma-
donna" at Bergamo, and of the Moses in the Naples
"Transfiguration," works dating from toward 1480.
Finally, there is a bit of outside evidence. The Child's
sash, in the precise arrangements that we find here with
its vertical strip of embroidery, occurs in the Andre

Mantegna as well as in a Mantegnesque "Madonna" at
Tresto. Now I had on internal evidence placed the
Andre picture after its author's Uffizi Triptych, and
well on the way toward a later group represented by
the Mond "Holy Family." The exact year almost is
given us by the Tresto "Madonna" which could not
have been done before 1469, and probably was painted
very soon after.1 But the Tresto "Madonna" was in-
spired by some work like the Andre one, which must
therefore already have existed in 1469 yet not before,
I believe, owing to the way it anticipates later works,
that Mr. Lehman's Bellini which has such close af-
finities with this painting would certainly not have been
painted earlier.

VII

THE PLATT MADONNA

Excepting Mr. Frick's "St. Francis," none of the
remaining autograph works, amounting to six, in
American collections has quite the artistic value or the
archaeological interest of the three already discussed.
The earliest of them is a "Madonna" (Fig. 33) belong-
ing to Mr. D. F. Piatt of Englewood, New Jersey.

She is seen down to the waist, nearly in profile to
our right, wrapped in a mantle which leaves the face
and throat and hands bare. She holds the Child in
both her hands. He is wide awake, but she looks at
Him with eyes nearly closed and an expression of
calm, as if she were peacefully asleep. There is some-

1 Bolletino d'Arte 1909, p. 212, where it is reproduced.

Fig. 33. Giovanni Bellini : Madonna.

Collection of Mr. Dan Fellowes Piatt, Englewood, N. J.

thing at once soothing and mysterious in the aspect of
this youthful mother silhouetted so boldly against a
sky alive with clouds. The execution, on the other
hand, is not only summary but rather stringy.

Mr. F. M. Perkins, who, I believe, first published
this picture (Rassegna d'Arte, 191 1, p. 147) ap-
proaches it to a "Madonna" at Verona (No. 1 10) which
he ascribes to Bellini himself, and adds that both are
in the artist's first manner. It is true that, in a general
sense, the two panels belong to the same group. It
is also true that, in a still more general sense, they are
in Giambellino's first manner. The next of kin to
Mr. Piatt's "Madonna," however, is not the one at
Verona referred to by Mr. Perkins, but the Blessed
Virgin in the Pesaro "Coronation," and although it is,
roughly speaking, in the painter's first manner, the
artist himself was about forty-five years old when he
painted that panel.

This results from the fact that Mr. Piatt's "Ma-
donna" could only have come about as a variant upon
the Virgin in the Pesaro Altarpiece. With the car-
toon for the head of that noble figure before him, it
occurred to the artist to put a Child into her arms,
and give her an independent existence as a "Madonna."
He restricted himself to the fewest alterations in her
pose — and indeed they are slight — and he made scarcely
any change at all in the folds of her drapery. He
painted her rapidly and with a certain not altogether
praiseworthy carelessness. We discern the same faults
of execution in the predelle to the Pesaro "Coronation,"
particularly in the one representing the "Conversion

of Paul," where, by the way, the clouds have pretty
much the same shape and movement.

Now the Pesaro "Coronation," with its solemn, im-
mobile, thought-absorbed attendant Saints and its cas-
tellated landscape and poetical skies, not only closes
Giambellino's "first manner" but prefaces the rest of
his career, anticipating the grand altarpieces of his
ripest years. By common consent a date oscillating
around the year 1475 has been assigned to it. It is
confirmed by an observation that has perhaps not yet
been published. In the predella representing a young
military Saint standing on a pedestal there is a back-
ground of buildings so similar to the buildings in An-
tonello da Messina's "St. Sebastian" now at Dresden
that, apart from any question as to whether one was in-
spired by the other, or both directly by Mantegna, we
must conclude that they belong to the same moment of
architectural conception. We happen to be able to
say with certainty that Antonello's panel could not have
been designed before 1475.

This is, therefore, the date of Mr. Piatt's "Ma-
donna," and Giambellino, when painting her, was about
forty- five years of age. It is another proof that works
we used to ascribe to his first years were the offspring
of his mature middle age. Thus, Dr. Frizzoni's "Ma-
donna" is one we used to count among Giovanni's ear-
liest. I now see many reasons why it could not have
been painted before 1470, and Mr. Piatt's panel makes
one question whether it should not be put nearer to
1475. The reason is that the proportions of the Child
are so similar in both. He is already the long-legged

putto of the Rimini "Pieta" and the destroyed S. Gio-
vanni e Paolo Altarpiece. The execution of the Friz-
zoni picture is altogether more accomplished, but there
happens to exist a variant of this panel which until a few
years ago was at Sigmaringen. In that variant the
more summary execution has all the characteristics of
the Piatt "Madonna," even to the curious drawing of
the hands. Indeed, were there question of an assistant
being employed on any of these pictures, I should not
hesitate to recognize the touch of the same apprentice in
the Sigmaringen and Piatt pictures, as well as in some
of the predelle to the Pesaro "Coronation." Now,
unless we have proof to the contrary, which we lack
here, we may assume that a variant was painted not long
after the original, and that no great length of time
could have elapsed between the Sigmaringen version,
executed, as we must conclude, toward 1475, and Dr.
Frizzoni's original.

The action of the hands in Mr. Piatt's "Madonna"
— the Child's hand fondling the Mother's — no less than
the rest of the picture, connects it with a group of
works of which the most conspicuous examples are the
Brera "Madonna" with the Greek inscription, the one
at Verona with the Child standing (No. jy), the one
at S. Maria dell' Orto at Venice (probably a studio ver-
sion), and the sadly repainted one at Rovigo. Nat-
urally, they all belong to the same period, and this
period is determined by the fact that the Piatt picture
is a variant of the Virgin in the Pesaro "Coronation,"
while the Brera panel has draperies which are iden-
tical with those in the Vatican "Pieta," which origi-

nally formed part of the same work. When two char-
acteristic examples of a group stand so close to a given
masterpiece, the others necessarily cluster around it.

Finally, before we leave the Piatt "Madonna," we
should note that the action of the Child is similar to
the attitude of the Evangelist in the Naples "Trans-
figuration," and that there is considerable likeness in
the treatment of the loose curls on the heads of both.
These observations should confirm the dating of that
masterpiece, which has always been placed soon after
the Pesaro "Coronation."

VIII
THE WINTHROP MADONNA

In the collection of Mr. Grenville L. Winthrop of
New York there is a "Madonna" (Fig. 34) which,
though not entirely an autograph work, yet shows
Bellini so nearly at his best, that we shall do well to
consider it in the chronological sequence as if it were
his own handiwork. As we shall see, it very nearly is
his.1

Before a creased curtain, to either side of which ap-
pears a bit of landscape, the Blessed Virgin adores the
Child, who reclines on a parapet. She is a monumental
figure, grandly draped, one of Bellini's noblest types
of womanhood. Few of his Madonnas have more am-
plitude of design, or a more convincing existence.

I take it, therefore, that she was not only conceived
but very largely executed by the master himself. The

1 First published by William Rankin in Art in America, 1914, p. 317.

Fi°r. 34. Studio of Giovanni Bellini : Madonna

Collection of Mr. Grenville L. Winthrop, New York.

Child, on the other hand, is treated drily and with a
certain uncalled-for flatness, which appears particu-
larly in the face. The landscape also is too dry for
Bellini's own hand.

In every probability Mr. Winthrop's "Madonna"
is a replica, in essentials, by Giambellino himself, of
a work entirely from his own hand which has not yet
come to light. The longer one studies the happily
ever-increasing number of paintings which claim Bel-
lini's authorship, the more does one realize not only
how industrious he was, but what an industry he con-
trolled. Inventive and creative though he was, the
demand must soon have surpassed his ability to supply
perfectly fresh designs. He was reduced to marketing
repetitions, some, like the one before us, largely from
his own hand, and others made by assistants. I doubt
whether, when once Bellini was well started on his in-
dependent career, a picture ever left his studio with-
out furnishing a number of replicas of various degrees
of excellence. Not a few of the pictures now passing
for autographs are such replicas.

As for Mr. Winthrop's "Madonna," we can treat it
for all essential purposes as if it were Bellini's own.
No perceptible deformation of the design has taken
place.

Its next of kin must have been the Madonna in the
destroyed S. Giovanni e Paolo Altarpiece, although as
a pattern it is anticipated by the studio picture several
years earlier in date in the Verona Gallery (No. no).
The copy now replacing the original Altarpiece allows
us to infer forms as full and as substantial as in Mr.

Winthrop's picture, and a considerable resemblance to
its type and feeling. The folds of the draperies
bear a likeness to those in the Crespi "Madonna."
Neither this "Madonna" nor the Venetian Altarpiece
is dated, but we can determine with fair precision
when they were painted. The earlier, the former
Crespi "Madonna," is draped as in the predella to the
Pesaro "Coronation" representing the "Nativity." The
right hand is like the hands in the Piatt picture, and the
Child curiously resembles the Child in that magnifi-
cent and mysterious Bellinesque work in the National
Gallery where we see Doge Mocenigo at the feet of
the Blessed Virgin. As this can be dated 1478, the
Crespi panel must have been painted before that year
and after 1475, the earliest possible date for the Piatt
"Madonna." The S. Giovanni e Paolo Altarpiece, on
the other hand, is accepted almost universally as being
of about 1480, and Mr. Winthrop's picture, when due
consideration is given to the design as a whole, cannot
be regarded as much earlier.1

It occurs to me that even the most patient student
may begin to ask, "Why this insistence upon questions
of date?" My excuse is that at present they are m>
chief interest, and the reason for it is the conviction
that we shall make little progress in knowing or un-
derstanding Venetian painting in the fifteenth century
until we have established its chronology on a sound
basis. I am appalled when I think of the nonsense

1 The identical Child occurs in a Bellinesque "Madonna" of somewhat
later date in my own possession. The Virgin's hands in Mr. Winthrop's pic-
ture recall those in Bonsignori's "Madonna" in the Verona Gallery of 1483,
a work inspired by some lost Bellini painted a year or two earlier.

that for so many years has been written and spoken,
and which continues to be written and spoken, regard-
ing Venetian art, and the more so, as I myself have
been one of the worst sinners. Little of this would
have been possible to persons of intellectual probity
if we had been able to say that a given picture could
have been painted only in such and such a lustre. And
as Giovanni Bellini was the backbone, as it were, of
Venetian Quattrocento Painting, we shall ascertain its
chronology only by studying his.

THE HUNTINGTON MADONNA

Mr. Winthrop's "Madonna" is still of a type which
is described as an "early Bellini," and so long as we
bear in mind that its author was nearly fifty years of
age when he painted it, all is well. With Mrs. Hunt-
ington's picture, to which we now turn, we have left
the "first manner" behind us, and entered into a world
where everything is softer in outline, subtler in mod-
elling, and less severely hieratic in aspect. The
painter, who hitherto has been a master of flat color,
here reveals an unexpected interest in pictorial instead
of merely plastic chiaroscuro. He suddenly strives
for continuous effects of light and shade, which leave
no dimension and no part of his design untouched, and
he already succeeds in conveying a sense of that atmos-
pheric ambience which helps to give Bellini's mature
works their singular hold upon us.

Mrs. Huntington's "Madonna" (Fig. 35) — the pic-

ture, when I last saw it, was in New York — is a three
quarter figure standing between a parapet and a cur-
tain, holding with both her hands the Child, Who
presses His left hand to her throat. The Child seems
to be looking out of the picture at an imaginary specta-
tor below on the right, who half frightens Him and
makes Him cling to His Mother. He is clad in a
short tunic with a broad band across the waist, and she
wears a much crumpled kerchief, while the mantle,
which usually in Bellinis of this time covers her head,
here leaves it free. On the parapet is a creased cartel
with the artist's signature.

The tossing of the drapery to one side — in this case
over the Virgin's left arm — connects the silhouette of
this design with such "early" works as the Lehman,
Crespi and Frizzoni panels, but as a whole it is closer
to the earlier Mond "Madonna." As in that painting,
the Child, and with Him necessarily the entire compo-
sition, is but a reversed variant of the one in Mantegna's
[Bergamo "Madonna" (Fig. 36), a work scarcely later
than 1470. Our Lady's left hand is almost identical
with the one in the earlier Morelli "Madonna"
in Bergamo, and with the hand in a reversed variant
of this picture in the Doges' Palace (Photo. Anderson
11618).1 On the other hand, there is much here that
points to a date later than warranted by the factors just
referred to. Apart from the technique, which — as we
have observed already — is distinctly more advanced
than in any of the works just cited, the entire system of
folds belongs to the period inaugurated by the S.

1 More likely a copy by Bonsignori than an original.

Fig. 35. Giovanni Bellini : Madonna.

Collection of Mrs. H. E. Huntington, New York.

Fig. 36. Mantegna: Madonna.
Bergamo Gallery.

Giobbe Altarpiece, a more pictorial and far less linear
system. The types, too, belong to the same period, the
"Madonna" anticipating the Metropolitan and Salo-
mon "Madonnas" that we shall study presently, and
the Child, with His close-cropped hair, recalling the
one in the S. Giobbe Altarpiece. All of these works
hold together with the later Morelli and the later Mond
"Madonnas," and were beyond much question painted
very soon after 1480.

My reason for pointing to the earlier features in
Mrs. Huntington's panel is that Prof. Venturi, who
first published it {Arte, 1909, p. 319), places it, per-
haps inadvertently, ten years later. If this "Madonna"
were really "from the last decade of the Quattrocento,"
it would not be at all likely to show so many affinities
with paintings of the eighth decade nor hark back to
so relatively early a design of Mantegna's as the Ber-
gamo "Madonna." It may be seriously questioned
whether clear traces of such substantial borrowing ex-
ist in any authentic achievement of Bellini's which can
be proved to belongvto a date more than a few years
later than 1480.

To my knowledge, this is the latest work of Giam-
bellino's in which unmistakable and even striking evi-
dence of Mantegna's influence is to be discovered. It
is noteworthy, by the way, that just before ceasing to
operate, this influence seems to have reached its height.
Thus, the Berlin "Resurrection" contains details rem-
iniscent of the Eremitani frescoes and the S. Zeno Trip-
tych, while the "Madonna" we have just been examin-
ing must have been suggested, as we have seen, by the

Mantegna at Bergamo. That particular pattern seems
to have impressed Bellini inordinately, for we possess
two versions of it from his hand ; the one now in ques-
tion, in his more advanced style, and the Mond "Ma-
donna" already referred to, obviously several years ear-
lier and contemporary with the Brera and Piatt pic-
tures. Yet this influence here abruptly ceases, and,
were we to judge by Giambellino's extant works, we
should have no means of knowing that their author
was aware that Mantegna went on painting after
1470.

THE MADONNA OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM

■

The ten years from 1480 to 1490 seem to have been
the busiest, the most productive, the --most-fruitful of
Bellini's career. The larger part of the masterpieces
for which he hitherto has been renowned, belong to
these years, and include such favorites as the greatest
of his extant Altarpieces, the S. Giobbe one, the "Ma-
donna with the Magdalen and St. Catherine," the
"Madonna between Two Trees," and the "Madonna
with SS. Paul and George," all in the Venice Academy,
as well as the Frari Triptych, and the Murano "Ma-
donna with Doge Barberigo" and the Uffizi "Alle-
gory," not to speak of less appreciated because less well
known achievements, like the "Pieta" of Toledo, Stutt-
gart and the Ufrizi, and a number of "Madonnas" be-
sides. This was not only his most productive period,

but, despite the fact that it was the sixth decade of
his life, the one during which he made the most rapid
progress.

Living, as distinct from mechanical progress, is a
vibrating, oscillating, prowling, exploring energy that
does not dash forward in a straight line, but swerves
to right and left, sometimes doubles back, at times zig-
zags or loops, and always looks before and after.
Hence the great difficulty with regard to works exe-
cuted during these busy years to say which in a given
group was painted first and which next. Thus, I feel
fairly certain that the "Madonna" to which we shall
now give our attention was executed after the Hunt-
ington one that we have just examined and before the
Salomon one that we shall discuss later, but the relation
of each of these "Madonnas" and others of the same
group to each other and to the central work, the S.
Giobbe Altarpiece, is not so easy to determine; and
although I have devoted an amount of study to it quite
beyond the obvious necessities of the case, I yet am
far from satisfied with the result. All one can say
with any security is that the entire group belongs to
the lustre between 1480 and 1485. One requires the
more care and caution as the paintings in question, ow-
ing to the time of their execution in the midway of the
artist's career, share traits with works of earlier years,
and have much in common with those of a decade later.
They are saved from being placed with the early ef-
forts by the obvious maturity of their style, which any
number of contradictory features cannot obscure; but
they are, on account of this or that one characteristic,

constantly being dated ten years later than a careful
consideration of all the facts will warrant.

The "Madonna" of the Metropolitan Museum (Fig.
37) was, at the time of its purchase, published by Mr.
Roger Fry (Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum,
October, 1908). It would not be easy to point to a
short article on a newly discovered picture that is
more appreciative, better informed and more delight-
ful. If I could count on everyone having access to it,
I should feel exonerated from attempting to say any-
thing about the picture myself, except from the point
of view of the special interest — the question of Bellini's
chronology — that I am pursuing at the present mo-
ment. Not that I disagree with Mr. Fry even on that
point, for I place this panel where he does, early in
the eighties of the fifteenth century. But as his paper
may not be accessible, and as I have certain compari-
sons to make which he was not called upon to refer to,
I shall speak of this picture briefly in my own way.

The Virgin, visible down to the knees, sits between a
parapet and a curtain, turning to our right but looking
nearly straight at us. A crumpled white hood frames
in her face, and over it falls her mantle. She supports
the naked Child on her left knee with both her hands,
and He looks up with open-mouthed wonder, as if sud-
denly hearing, as Mr. Fry suggests, choirs invisible.
On our left we see fields leading up to a Friulan village
with the Julian Alps behind. The houses have Vene-
tian chimneys and fixed pulleys for hauling up stores to
the loft — a curiously Northern feature. On the para-
pet is the signature.

Fig. 27- Giovanni Bellini : Madonna.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

The eyes of the Madonna especially, and her type as
well, anticipate the Virgin in the Frari Triptych, and
the Child, to a slighter degree, its baby angel musicians.
The border on her mantle recalls that in the Murano
Altarpiece, and the embroidery on the curtain the still
later "Madonna with SS. Paul and George" in the Ven-
ice Academy. On the other hand, the drawing is far
more severe than in those full-blown masterpieces of
1488 and after, the modelling is harder, more porcelain-
like (as in Cima) , and some features are almost archaic.
The Virgin's right hand, for instance, is identical with
one in the Vatican "Pieta" which dates back as far as
1475, and with another in the Berlin "Resurrection"
which is nearly as "early." The landscape, too, has
much of the character, although none of the features,
of that work, remaining rather thin and somewhat
timid.

A picture that looks so distinctly backward to 1475
and forward to 1488, may with some probability be
placed at a moment between, say toward 1483, and, in-
deed, all the evidence points in the same direction.
The close relation of the Metropolitan Museum "Ma-
donna" to the Huntington one is manifest, for the types
are kindred, derived no doubt, in both from the same
model; the poise of the heads is the same, the crumpled
folds in the hoods are similar, and the Children's left
hands are identical. The date of Mrs. Huntington's
picture, we agreed, must have been soon after 1480.
Furthermore, the motive of the Child gazing vaguely
as if in ecstasy, or looking up as if listening, is frequent
in pictures which, on independent grounds, can be at-

tributed to 1480- 1485. We have Him already in the
S. Giobbe Altarpiece. In the slightly later "Madonna
with St. Catherine and the Magdalen" of the Venice
Academy, He tosses His head back to listen. Oddly
enough, His action is slightly less expressive of listening
in the other Venice Academy picture (Fig. 38), where,
as Mr. Fry suggests, Bellini introduced a choir of
cherubs as if in answer to a criticism that the attitude of
the Child in our panel was not accounted for. In the
later Morelli picture (Fig. 39), the Child's pose and
expression are almost the same as in ours. Finally, in
the Mond, Oldenburg and Salomon "Madonnas" the
Child, although reclining, has again a vague look, as if
He were listening.

It would be interesting to study how Bellini played
with a motive like this, what changes of pose he intro-
duced, and how he dealt with the hands, but it would
take up too much space here, and besides I hope to find
a more suitable occasion before long. Here it will be
better to keep to our task. With regard to the picture
in question, it is not quite exhausted. Needless to say
that the "Madonnas" referred to with the motive of the
Child looking up, have much else in common beside the
principal theme, but this is so manifest that we need not
dwell upon it. Other important works with which our
"Madonna" is contemporary, are the sublime "Pieta" in
the Cathedral of Toledo, and the ruined but noble one
in the Stuttgart Gallery. The folds in our Virgin's
mantle are singularly like those in her mantle in the
Toledo panel, and in the Stuttgart picture the Evan-
gelist has a hand like hers.

Fig. 38. Giovanni Bellini : Madonna.

Venice Academy.

Fig. 39. Giovanni Bellini : Madonna.

Morelli Collection, Bergamo.

Fig. 40. Stumo of Giovanni Bellini : Madonna,
Cook Collection, Richmond, England,

In the Cook Collection at Richmond there is a studio
version of another variant of the motive (Fig. 40). It
comes nearer than any other to the "Madonna" in the
Metropolitan Museum, but the Child is vaguer and
much less expressive, nearer, perhaps, to the Child in
the Oldenburg panel, while the play of hands is quite
different. He holds the Virgin's thumb in a way that
occurs in Bellini but once again, to my knowledge, and
that in a much repainted "Madonna" ascribed to
Pennacchi, in the anteroom to the Sacristy of the Salute
in Venice, a work which, whether or not we regard it as
an original, is close to the "Madonna with St. Catherine
and the Magdalen" of the Venice Academy, and there-
fore belongs to this group.

XI
THE SALOMON MADONNA

The group of Madonnas we have just been consider-
ing may be divided into an earlier and a later part. To
the earlier belong the S. Giobbe Altarpiece, the "Ma-
donna with St. Catherine and the Magdalen," and the
"Madonna with the Cherubs," all in the Venice Acad-
emy, while to the later belong the Mond, Oldenburg
and Salomon "Madonnas." The later Morelli one
stands exactly between the two sections, sharing the
action of the Child with the first, but His type of face
and the more ample draperies of the Virgin with the
latter.

The "Madonna" belonging to Mr. William Salomon
of New York (Fig. 41) I have just mentioned as the

last of the group we have been discussing. She too,
like the one in the Metropolitan Museum, is seen be-
tween a parapet and a curtain, only here she faces to our
left. As there a kerchief frames in her face, but its
folds are rarer and softer, and it is less covered by the
mantle. Her look is gentle and meditative and un-
directed. The Child does not sit on her knee, but re-
clines in her arms and looks up vaguely as if listening,
while His left hand caresses His chin. To the one side
we see a castle with a river in front and mountains be-
hind.

At Oldenburg may be seen a "Madonna" (Fig. 42)
which differs in essentials but slightly from Mr. Salo-
mon's.1 In type as well as in the folds of her drapery
she is more severe and more angular: she does not sit
against a curtain but against a landscape, and the chief
feature of this landscape is a massive keep in the middle
distance. The Child also is much severer in type and
His hair is scantier. The hands are nearly identical.

The Virgin's right hand, which, in Mr. Salomon's
picture, strikes one as scarcely peculiar for its arrange-
ment of fingers, begins to be rather singular in the
Oldenburg version, and in another panel of this series,
the one already mentioned as being in the Salute at
Venice, the exaggeration of the thumb becomes almost
grotesque. This arrangement of fingers, which first
appears in the Trivulzio "Madonna," is visible in the
Madonna of the S. Giobbe Altarpiece, the central mas-
terpiece of our group, and again in a work of somewhat

1 Reproduced, along with the Bonn "Madonna" to be mentioned presently,
in the "Zeitschrift fur bildende Kunst," New Series, XXI, p. 141.

Fig. 41. Giovanni Bellini: Madonna.
Collection of Mr. William Salomon, New York.

Fig. 42. Giovanni Bellini : Madonna.

Oldenburg.

later date, the Uffizi "Pieta," where, by the way, our
Madonna's right hand also finds an exact parallel.

The Child in the Oldenburg picture closely resembles
the one in the various versions of the "Presentation of
the Holy Child in the Temple," the lost original of
which, like the Uffizi "Pieta," must have been painted
about 1485. He anticipates the Child in the Frari
Triptych.

The large folds of the Virgin's mantle in both ver-
sions recall the later Morelli "Madonna" and the one
in the Mond Collection. The landscape in Mr. Salo-
mon's picture has a castle resembling the one in the
Morelli panel, while the castle in that at Oldenburg
is perfectly identical with the keep in the Mond pic-
ture.

There can be no doubt, therefore, that the Salomon
"Madonna" belongs to this group. The relations
which we have noted of the Oldenburg replica to some-
what later works makes it plausible that that is the last
autograph version of the series, with the exception of
Mr. Salomon's, which, on account of its greater suavity
and roundness, is probably later still.

Before leaving Mr. Salomon's "Madonna," I must
briefly mention a third version of the same motive. It
is a "Madonna" in the Bonn Museum (Plate 91 of the
Catalogue). The pattern of the figures is essentially
the same as at Oldenburg, but the differences are inter-
esting. The draping, particularly of the hood, the
softer modelling, the sweeter expression of the Virgin,
the curly hair of the Child, are all much nearer to Mr.
Salomon's panel, and, being even rounder and suaver

than in that panel, indicate a later date. The back-
ground, on the other hand, consists entirely of land-
scape, as in the Oldenburg picture, only that the land-
scape, too, is much softer, although in certain features,
as, for instance, the tree on the right, harking back to the
Naples "Transfiguration." The musty and woolly
quality of the Bonn "Madonna" precludes its being yet
another autograph work of Bellini's. It can, however,
be no further away than a studio copy of such a work.

XII
THE WILLYS MADONNA

Mr. John N. Willys of Toledo, Ohio, has recently
acquired a Madonna (Fig. 43) by Giovanni Bellini
which we welcome the more gladly as it must have
been painted two or three years later than any of
those that we have studied hitherto. It thus enables
us, without leaving our country, to follow Bellini
up to a phase of his activity to which belong some
of his noblest and most fascinating creations, those in
fact which until not long ago were regarded as the
most, almost as the only, representative ones. It was
the period when he painted such universal favorites as
the "Madonna of the Two Trees," the little "Allegor-
ies" of the Venice Academy, the Uffizi "Meditation
upon the Mystery of the Tree of Life," the Murano
Altarpiece, the Frari Triptych, the Venice "Madonna
with Paul and George," etc., etc.

In Mr. Willys' panel we see the Blessed Virgin

against a green curtain which partly shuts out a vitreous
gray landscape. The sturdy Child playfully attempts
to rouse her from the brooding melancholy into which
she is sunk, but He caresses and embraces her in vain.
Her mood is nearly the same as in the famous "Ma-
donna of the Two Trees," but is heavier still, for there
the Child does not struggle to distract His Mother, and
does not pointedly fail. As pattern also, the two mas-
terpieces are singularly alike, ours being in a sense but
a variant of the other. The differences are not all to
the disadvantage of ours, although one would not for a
moment suggest a rivalry with that supreme achieve-
ment.

As that picture is dated 1487 and as Mr. Willys' is
in every other respect so close to it, we can safely as-
sume that in point of time as well they belong together.
The only question is which is earlier and which later.
My answer is that the American work is later, and for
the following reasons. Despite the fact that the action
of the Child possibly harks back to a lost Mantegna of
about 1470 now represented by some such design as the
Tresto "Madonna," and although anticipated in exact
type and proportions by the Child of the earlier Olden-
burg "Madonna" and by that of the "Presentation in the
Temple," He is closest of all to the one in the Frari
Triptych of 1488, and to some of the children in the
Uffizi "Allegory." Furthermore, the head of the
Blessed Virgin is nearer to that of the Madonna in the
same triptych, and points forward to a still later one,
the National Gallery "Madonna." I should place its
execution, therefore, between the "Madonna with the

Trees" and the Frari Triptych, but nearer to the last,
and thus early in 1488.

A nearly contemporary copy of Mr. Willys' picture
may be seen in the Vicenza Gallery, but it has lost all
importance now that we know the original. Far more
interesting is Antonio de Saliba's Madonna (Fig. 44) at
Berlin (No. 13) and the question of its relation to ours.
As is evident from the reproduction, the resemblance
between the two designs comprises everything except
the head of the Virgin, the action of the Child's hand,
the curtain and the landscape, so that one wonders
whether de Saliba had ours before him, inventing the
alterations, or, as would be quite likely, had in mind a
variant from Bellini's hand which he copied outright.
It is hard for me, knowing Saliba's limitations, to credit
him with deliberate changes when mere copying would
have done as well. The different action of the Child's
hand, brought about by the different direction of His
Mother's look, would have been almost too much of an
effort for this second-rate painter. At the same time
it must be granted that there is something not strictly
Bellinesque in the Madonna's face, thus proving that
his picture was more than a slavish copy.

Be that as it may, one fact results from the obvious
relation of this Berlin panel of de Saliba's to Mr.
Willys' Bellini. It could not have been painted before
its prototype which we agreed to place in 1488. We
thus acquire a starting-point for determining the chro-
nology of this modest yet ablest of the great Antonello's
followers which at any moment may prove of value to
our studies.

Fig. 43. Giovanni Bellini : Madonna.

Collection of Mr. Willys, Toledo, O.

Fig. 44. Antonio de Saliba : Madonna.

Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin.

To my knowledge there is no other work in American
private or public collections executed as well as con-
ceived by Giovanni Bellini except Mr. Frick's "St.
Francis," which we shall study in the next section. It
is to be hoped that the future will provide us with more
of his paintings, some of which may help to illustrate
the remaining thirty years of his career. Meanwhile
we must take it as a mitigation that we possess several
panels which were painted in his studio on his designs
or even after his autographs, as well as one or two nearly
contemporary copies after destroyed or extant originals.
It will be our task later on to study these various works.

XIII

MR. FRICK'S "ST. FRANCIS"

I had not long finished writing the chapter on Bel-
lini's autograph works in America when it was an-
nounced that Mr. Frick had purchased the St. Francis
which aroused so much interest in the Royal Academy
Winter Exhibition of 191 2. I shall not recast the
chapter to give this new acquisition its exact chronolog-
ical order, for this new picture would not throw much
light on those already attended to, and in point of date
it goes with the later among them so that the sequence
is not too much disturbed.

It is no exaggeration to say that we could not have
added to our collections a work by Bellini at once so
magnificent and so singular. Alone, it would give us
a most incomplete and one-sided idea of its author, but
in connection with the paintings we possess already,

not to speak of those we still may hope to acquire, it
becomes interesting and important as no Madonna or
figure composition of equal quality could be. Figure
paintings we have and shall add to, but a design of such
magnitude given over so entirely to landscape is not
known to exist in Venetian painting of the fifteenth
century, or indeed in any other Italian school of that
time.

A pen of genius like Ruskin's, inspired by his loving
and accurate delineation of plants and flowers, and his
delight in the rendering of rock formation and cloud
structure, would not be more than adequate to the task
of conveying in words a sense of this landscape. I
shall not attempt it. The reproduction shall speak for
itself (Fig. 45). It will, however, not be altogether
superfluous, perhaps, to warn the spectator, brought up
perchance on Impressionist painting, that he must not
expect here a study after a scene in nature portrayed as
faithfully as eye can see and brush can render, and al-
ways under the same conditions of light and atmosphere.
No Quattrocento master would have seen any merit in
such an attempt. Nature, like everything else in the
visible world, was interesting to him not so much for its
own sake as for the detail it furnished him to be used in
his design. And when he set himself the task of paint-
ing a landscape, he did not very likely, certainly not nec-
essarily, go out in search of a bit of scenery to repro-
duce, but composed it out of his own head with the de-
tails furnished him by memory and his note books.
This detail had to be accurate in itself, obeying its own
as well as universal laws of formation and structure and

growth, but it never would have occurred to the artist
that such detail had in his design to be related as he
found it in nature. He always had an idea to express,
a mood to convey, and he used his rocks, and plants,
and trees, and clouds, and above all his light, for that
purpose, differing from the pattern maker, or even
musician, only in that he never deliberately convention-
alized his detail, which, unlike their treatment of shape
and sound, he reproduced faithfully with all their ac-
cidents and all their accents: so that every flower and
shrub, every leaf and tree would stand the scrutiny of
the botanist, every pebble and rock of the mineralogist
and geologist, every animal of the naturalist, every
building of the architect, and every artifact of its
artisan.

Granted, however, that this is not a landscape as a
Monet would have painted it, nor even as Sisley or
Pissarro or any of their companions or followers, yet
one will not readily find its superior. If far less a rec-
ord of one impression than any of these, it is more ar-
resting in detail. Here we have a world we shall not
readily exhaust, and even when its own mood — solemn,
sober, and meditative — no longer appeals to our con-
sciousness, our spirit still can roam therein at leisure,
entertained as in the best favored regions of the real
world.

Doubtless Bellini, as well as his patron Messer Zuan
Michiel who ordered this picture, meant it to be a land-
scape, but European man had not yet made sufficient
advance toward nature to compose a landscape without
some pretext of a religious, legendary, or at least

romantic subject. The white man's world was still
man-centered. The pretext here was St. Francis re-
ceiving the Stigmata. It is not unusual in Venetian
Painting for Francis to stand rather than kneel while
receiving the Stigmata, and it does not surprise us that
Bellini conceives him as an ascetic, but at the same time
virile and intellectual personality. But how different
it all is from the Florentine or even the Sienese treat-
ment of the subject! Here there is no passive ecstasy
and no horrid wilderness, but a free man communing
with his Ideal, and in surroundings completely human-
ized, humanized to the point of a certain noble home-
liness. The Saint need not retire to the wilderness to
find His God. He can find Him close to the haunts of
men.

And now we must turn to the question of such deep
interest to us special students of the history of Venetian
painting: — when did Giovanni Bellini paint this pic-
ture? To get the right answer we shall be well ad-
vised to examine it first and foremost as a landscape.

From his earliest years as an independent artist,
Giovanni Bellini, betrays in his landscape a most un-
usual delight in quiet> sober forms which he had taken
straight from nature and recombined for his purposes
under a unifying light tending to produce the emotion
he wished to stir. In the background to the late Mr.
Theo. Davis' "Madonna" we have made acquaintance
with such a result, but of the quietest. Those who have
seen the National Gallery "Agony in the Garden" will
never forget the transfiguring effect of the sunset glow
upon a landscape as devoid of Romantic features or

Classical evocations as anything in Italy can be. I for
one have never been more deeply stirred by the crea-
tions of the most renowned magicians of the landscape
art. Just because of its fidelity to the ordinary aspects
and moods of nature this scene is not only transporting
but convincing. Now it is fairly easy to be transport-
ing, and one can with gifts and effort be convincing.
To be both requires genius.

(fillings interest in landscape. seems,. to hay? intensi-
fied, as well as expanded more and more ^s he found
himsejlT and particularly during that most formative
decade of his career, the years between 1470 and 1480.
Yet the predelle to the Pesaro "Coronation" of about
1475, allowing even for their summary treatment, do
not show the progress one might expect. But the
Naples "Transfiguration," dating from toward the end
of this period, presents a scene not only of silent, solemn,
subduing feeling such as the subject demands, but one
filled with well-managed episodes, and shows unex-
pectedly a much greater interest than hitherto in cloud
and plant. In the "St. Francis" all these tendencies
culminate, and never again do we find Bellini revelling,
as he does here, in detail, whether it be of twig or leaf,
pebble or wattled knot. Directly afterwards, he began
to generalize nature, and to subordinate it to those ef-
fects of colored atmosphere which, because of his in-
vention and teaching and example, became the dominant
note of Venetian painting for the rest of its history.
Before another ten years were over he offered us, in the
background of the Ufrizi "Allegory" and in those of the
little "Allegories" of the Venice Academy, landscapes

softer, more velvety, and subtler, but with the detail
relatively blurred.

The date of the Naples "Transfiguration" is toward
1480, as all students seem to agree. Another work,
chiefly interesting for its background, of nearly the same
date, or perhaps a trifle later, is the "Resurrection" now
in Berlin. The Uffizi "Allegory" was painted, I have
reason to believe, about 1488. I shall now attempt to
prove that Mr. Frick's "St. Francis" was designed after
the Naples and Berlin pictures, but before, and I be-
lieve considerably before, the Uffizi one. General con-
siderations derived from aesthetic appreciation and the
progress of the art have already been presented in the
last paragraph. Let us come to particulars.

Our landscape has most in common with the one in
the "Transfiguration." The branching of the biggest
tree in each is the same. The detail in the foreground,
whether of plant, or rail, or wattle, is treated with the
same meticulous care and vital precision. Even the
signatures are in letters of nearly the same epigraphic
character on perfectly identical crumpled scraps of
paper attached to stumps. The buildings in the middle
distance of the "St. Francis" are, on the other hand,
more closely related to those in the "Resurrection," and
the shepherd feeding his flock in the one is, but for a
slight difference in dress, identical with the figure in
the other. Finally, the castle on the height recalls the
one on the horizon in the Uffizi "Allegory." But by
far the most numerous and significant points of resem-
blance are with the two first works of the three just
mentioned, and furthermore our landscape represents

100

with them an identical stage in the progress of Bellini's
treatment of atmosphere. In the Uffizi "Allegory" it
is already so far advanced as to sacrifice vitality of line
to its demands. Thus while there are no plants in the
foreground of the "Allegory" to afford terms of com-
parison, we find them in a painting of perhaps the same
year as that "Allegory," the Murano altarpiece of 1488
with Doge Barbarigo, and cannot fail to note how much
less meticulously they are drawn and with how much
less precision. We may justly conclude therefore that
the advance in the treatment of both atmosphere and
vegetation made between the last-mentioned paintings
and ours is great enough to suggest a lapse of years, and
we are thus pushed back to a date close to that of the
"Transfiguration." Finally, if we have any further
doubt regarding this point, we need only give our at-
tention to the figure of the Saint to have it dispelled.
The folds of his draperies are relatively stiff and severe,
nothing like so free and fluent as the folds of, say, the
St. Francis in the S. Giobbe Altarpiece. Indeed, they
hark back to those in certain figures on the pilasters of
the Pesaro "Coronation" and even to folds in the still
earlier Carita Triptychs. Yet on the whole they are
much closer to those in the S. Giobbe Altarpiece or to
such a work of exactly the same period as the "Peter
Martyr" at Monopoli. Our "St. Francis," for in-
stance, has on his right sleeve a heart-shaped fold
which, expanded or seen at another angle, occurs in the
figure of Francis in the last-named altarpiece and in
the St. Mark of the Murano "Madonna with the Doge
Barbarigo" dated 1488, but to my recollection in no

IOI

work certainly earlier than 1480. But the draperies in
even the S. Giobbe "St. Francis" are much more
rounded and fluent than in ours, and may well witness
to an advance made in no less than two or three years.
Now, as I beg my readers to accept until I find a more
appropriate occasion for attempting proof, the S.
Giobbe altarpiece was painted about 1483, and thus our
figure cannot be dated later than 148 1. Indeed I am
inclined to believe that it may be somewhat earlier, and
that it may have been intended to be a pendant to the
"Transfiguration," which, by the way, is of the same
size.

If Mr. Frick's "St. Francis" was designed about 1480
— and I do not believe that the competent student after
examining the evidence carefully can come to any other
conclusion — it leaves no ground for such an opinion as
that of Mr. Roger Fry, acclaimed and enshrined by Dr.
Tancred Borenius in his very learned annotations to
Crowe and Cavalcaselle. According to Mr. Fry this
most noble work is not by Bellini at all but by Marco
Basaiti. Mr. Fry surely would not have fallen into
this error had he considered the chronology of this
work, and had he been more critical of Cavalcaselle as
well as of my own youthful synthesis of that master.
I hastily assimilated to his manner and therefore at-
tributed to him all the paintings issuing from Bellini's
studio which in fact, as I now believe, had served Ba-
saiti as subjects for imitation. But the smaller man be-
trays himself in much feebler drawing, more indeter-
mined, and scamped forms, seldom done with reference
to nature (unless indeed as seen through Bellini's spec-

102

tacles), by much cruder effects of lights, unreal model-
ing, and chillier coloring.

Among Basaiti's paintings known to me the follow-
ing are the best as to quality and offer the closest ele-
ments of comparison with the landscape of our "St.
Francis." As for the figure of the Saint himself, I
despair of finding an even distant approach to it among
the same artist's works:

The Venice Academy "Agony in the Garden" of
1510.

The Vienna version of the "Calling of the Children
of Zebedee," dated 15 15.

Mr. Robert Benson's "St. Jerome" dated 1505. This
little panel is signed with a Bellini studio signature,
and the Saint may have been designed by Bellini, but
the landscape is surely Basaiti's.

The "St. Jeromes" of the National Gallery and
Count Papafava's collection at Padua.

The "Entombment" of the Camerini collection at
Piazzola.

The "Dead Christ" left by Count Palffy to the
Budapest Gallery.

Let the student compare the rock structure, the forma-
tion of clouds or the growth of plants in any of these
panels with the same in our "St. Francis," and conclude
for himself. All that transpires is that quite likely
Basaiti was well acquainted with some such masterpiece
of the great artist as the one before us, as well as the
two "Pietas," nearly contemporary with it, now at
Toledo and Stuttgart. Like all archaists, however, Bas-
aiti seldom if ever imitates the past, even as when in this

103

case it is relatively recent, without letting something
slip in that betrays a later date. I defy any one to point
out the slightest trace in the "St. Francis" compelling
us to conclude that it was painted much later than 1480.
To make it even possible that Basaiti was its author it
would have had to be done at the very least twenty
years later, for we have no trace of him before 1500.

Finally, there may be yet another explanation of Mr.
Fry's error. The "Anonimo Morelliano" speaks of our
picture in the following terms: "The oil painting of
St. Francis in the wilderness was done by Giovanni
Bellini. It was begun by him for Messer Giovanni
Michiel, and has a landscape all but finished and won-
derful in its attention to detail." *

Mr. Fry with this bit of information in mind may
perhaps have concluded that as the picture was un-
finished it must have been left so because of Bellini's in-
ability to complete it owing to old age and illness
and that therefore it was a very late work, and conse-
quently one of the pictures executed perhaps in the
Bellini factory but altogether Basaiti's. This theory
would rest on the assumption, which there no longer
seems to me ground for making, namely, that Basaiti
played an overwhelming role in the aged Bellini's
studio and was in fact responsible for most of the work
that left it. But all this is quite uncalled for. For
instance, in the same collection, that of Taddeo Contar-

1 The original (of which mine is not a literal but yet a scrupulously accu-
rate interpretation) runs like this: "La tavola del San Francesco nel deserto
fu opera de Zuan Bellino cominciata da lui a M. Zuan Michiel, e ha un
paese propinquo finito e ricercato mirabilmente" Notizie d'opera di disegno
pubblicata e illustrata da D. Jacopo Morelli, ed. Frizzoni (Bologna, Zani-
chelli, 1884), p. 168.

104

ino, wherein the "Anonimo" in 1525 saw our "St.
Francis," he also found "The Three Philosophers"
(now at Vienna) which, as he tells us, was begun by
Giorgione and finished by Sebastiano del Piombo.
Yet it is as clear that that magical creation could not
have been one of Giorgione's last, as it is certain that
only after his death was it completed by Sebastiano.

Why Bellini left this work all but, yet not quite, fin-
ished about 1480 is a matter beyond my speculation.
Perchance he already was overworked, or like Leon-
ardo he was so much in love with his task that he could
not bring it to an end. But the patience of Messer
Zuan Michiel came to an end and he took the picture
away.

To us who now contemplate this masterpiece with
reverent attention it is by no means easy to discover
where the landscape could have remained "not quite fin-
ished." Yet a close examination reveals in the middle
distance, above as well as below the town, little rounded
trees. Those above in particular, I mean those on the
castle hill, are perhaps not altogether in the character
of Bellini as he worked about 1480. As painters of
that time finished up each bit separately, very likely it
was that particular passage which remained unfinished.
The Anonimo saw it in that state in 1525. I hazard
the suggestion that it was completed directly afterwards
by Girolamo da Santacroce, for these little trees are
in his manner.

105

CHAPTER IV

PICTURES FROM THE STUDIO OF GIOVANNI BELLINI, AND
CONTEMPORARY COPIES

I SAID at the end of the last chapter that we had in
America no autograph work of Giovanni Bellini's
later than the Willys "Madonna" painted in 1488.
We have, however, two of the best studio products — the
Pourtales picture dating from about 1500, and an im-
portant altarpiece from about 15 10, besides nearly con-
temporary copies after two extant Madonnas, the one
with the apple, in the National Gallery, of about 1488,
and the one of 1507 at S. Francesco della Vigna in
Venice, as well as of the destroyed Cornaro "Christ at
Emmaus" painted in 1490. The study of these may
enable us to eke out, with the acquaintance of something
like the real thing, those bookish pale notions regarding
Bellini's thirty last years of activity to which those who
cannot leave America should otherwise be reduced.
Before turning to this task, however, I would invite the
reader to go back with me for a moment to a couple of
panels executed in Bellini's studio in his earlier years.

A short paragraph about this studio may not be out
of place here.

For years it puzzled one to understand how there

106

could occur passages of what seemed inferior workman-
ship in those of Giambellino's paintings which all
agreed were among his earliest, as for instance the Cor-
rer "Dead Christ," and the "Transfiguration" of the
same collection. It seemed odd that an artist of twenty
or so should be so busy as not to find time for executing
entirely with his own hands works of such inconsider-
able size. And this in face of the fact that during the
seventies of the XVth century his reputation among the
common run of patrons had not yet risen manifestly
above that of a compiling mediocrity like Lazzaro
Sebastiani.1 The enigma disappears if we assume, as
I am inclined to, that Giovanni Bellini did not have an
independent career till about 1465. As a full-grown
man, and the son of his father, he probably enjoyed
enough authority and reputation to have had almost
from the start more work than he could do with his own
hands, although a late beginning prevented his name
from reaching the common ear for ten years more.

Probably from the first there issued from his studio
not only paintings largely but not wholly from the
master's own hand, like those already mentioned, but
versions of autograph works, like the Berlin one (No.
1 177) of the Verona "Madonna," as well as mere shop
works which the artist only sketched out, leaving the
elaboration and execution to assistants, as was the case
with the series of panels for the Carita. Later his

1 A Venetian writing home from Pera, April 18th, 1473, to ask for a picture
of a Christ, requests that it be painted by Lazzaro Sebastiani, and to apply
to Giambellino if Lazzaro is dead or unable to do it. Raccolta di Documenti
inediti per servire alia storia della pittura Veneziana net Secoli XV e XVI.
Ricerche dal Prof. Paoletti Pietro di Osvaldo, Fascicolo 1. / Bellini,
(Padova, R. Stabilimento P. Prosperini, 1894), p. 12.

107

workshop, as indeed that of every other Renaissance
master of equal fame, must have had more resemblance
to a factory (of the days before steam of course) than
to the studios of our present-day artists. Only Botticelli
and Raphael among Giambellino's contemporaries can
have had as much to superintend, and if we neglect the
output of their ateliers we fail to comprehend the full
range of their activities. We Morellians, in the resolve
to distinguish between the works which an artist did or
did not paint with his own hand, in our ardor to isolate
the exact touch of the master himself and to see it exer-
cising itself through the whole of his career, seem al-
most to have been inspired by a hostility, certainly by a
contempt, for whatever was not entirely autograph. It
was a nuisance to be got rid of and never referred to
again. Or if the material in question was too interest-
ing to be thus dismissed, the expedient was to distribute
it among the close followers of the master, according
to the degree of resemblance to their own works.

There was good reason for this attitude. It was
necessary to learn to descry the touch of a master if we
wished to acquire a sense of his quality as an artist. In-
cidentally, the aesthetic training which this involved
has led to an appreciation of all quality, and to the
emancipation of the sense of quality from the slavish
attachment to given shapes and patterns. It has led
also to probity, so that with all our sad aberrations, we
have to-day much honester minds as well as a freer and
surer sense of every kind of reality than had our fathers.
A hand-painted chromo was their ideal — not in art
alone.

108

But the time has come when Morellian training has
borne its fruit. We can now, if we will, end by dis-
tinguishing a studio work from an autograph one, and
even a contemporary copy from either. We can there-
fore, as never before, make good use of every scrap,
every fragment that betrays the sure imprint of a mas-
ter's mind, when we endeavor to form an adequate
image of his artistic personality.

The works of his studio become thus only less inter-
esting than his autographs, now that our sure sense of his
own touch enables us at once to appreciate the differ-
ence and to bridge it; for in imagination we can supply
the defects of the inferior achievement.

FIGURES IN METROPOLITAN MUSEUM

A couple of years ago I published in the Gazette des
Beaux Arts (September, 1913)1 my conclusion that four
triptychs originally painted for the Carita at Venice
before August, 1471, and at present for the most part
in the Academy and Correr Museum of that town, came
out of the studio of Giambellino. Hitherto they had
been ascribed to the Vivarini, to Alvise chiefly, for the
good reason that our acquaintance with Giov. Bellini
was so much based on a study of his mature and late
styles that his earlier phases were but vaguely perceived.
Now after a lapse of two years, which I have devoted
for the most part to the study of the Venetian painting
of that time, I am confident that the conclusions re-
ferred to were correct. The triptychs in question were

1 Reprinted in my 3rd series of "Study and Criticism of Italian Art."

109

certainly executed in Giovanni's workshop. He prob-
ably furnished pen or pencil sketches for them all, but
it is doubtful whether he elaborated cartoons for any
of them, unless it be for the Correr "Madonna." But
the executants seem to have worked in the master's
spirit to the extent of their own faculties.

The Metropolitan Museum of New York possesses
paintings of this precise kind (Fig. 46) from the
hand of one of these executants. I owe my ac-
quaintance with them to Mr. Joseph Breck, whose dis-
cerning eye had identified them on the shutters of a
tabernacle. As this was in the department of Renais-
sance odds-and-ends, and not too well placed, the paint-
ings might easily have escaped my attention. The
tabernacle itself is one of those delicious confections
which Venetian carvers and gilders turned out so plen-
tifully during the early and middle decades of the Quat-
trocento. Left to myself I should have judged it some
twenty or thirty years earlier than 1471 or so, which
must be the date of the paintings. And so it may be,
for the shutters might easily have been added later.1

The right shutter contains the figure of St. Louis
above that of St. Roch, and the left St. Jerome above
St. Sebastian. Each stands out against its gold ground
silhouetted almost as sharply as masses in nature seen
against the sunset. The bituminous tone and the
blurred condition of the present surface add to an emo-
tional effect which is not unlike that produced by de-
liberate plein air.

1 Apparently this work comes from Murano, where it was attributed to
Antonio Vivarini.

iro

The better preserved panels of the Carita triptychs
produce a similar effect, and if we could evaluate and
trust our feelings as well as we do our sight, that
alone would assure us that they were by the same author.
But we have had little or no training in the analysis of
impressions, and thus must always fall back upon the
better educated eye. This eye, however, recognizes so
convincingly the identity that we need say nothing more
about it.

The differences, although slight, concern us more, as
they necessarily tend to increase our acquaintance with
Bellini's art.

St. Louis occurs in the Carita series, where he is some-
what more prelatical. Here he is the candid guileless
soul whom Giotto, if I mistake not — or was it Dona-
tello? — despised for having changed a crown for a
mitre. In type he anticipates the Augustin of forty
years later in the altarpiece at San Crisostomo, as well
as a figure in one of the last works of Bellini's studio, the
Murano "Assumption." Jerome also occurs among the
Carita panels, and in spirit they are alike. Both are
virile, commanding old men, and prototypes of many
representations of that Church Father which were
painted in Venetia during the last decades of the XVth
century. Our St. Sebastian has no resemblance to the
one in the Carita triptychs. There he is frontal and
rather rigid. Here he is a suppler, more youthful
creature, turning one way and looking another earnestly
and appealingly. Finally, the St. Roch has the interest
of being, to my knowledge at least, the one and only in-
stance of that saint in Giambellino's entire iconography.

We must not jump to the conclusion that this fact has
any relation to the artist's mind or preferences. He
may have painted that compassionate pilgrim many a
time. The disappearance of all other representations
makes this one interesting. He anticipates the same
saint as treated by the most faithful of Bellini's great
followers, Palma Vecchio.

THE WORCESTER MADONNA

The next in date of the several works we shall study
in this chapter is a "Madonna" (Fig. 47) in the Art
Museum of Worcester, Mass., published and repro-
duced as a Rocco Marconi in the Bulletin of that insti-
tution for October, 191 2. The design is obviously Bel-
linesque toward 1490, and, as the technique informs one,
the execution is of not much later date. The picture is
so close to the one autograph Madonna by Giovanni
Bellini in the National Gallery (No. 280) that the only
question is whether the differences are due to the copyist
or the author.

Quality apart, in which the Worcester panel, as every
bit of the drawing and modelling shows, is decidedly
inferior, the chief differences are in the looks and ovals
of the faces, and the action of the Child's hand. The
London Madonna (Fig. 48) is submissive and resigned,
while at Worcester she is somewhat haughty and per-
haps masterful. In London the Child is almost tearful,
as He caresses the apple in His Mother's hand, while at
Worcester He looks vague and expressionless, and His

112

Fig. 47. Studio of Giovanni Bellini : Madonna.

Worcester, Mass., Art Museum,

Fig. 48. Giovanni Bellini : Madonna.

National Gallery London.

hand is held up in the air with no manifest purpose.
The other variations, even those for the worse, might be
due to the master, for he was experimental, enjoyed ex-
hausting the possibilities of a theme, and was too pressed
by clients to throw away the less genial offspring of his
mind. Yet it is impossible to think of Bellini in con-
nection with the face of the Worcester Madonna. Her
look is foreign to his art, so far at least as known to me,
The haughty or stylish or self-conscious Madonna is
never found in works which sufficient reason compels
one to accept as his.

The differences between the Worcester copy and the
London autograph may then be due to the person who
painted the former. If we deduct the stylish disdain
and enhance the quality, we get a fair representation
of a Madonna by Bellini dating from scarcely later
than 1489.

As chronology is so important in the present stage of
our studies it will not be amiss to give the reasons for the
date.

The Worcester "Madonna," as we have just seen, is
either a copy of the London one or of a variant thereof,
and therefore of the same date. Now the London pic-
ture for obvious reasons cannot be earlier than the "Ma-
donna between the Two Trees" of 1487 (Venice Acad-
emy, No. 596) and the one in the Frari of 1488, nor
later than its closest parallel, the one in the former
Nemes Collection.1 The last named can scarcely be

1 See reproduction in sale catalogue and in "Zeitschrift fiir Bildende Kunst,"
Neue Folge XXIII, opp. p. 289, where it illustrates an interesting article by
Freiherr von Hadeln.

113

later than 1489, for the good reason that a picture by
Francesco Tacconi, dated October of that year, is a
copy of a slight variant of the Nemes picture.

The relation of the Nemes panel to the National Gal-
lery Tacconi will repay a moment's attention, for it will
contribute a point of interest to the matter in hand.

The Nemes picture, which, by the way, could
scarcely have been executed by Bellini although cer-
tainly designed by him, differs in one important feature
from the Tacconi version. In the former the Madonna
has wide-open eyes, while in the latter they are half
closed. Two other contemporary copies agree in this
respect with Tacconi, the one by an unknown painter in
the Scalzi at Venice, and the other by Filippo Mazzola
in the Padua Gallery. The original therefore proba-
bly had a Madonna with eyes half closed, and I further
suspect — but this is parenthetical — that she was seen full
length, and that, in brief, the National Gallery Tac-
coni was every bit of it a faithful copy of such an orig-
inal. For an imitation by an inferior artist the sweep
of her mantle is too close to Bellini's, too like that of the
Madonna in the Murano altarpiece of 1488. And be-
sides, if the first version was not of a figure seated with
one foot resting on a footstool, why the position with
the Virgin's right leg drawn up in the two other copies
as well as in the Nemes "Madonna"? The shortened
replica evidently was made for domestic purposes, and
the copies likewise.

If we now return to the National Gallery "Ma-
donna," and by implication to its contemporary copy at
Worcester, we see that it too is but a variant upon the

114

Fig. 50. Studio of Giovanni Bellini: Madonna.

National Gallery, Layard Bequest, London.

lost original of the Tacconi, for the patterns are identi-
cal in essentials and the expression the same. The dif-
ference is in the action of the Child and that, although
considerable, is not radical.

We may conclude, therefore, that the National Gal-
lery Madonna was necessarily not later than 1489. Its
relations to other works, those namely of 1487 and 1488,
make it unlikely that it was painted much earlier.

Ill
MADONNA OF THE FOGG MUSEUM

In the Fogg Museum at Cambridge, Mass., there is a
"Madonna" (Fig. 49) which cannot fail to interest us.
It has suffered a great deal, and its general tone, as I re-
call it, is rather like putty, but the design is not un-
worthy of the signature IOANNES BELLINUS that we read
on the parapet.

She is seen to below the knees, sitting somewhat side-
ways to left against a curtain, to our left of which ap-
pears a narrow strip of landscape and sky. A white
kerchief with large folds frames in her face, and the
blue mantle does not enfold but barely clings to the
head. Her right hand supports the Child and her left
rests on a prayer book. As for the Child, He is naked
and sits back in her lap with His little hands folded
over His left thigh. As in the Metropolitan Museum
and Salomon pictures and their affinities that we studied
in the last chapter, the Child looks as if He were
dreamily listening and His Mother is grave, almost
tearful, somewhat as in the National Gallery "Ma-
ns

donna" that we have just considered, and in the Venice
one "between the Two Trees." /

The design as a whole is one of tender, deep, yet re-
strained feeling in Bellini's most typical mood, anc
sorely as it lacks the vibrant touch of the master's own\
hand, it nevertheless bears ample witness to its being a
creation of his mind. Were confirmation of this state-
ment needed, we should discover it in the fact that this
"Madonna," besides imitations that shall be referred to
presently, can show a replica of itself worthy of our
attention.

The replica (Fig. 50) which is in the Layard Collec-
tion, bequeathed to the National Gallery of London, is
also signed on the parapet and differs only in minor
details from ours. The hem of the kerchief is more
elaborately embroidered, and the folds of the mantle
are more crumpled, but above all there is much more
landscape. And this landscape, with its bare tree in the
foreground, its shepherd, and the quiet hills stretching
under horizontal layers of cloud to the horizon, is in
Bellini's mood. The feeling is softer and without the
noble purity of our version. It would seem as if our
"Madonna and Child" were the more faithful represen-
tation of the master's original, but that, on the other
hand, the landscape of the Layard replica enjoyed that
advantage over ours. For execution, too, the Layard
picture is the better. In ours the curtain which almost
shuts out the landscape cuts across the draperies in a
way to be explained only as being due to an after-
thought.1

1 The softer sentiment and better handling of the Layard picture would be

Il6

A picture whereof two studio versions have come
down to us must have been pleasing to its author or his
clients, or both. It seems to have remained a favorite
for some time, as is attested by a copy from the hand of
a follower of Catena's which I saw in a dealer's gallery
in New York early in 19 14. This scarcely could have
been painted, judging by its relation to Catena, earlier
than 1520, and assuming, as I shall try to show in an
instant that our design dates from about 1490, it follows
that this last enjoyed a popularity of thirty years at
least. Interesting echoes of it may be perceived in a
"Madonna" of the Duomo at Chioggia, and in another
"Madonna" of the Ferrarese Cavalieri Collection (845
of sale catalogue), both from the earliest years of the
XVIth century.

We must now approach the question of the exact date
of the masterpiece represented by the Fogg and Layard
Madonnas.

If we looked at the Child alone and the hand support-
ing Him we should, as already observed, connect this
work with the Madonnas of the Metropolitan Museum
and of the Salomon Collection. At first sight it would
seem indeed as if our picture continued the series repre-
sented by those kindred paintings. Even the mantle,
which in those Madonnas retreated more and more
from the Virgin's forehead, here clings barely to the
back of her skull. Looked at more closely, however,
we discover features that harmonize better with another
group of pictures, represented by the Murano Altar-
accounted for if we attributed its execution to Rondinelli: I seem to descry
his hand in Bellini's studio from about 1489 onwards for some years.

117

piece, the Uffizi "Allegory," the Berlin "Madonna with
the Child holding a Pomegranate" (No. n), a "Ma-
donna" belonging to Countess Brentani at Bergamo,
and the favorite "Madonna with Saints Paul and
George" of the Venice Academy. For independent
reasons, the discussion of which must be relegated to a
more suitable place, I would assign all these works to
the years between 1488 and 1490.

With the Uffizi "Allegory" ours is connected by the
bond of common feeling, and by the type of Child.
The Virgin's right hand is identical with the right hand
in the Berlin "Madonna," which, by the way, is only a
studio painting executed probably by Rondinelli.

The way her kerchief is arranged, so that one end
falls down straight over her chest while the other in
crumpled folds disappears under the mantle, is par-
alleled only, to my recollection, in the same Berlin
panel, in the Murano Altarpiece, and in still another
work of this exact period known to us in numerous
copies but not in the original, the "Presentation of the
Holy Child" in the Temple. The folds of the kerchief
have much specifically in common with all the paint-
ings just mentioned, as well as with the Brentani "Ma-
donna" already referred to, which is, by the way, a
studio work dated 1489. The embroidered hem also
makes its final appearance at this time. And the left
hand of the Virgin in our design belongs to a type not
found before the "Madonna between the Two Trees"
of 1487, while it is not infrequent during the next few
years. It would be tedious to pile up more evidence,
and we are justified in concluding at this point that the

118

Fogg and Layard studio pictures represent a Bellini
original of 1488- 1490. Something in the type and pose
of the Madonna anticipating later works inclines me to
place it toward 1490.

It will not have escaped the student's attention that
the group of which the design just discussed is a mem-
ber was practically contemporary with the other group
to which the original of the Worcester "Madonna" be-
longed. This should be a warning to proceed with the
greatest circumspection in dating pictures, as the
natural although hasty conclusion would be that these
two groups belonged to two different periods. It
should also increase our admiration for the variety as
well as for the fertility of Bellini's genius.

COPIES OF THE "CHRIST AT EMMAUS"

In 1490 Giovanni Bellini painted a "Christ at Em-
maus" for Giorgio Cornaro, the brother of Catherine,
Queen of Cyprus. In the XVIIIth century this pic-
ture drifted down to Vienna. There it was lost in the
fire of Prince Rusamowsky's palace.1 Fortunately it
was engraved before it left Venice, and although the re-
production, made in 1760 by Pietro Monaco, could not
be entirely free from Tiepolesque smartness, it suffices
to assure us that it must have been one of the artist's most
interesting achievements. No Venetian treating this

1 See Bruno Geiger in Jahrbiicher der Prussischen Kunstsammlungen XXX,
129 et seq., where will be found all the information and reproductions re-
garding the subject of this section except what is furnished here.

119

subject afterwards could quite free himself from it. It
inspired Benedetto Diana to paint, some fifteen years
or more later, a masterpiece all but out of the reach of
his average mediocrity, and Catena painting toward
1530 harks back to it. Every scrap, therefore, which
may help to reconstruct this perished design is of value,
and the nearer in date to the destroyed original the more
valuable it will be, seeing it is more likely to be ani-
mated by the same spirit and to be executed in the same
technique. The stupidity of the copyist may, however,
more than counterbalance such advantages.

It cannot be said that Bellini's "Christ at Emmaus"
was particularly fortunate in its copyists. Apart from
Monaco's engraving already referred to, two other ver-
sions were hitherto known, the little pictures in the Ber-
lin Museum (S. 6) and the red-chalk drawing in the
Louvre. The last, although tight and cramped, would
have approached closest to the linear framework of the
original and to the simple dignity of its feeling, if it
gave the whole composition. But the central part, con-
taining the figure of Our Lord and of the companion
wearing the bearskin hat, has disappeared, and with it
what information it might have offered regarding the
exact aspect of the background. The small Berlin copy
is complete, but reduced as much in spirit as in size.
The two copies contained in American collections are
consequently welcome. If they lack merit of their
own, they will at least serve to check and control
Monaco's engraving.

The earlier of the two American copies (Fig. 51) is
a panel in Memorial Hall, Philadelphia (Wilstach

120

ova

Collection, No. 268). Far inferior to the feeble but
dainty Berlin version, it has the advantage of being
much larger — some 30 by 43 inches — and of represent-
ing the original better in that one respect. The second
copy (Fig. 52) in the Walters Collection at Baltimore
differs from all the others in being rather a translation
into the more impassioned and grandiloquent language
of the ripe Cinquecento than an effort at a faithful ren-
dering. Nevertheless, it remains true not only to the
arrangement but to the action and silhouette of Bellini's
composition, and its too highly charged atmosphere is
a corrective to the over-meekness and tameness of the
more contemporary copies. It is characteristic, too, of
the Venetian painters who continued and extended
Giorgione's world that the entire composition has been
transported out of doors into a glorious summer land-
scape stretching away to the not too far distant hills.

We can now compare the three paintings and the
Louvre drawing to see in what way they confirm or cor-
rect Monaco's engravings, and attempt thereby to attain
to a more precise idea of the original.

All versions agree with regard to the arrangement,
silhouettes and action of the five figures concerned.
There is surprising agreement even with regard to de-
tail. Thus the hands and the folds of the draperies,
which copyists of that date were apt to assimilate to
their own habit of treatment, show but the slightest
divergences, and testify to the fact that the original must
have had the ample but rather angular folds affected by
Bellini toward 1490. In the Berlin panel the turbaned
figure wears a coat of striped silk. For this there is no

121

warrant in the other versions, and it is a departure that
must have been due to the fine color sense of its author.
The engraving leaves it doubtful, but the other versions,
the Walters one best of all, make it clear that the seated
apostle on our right wore a large summer hat attached
to his back. The objects on the table are the same, al-
lowing for the larger masses in the Walters copy char-
acteristic of the mature Titianesque style of its copyist.
There is more diversity about the background. Except
the Walters painting, which puts the scene in the open
air, all have a room with a tesselated pavement and all
have the wall on our right decorated with slabs of mar-
ble divided off by darker stripes of the same substance.
This, by the way, was a fashion just then introduced by
the Lombardi in their decoration of S. Maria de'Mira-
coli, finished in 1489, and used also by the author of the
"Annunciation" painted for the organ-shutters of that
church, now in the Venice Academy. The Philadel-
phia version has a curtain behind Our Lord, introduced
by the copyist to give more accent to that figure. The
Berlin copy, and what remains of the Louvre drawing,
agree upon a draped wall to the back, which is doubtless
right, as it is much more effective.

None of the versions give us an adequate image of
the head of Our Lord in this lost composition. The
Monaco engraving is haughty in a Tiepolesque way, the
Walters picture is crudely Titianesque, while both the
earlier copies are too meek and feeble. But the Berlin
version suggests that in the original the head may have
looked very much like the inspired one in the fragment
(Venice Academy, No. 87, Photo. Anderson 11474)

122

which is all that remains of a "Transfiguration" painted
by Giambellino a little earlier for S. Salvatore.

None of the versions can, however, assure us that the
Cornaro panel was an autograph masterpiece rather
than a studio piece. Perhaps it matters little now.
The mind of the artist penetrates clearly enough
through the copies.

MR. J. P. MORGAN'S "SANTA CONVERSAZIONE"

The next work to claim our attention is the Pourtales
picture. Known to me, as to most other students,
through the engraving contained in the Gazette des
Beaux Arts (XVIII, 1865, 12) and by means of the
poor woodcut in M. Lafenestre's "Histoire de la Pein-
ture en Italie," it was for many years one of my stand-
ing wishes to see the original. Finally, some few years
ago I saw it in a Winter exhibition of the Royal Acad-
emy. I was disappointed, but chiefly perhaps to find
that it was not by Catena, as the engraving had led me
to expect. Intrinsically it was none the worse for that,
however, although it was still far from being an auto-
graph work by Bellini himself. Clearly it was only a
studio piece. A little later it was acquired by Mr. J. P.
Morgan, and it is now displayed in his library together
with the Bartolommeo Vivarini "Epiphany" that we
already have studied, Ghirlandajo's gracious profile of
Giovanna Tornabuoni, and the portrait by Castagno of
a great-souled Florentine who may be Leo Battista
Alberti.

Let us now examine this rectangular panel (Fig. 53) .

123

On our right sits the Blessed Virgin, a severe but still
youthful figure, wearing a hood sewn with pearls, and
a mantle thrown over her chest. Her extended right
hand touches the head of a Venetian Senator in gor-
geous attire, whom at the same time the Holy Child is
blessing. Opposite on the extreme left we see St. Paul
in profile, absorbed in a book; yet he looks as if the
sword which slips in between his arm and his side
should be his more genuine interest. The pommel of
the sword, by the way, was wrought by the best Milan-
ese makers, and its knob, it is interesting to note, is
worked with a pattern of knots suggested by Leonardo
da Vinci's so-called "Academy." Next to St. Paul
stands a large-faced youth covered with curls, wearing
plate armor, and grasping a lance. Quite accidentally,
of course, he calls to mind the type of the pious Protes-
tant hero of the Thirty Years' War, but he really is St.
George. Or was he perhaps the donor's son in this
guise taking so conspicuous a post in the composition?
He is hard to account for otherwise, seeing that he
neither looks at the Blessed Virgin nor at any of the
Saints, but mildly, and perhaps a trifle shyly, out of the
picture. Finally, the space between him and the
Blessed Virgin is taken up by two young female saints,
one adoring the Holy Child, and the other looking
straight out of the picture again. She has a rather hard
although beautiful face and wears a laurel wreath over
her kerchief. The other wears a turban. Kerchief
and turban are of beautiful soft-colored Oriental silks.
For background we have the sky and clouds.1

1 3°/4 by 44J4 inches. A type-written statement on the back is of interest:

124

We find in this work the healthy types, the quiet im-
pressiveness, the good color we expect of the mature
Giovanni Bellini. On the other hand, I seem to dis-
cover a real disproportion between the heads, and
neither the drawing nor the painting has the touch of
the master himself. I conclude with little or no hesita-
tion that it is only a studio picture.

The question remains whether this painting was done
in Giovanni Bellini's studio as a relatively independent
work by assistants, or whether it is an accurate version
of a lost autograph design. The answer is not alto-
gether easy. The internal evidence is not absolutely
conclusive, although my feeling is in favor of its being
a replica of a lost original. I see, for instance, that
better values would easily correct the seeming dispro-
portion of the heads, and restore the proper articulation
of the groups. A more subtle although inconspicuous
regard for the third dimension, and the consequent
deepening of the space, would give proper distance and
due detachment to the female figures. All this, as well
as much more vital drawing, would have been easy for
Bellini. Not his, surely, are hands so variously bad.
With all its faults, nevertheless, I find the work be-
fore us superior in invention, and even in execution, to
the paintings of any of his possible assistants at this
time.

The date of this work, as I shall endeavor to prove a

— "This picture was bequeathed to the sculptor Canova by Cardinal Rez-
zonico and was purchased from Bishop Canova (the brother and inheritor of
the sculptor) by a man who sold it to the Pourtales Family in Paris. The
picture was sold in the Pourtales sale in Paris in 1865, bringing frs. 75,000,
or £3,000."

125

little later, is about 1500. Nicolo Rondinelli, who was
assisting the master in the late eighties and earlier nine-
ties, must have left the studio before this time ; and be-
sides, I do not discover here any trace of his hand.
Bissolo, who may have been in the workshop when this
picture was painted, shows at no period of his career
gifts adequate to the production of a masterpiece like
this, not quite, yet almost on a level with Bellini's high-
est. He invents little, usually pieces together and re-
arranges bits taken over from the master, and renders
them in a soft blurred way in no wise like the firm, al-
most hard, execution of this picture.

Nor is it likely. to be maintained by serious students
that any of the dull mediocrities who were then signing
their pictures with the boast that they were D. I. B.,
that is to say, discepoli, pupils, of Giovanni Bellini,
could have conceived and carried through this Santa
Conversazione. Think of any of the Marcos or Santa-
croces or Previtali as author of such a painting. It is
absurd. Basaiti, too, has frequently enough been called
in to father pictures, and even such important ones as
Mr. Robert Benson's Santa Conversazione, which were
not considered quite worthy of Bellini himself. Ba-
saiti, however, was at this time still assisting his master
Alvise Vivarini, if any one. If ever he painted in a
way approaching this work, it was not towards 1500 but
much later. Even then, how remote from this ! There
is nothing here of his mind or hand. We can see how
these worked, and with what results, in a copy of our
Madonna with an Infant Baptist in place of the donor,
formerly in the collection of the late M. Schloss of

126

Paris. The modelling is hard, the contours sharp and
incisive, the extremities caricatured, the folds muddy,
and the light and shade, as might be expected of so close
a follower of Alvise Vivarini, harshly contrasted. And
Basaiti painted thus toward 15 15. Fifteen years
earlier he must have been thinner, sharper, harsher still,
as we may infer from his earliest works, as, for instance,
the "Madonna with two Saints" at Munich. There
remains Catena. Twenty or more years ago, when I
knew little, I was inclined to ascribe the Pourtales pic-
ture to this painter. The explanation is that I was not
acquainted with the original, and that the engraving, by
omitting much of the modelling, made it look like the
hard, dry, flat early paintings of Catena, which in ad-
dition sometimes have a Madonna or Child or female
saint inspired by if not copied from our picture. But
the original has nothing of the hardness and sharpness,
flatness and attenuation, of Catena's early works.
Compare it with such a picture by him as the Mond
"Madonna with the Baptist, a female Saint, and two
Donors." The comparison is the more interesting as
the Mond Madonna is copied from ours. A glance
will suffice, a glance at the reproductions even to as-
sure us that Catena, who no earlier than 1502 was paint-
ing these timid, dry, bloodless figures, could not earlier
still have created a masterpiece like the Pourtales Santa
Conversazione.1

1 Dr. Borenius in his commentary to Crowe & Cavalcaselle ("History of
Painting in Northern Italy," vol. i, p. 299, note 4) ascribes it to Bartolommeo
Veneto. Dr. Borenius deserves our everlasting gratitude for having culled
for us all the information contributed by archives in the last fifty years, but
I cannot say that the attributions with which he decks out his commentary
are, as a rule, appropriate. This one is odd.

127

It will scarcely occur to any one to say, But why not
Giorgione, why not Titian? By 1500 Giorgione must
have been independent of Bellini and painting after his
own inspiration. As for Titian, there is no evidence
that he frequented the studio of Giovanni Bellini.
Moreover, there is no faintest trace in the earliest paint-
ings of either to suggest that they conceivably could
have thought and felt and worked in precisely this
way.

We thus have eliminated the probabilities that the
masterpiece we now are considering was the invention
and handiwork of an assistant in Bellini's studio. We
must assume, on the contrary, that not only was it Bel-
lini's conception, but that there must have been a version
painted by his own hand ; and for this reason. It en-
joyed a quite unparalleled vogue, and of no other work
by Bellini do we discover so many echoes. It is hard
to believe that this would have been the case had it
been less than an autograph masterpiece. It might
conceivably be argued that the action of the Madonna
and Child lent themselves to the introduction of a
donor, thus furnishing an occasion for the perpetuation
of the patron's own portrait in sacred places. We find,
however, that the motive pleased on its own account,
and that, as in the Stuttgart abbreviation of this work,
the Blessed Virgin's hand rests not on the head of a
donor but on a book. I am inclined to go so far as to
believe that this change may have been introduced in
the studio, for we find several versions with this altera-
tion. Another alteration still that may have issued
from the studio is in the hood of the Madonna, which,

128

as in the last-named picture, is without embroidery and
without pearls.

It may be of interest and profit to give a list, with the
briefest comments, of the contemporary paintings
which depend directly or indirectly upon the original
of Mr. Morgan's masterpiece. Far from setting out
to be complete, it comprises those only of which I hap-
pen to possess the photographs. I have notes of others
but too scanty to be of use, and naturally there must be
others still unknown to me.

Four have the motive of the Blessed Virgin touching
the head of a donor: — Previtali, Berlin Gallery, Ma-
donna with St. Paul, St. Catherine, another female
saint and a donor, whom the Child blesses. Paul is a
variant upon the one in the Pourtales picture, and Cath-
erine upon a female figure in the "Circumcision" of
which only studio versions and copies remain. Bel-
lini's original must have been painted a few years
earlier than the Pourtales Santa Conversazione. The
date of this Previtali is about 1504.

Marco Veneto. Bergamo, Carrara Gallery. Ma-
donna touching the head of a donor while the Child
blesses him. Two attendant saints.

Francesco Rizzo da Santaroce. Hage Collection,
Nivaagaard, Denmark. Madonna with her hand on
the head of a donor whom the Child blesses. This
panel, then belonging to Mr. Charles Butler, was shown
in the Venetian Exhibition of 1894-95, when I ascribed
it to Francesco. It is probably an early work by Fran-
cesco Rizzo and not by Francesco di Simone.

Catena. Mond Collection, London. The Ma-

129

donna puts her hand on a donor recommended by the
Baptist while the Child looks at another donor to our
right. A female saint. Here only the Blessed Virgin
and her action are taken from the Pourtales picture.
The female saint, however, was no doubt suggested by
the one there looking straight out. The date is cer-
tainly not earlier than 1502, and probably not much
later.

Four others have the motive of the Madonna touch-
ing the head of the Infant Baptist instead of a donor,
while the Child blesses him. In other respects it is like
the first motive. It occurs to me that the infant Baptist
here may have represented a child of the family for
whom it was painted, if he did not actually reproduce
this child's features.

Lorenzo Lotto. Naples. The Madonna touches
the head of the Infant John recommended by Peter
Martyr. The date inscribed on the back of the panel
is Sept. 20, 1503.

Basaiti. Collection of the late M. Schloss of Paris,
now dispersed. Madonna touching the head of the
Infant Baptist whom the Child blesses. The Infant
Baptist, who, by the way, has his arms crossed over his
chest, shows the influence of Catena. Behind the
Blessed Virgin hangs a curtain of watered silk like the
one in Bellini's Brera "Madonna" of 15 10, and in other
works from his studio of that date.

Francesco di Simone da Santacroce. Bergamo, Car-
rara Gallery. Here the Madonna does not touch the
head of the Infant Baptist, but his shoulder. His arms

130

are folded. Francesco died in 1508, but this panel may
date from several years earlier.

Francesco Rizzo da Santa Croce. Baltimore, Wal-
ters Collection. Madonna touching the head of the
Infant Baptist while Joseph and Zachariah look on.
Zachariah shows the influence of Catena. A much
later work than the one at Nivaagaard.

Three more have the motive of the Madonna touch-
ing a book with her extended hand while the Child
blesses. Stuttgart (428) . The Madonna rests her out-
stretched hand on a book which stands slightly open on
a table covered with a Turkey carpet. Behind the
table appears a female saint adoring. She is copied
from the figure in the same attitude in the Pourtales
picture, but her turban as well as the Blessed Virgin's
hood is simplified. In the background a creased cur-
tain against a sky with cloudlets. I no longer believe
that the author of this abbreviation of the Pourtales
Santa Conversazione was Basaiti. It would seem
rather as if it had been produced in Bellini's workshop
by an assistant who, indeed, like most assistants of great
masters, remains nameless. It probably is a few years
later than the original.

Stuttgart (429). Madonna with her finger tips on
a book which rests on a wooden block. Behind her a
curtain. On the left a pretty landscape. On the
wooden block is fixed a creased cartellino with the
inscription Marco d[iscipulus] Ioa[nnis B[ellini]
P[ictor or ixit]. Who this Marco was I do not know.
He certainly was not Basaiti or Marco Veneto, nor very

131

likely Belli. It looks as if he had some version like
the last before him rather than the original.

MM. Steinmeyer, Paris. Madonna, sitting in front
of half-drawn curtain revealing landscape with shep-
herds in foreground, a stream in middle distance and
pyramidal hills further away, rests her hand on a book
supported on a parapet. To this is affixed a creased
cartellino with the inscription IOANNES BELLINUS,
which should be charitably taken for a label rather than
a fraudulent signature. The copyist would seem to
have had before him a picture like the last rather than
the original. Who he was I do not know. I suspect
this is the panel that formerly belonged to the Baroness
Moltke of Munich.1

The Catena in the Razynski Collection in Posen
which represents the Madonna, the Infant Baptist,
Zachariah and a female Saint, is a variant upon the
second motive. The Holy Child does not sit upon His
Mother's right knee blessing, but clings to her right
shoulder as He leans over to caress the Infant Baptist.
The date is not earlier than 1508.

The Child alone occurs in Filippo Mazzola's "Ma-
donna" in Berlin (No. 1455). Mazzola died in 1505.
Here the action is already intensified. In even more
intensified form it became a frequent motive in the
"golden age" of Venetian painting. An early instance

1 A slight variant upon this theme occurs in an "Epiphany" which I saw
some years ago in the collection of M. Van Gelder of Ucle in Belgium. In-
stead of a book the Madonna touches the vase of the Wise King of the
East. Joseph, by the way, is taken from one of the figures in the "Christ
at Emmaus" that we studied in the last section. The painter has affinities
with Marco Marziale.

132

appears in Palma's "Madonna, Jerome and Francis
with a female donor," in the Borghese Gallery.

The frontal female Saint alone accurs in Catena's
picture at Budapest, representing in addition the Ma-
donna with Francis recommending a donor. The
Child is taken from another work from Bellini's studio
of somewhat earlier date than the Pourtales picture.
I refer to the Santa Conversazione formerly in the
Simon Collection at Berlin, left recently by Baron
Schlichting to the Louvre. Any one tempted to at-
tribute the Pourtales picture to Catena should compare
the stiffened, flattened, rigid female saint here in the
Budapest work with the corresponding figure there.

Whether Cima in his Berlin Madonna with the Child
blessing a donor betrays acquaintance with our motive
is more than doubtful. The date of the work seems
too early to permit it and the action is not yet fully de-
veloped. Possibly it was inspired by a Bellini now
lost.

This array of contemporary works based on the Pour-
tales panel should tend to convince us that the design
enjoyed the consideration that would be given to a work
only by Bellini himself, one that he had conceived and
executed. But as the execution of the picture before
us is not Bellini's, and on the other hand it is by none
of his assistants known to us by works of their own, we
are led to conclude that it was a studio replica or
variant of a lost original.

The enumeration of works based upon this design
serves yet another purpose. It gives us without further
trouble a date later than which this Santa Conversa-

133

zione could not have been painted, and thus saves us
at least half the labor of establishing its chronology.

We shall remember that Lotto inscribes his Naples
picture with the year 1503, and that it is not based
directly on our design, but on that variant thereof which
brought in the Infant Baptist instead of a donor for
the Blessed Virgin to touch and the Child to bless.
It may be argued that this alteration of the motive
would have been called for only after the original had
found time to become popular, and that a year or two
may have elapsed between them. This would take the
Pourtales design back to about 1501. As all the other
pictures that we have enumerated, with the possible
exception of the Mond Catena, are later than Lotto's,
we may at all events safely conclude that Bellini created
his masterpiece no later than 1503.

It is not so easy to settle how much earlier than 1503.
The argument just advanced might take it back a couple
of years, and it may be pleaded further that it would
be singular if a work, the imitation of which begins
no later than 1503 and lasts for a decade from that date,
should have been painted many years previously.

These conclusions, derived as they are from outside
evidence, are the more welcome as the internal evi-
dence, although in a sense clear, is not obvious. I can
conceive the eager candidate for a doctor's degree fix-
ing his attention upon the Madonna in the Pourtales
picture, and noting a certain resemblance to several
of the Madonnas draped across the chest (as, for in-
stance, the one with the Greek inscription in the Brera
or the Madonna in the Turin Gallery), who would

134

insist that the entire work goes back to the seventies of
the XV th century. And indeed it is true that Bellini
here does pick up a thread dropped for a quarter of
a century, an action far from uncharacteristic of him
or any other great master. It is only the mechanized
mediocrity who pursues his forward course like a pro-
jectile. The Leonardos and Botticellis, and Michel-
angelos, and Bellinis and Titians are apt to have mo-
ments when something from their past comes back to
them and demands attention once more. So much for
the Madonna. The two male saints recall, of course,
the Venice Academy "Madonna between Paul and
George," dating from the second lustre of the eighties,
and no person acquainted with the trend of Venetian art
but would feel that our figures are later than those. If
we regarded them alone we should be brought well into
the nineties for the date of our design. The two
females recall, at least as clearly, two in Mr. Robert
Benson's Sacra Conversazione which, as I hope to have
occasion to determine elsewhere, did not issue from Bel-
lini's studio before 1510 and probably not before 1512.
And yet the severity of the face and relative hardness
of treatment in ours is so much greater than in Mr.
Benson's painting that a lapse between them of ten years
may be readily admitted, which would bring us
back to about 1502. The donor would fit in well with
such a date, for his hair, and that something in a face
which makes it like a dial bearing the mark of the hour,
point to the turn of the century. The Child also be-
longs to that time, and at all events no earlier, for he
is already of the type found in the S. Zachariah altar-

i35

piece of 1505, in the S. Francesco della Vigna panel of
1507, the Brera "Madonna" of 15 10 and a studio
picture of even later date, the Borghese "Madonna."
The peculiar hand of the Blessed Virgin touching the
donor's head is matched but once in any work of Bel-
lini's shop known to me. That work, the "Assassina-
tion of Peter Martyr," of the National Gallery, must
have been painted before 1504, for during that year, or
just before or after, Lotto betrays acquaintance with
it in his "Madonna with Francis and Jerome" of
Bridgewater House. A final consideration is sug-
gested by the composition itself. We have got so used
to its kind that it takes an effort to put ourselves back
and inquire whether such a decentralized arrangement
with so much of the air of the Santa Conversazione
about it existed in Venice before 1500. I cannot re-
call any, and indeed Venetian art hesitated to take it
up until Titian made it his own. The internal evi-
dence, when carefully examined and weighed, thus con-
firms the outside information and we may conclude
that the Pourtales picture, now Mr. Morgan's, was
painted soon after 1500.

MR. WALTERS' ALTARPIECE

It will not have escaped the student's attention that
none of the works we have been discussing, whether
autograph or studio versions, were painted in the last
decade of the XV th century. No wonder, for the pic-
tures of those years that can be attributed to Bellini or

136

Fig. 54. Variant of a Late Giovanni Bellini : Madonna and D0N02.

Collection of Mr. Hervey Wetzel, Boston.

his studio are extremely rare. Indeed, none occurs read-
ily to one's mind except the "Circumcision," which sur-
vives in many copies. The suggestion has been made
that in those years Giovanni's time was taken up with
work for the Doge's Palace. It would seem a proba-
ble explanation, and the more so as upon the turn of the
century we begin to have a fair abundance of his de-
signs once again, and we know that by that time his
labors in the Palace were drawing to an end. The
destruction of these historical paintings some seventy
and more years later is doubly to be deplored, since,
by absorbing perhaps the most creative decade of Bel-
lini's career, they have deprived us of many an altar-
piece which we should otherwise have enjoyed.

We in America cannot boast of a single autograph
painting of his later years. This is not likely to be
remedied, for Bellini in his old age let his mind work
rather than his brush, and the pictures painted with
his own hands except those in churches and public col-
lections are far from frequent. We can, however, be
thankful for one studio work that is not without im-
portance, the altarpiece in Mr. Walters' Collection at
Baltimore.

But, first, I would invite the student to throw a glance
at a Madonna (Fig. 54) belonging to Mr. Hervey Wet-
zel of Boston.

The Blessed Virgin, seated, holds the naked Child
erect on her right knee, while He blesses a donor. Be-
hind her is a charming landscape in the rustic idyllic
mood as practised by the young Titian. Its color is
pleasant and of a clear warm ivory tone. The handling

i37

betrays an expert's touch but scarcely that of a great
master. In the whole there is something that suggests
Rocco Marconi. But the question of its execution is
of minor interest. Such modest importance as this
Madonna has in our eyes is due to the fact that, allow-
ing for the personality of the copyist, it is in essentials
a faithful rendering of the Madonna in Bellini's panel
of 1507 in S. Francesco della Vigna.

It will be remarked that in the altarpiece the original
donor was replaced some fifty or sixty years after by
one of that later time. In Mr. Wetzel's version we
have one almost contemporary with the original paint-
ing; not, however, necessarily a copy of that head. Its
relation to the Madonna shows that, although her figure
was rendered faithfully, the rest of the composition was
ignored. The implication is that the person who or-
dered this panel wanted the Madonna alone with him-
self as donor. But the landscape, I take it, indicates
for this copy a date at least five years later, and there
is no reason for assuming that it was a commission of
the original donor. Unfortunately the panel has been
cut down leaving us only the mask of what must have
been a manly, handsome profile.1

Before returning to the Walters altarpiece I would
draw attention to a "Madonna with SS. Peter and Au-
gustine" by Girolamo Santacroce in the collection of
Mr. J. G. Johnson of Philadelphia; for it would seem
to be a free version of a work from Bellini's studio of
the kind, say, of the "Madonna with the Baptist and a

1 Not altogether without interest are the versions of Bellini's original by
Girolamo Santacroce at Rovigo and Bergamo.

138

Female Saint" in the Giovanelli Palace. There is
scarcely a feature here that does not recall the one or
the other of the later studio works of Giovanni, whether
the National Gallery "Madonna with the Child
Asleep," the Ashburnham altarpiece of 1505 now in
Mr. Vernon Watney's country house at Cornbury, the
Giovanelli picture already mentioned, or the very late
"Assumption" in S. Pietro at Murano. The date of
the lost original may have been toward 15 10.

Mr. Walters' altarpiece (Fig. 55) is an oblong com-
position some three by five feet. In a shallow niche
sits the Blessed Virgin on a marble throne at the foot
of which kneel three donors. The two on our right
are recommended by a saint who may be St. Mark, and
the one on the left by St. Peter.

There is something at once sumptuous as well as sober
in this work. The fulness and severity of the archi-
tectural forms, the freedom and simplicity of the ar-
rangement, the measured eloquence of the patron saints,
the type of manhood displayed by the donors, all be-
speak the approach of that moment in Venetian paint-
ing when it was most classical in feeling and in aspect.
In contemplating this noble work I feel a pleasure al-
most as if I were enjoying a fagade by Palladio.

Happy accident or strenuous research may reveal
some day the identity of the donors. The one on the
left suggests Andrea Gritti, the future Doge. All
three are clearly people of importance holding high
office no doubt, and worthy of being portrayed in a
picture like this, which in Ridolfi's and Boschini's days
used to hang in the halls of the Doge's Palace at Venice.

139

The date of this work is decidedly late, as its most
patent qualities and most manifest characteristics show.
Coming to particulars, and beginning with the archi-
tecture, we observe that the columns before the apse
not only are of a very developed form but perfectly
detached from the wall. Now I believe that a full
column consisting of a plain unadorned shaft, so en-
tirely detached from the wall does not appear in Vene-
tian painting till some few years after 1500. The
throne with the globes on its pillars is curious, for it
is reminiscent of Antonello. It is singular but not
unique, for in the Priuli Triptych (now at Dusseldorf),
contemporary with Mr. Walters' altarpiece, we find
another throne almost as clearly reminiscent of An-
tonello. In facial oval the Madonna recalls the one
in Don Jaime de Bourbon's panel dated 1509, the one
in the Brera dated 15 10, and the still later Borghese
picture.1 It is with this last work in particular that
the affinities are closest, for they extend beyond facial
resemblance to the draping, the folds and the general
action of the Child. Another late work recalled by our
Madonna is the Murano "Assumption." This same
altarpiece, as also the Priuli Triptych,2 shows us types
of saints exactly like the Peter in ours. St. Mark's
head, however, is of such advanced character that, seen
isolated, it would suggest for its author a follower of
Bellini rather than Bellini himself. Finally the

1 To avoid misunderstandings, I venture to add that in my opinion the only
autograph among the works mentioned in this sentence is the Brera
"Madonna."

2 Reproduced, like so many of the works here mentioned, in Dr. Gronau's
admirable and inexpensive monograph on the Bellini.

140

donors, as we already have observed, are almost of a
type of portraiture which is nearly dateless and delocal-
ized. One would be put to it to say to what time and
place the two heads on our right, if looked at isolated,
belonged. The bearded, short-haired man might be
found, I doubt not, in all European climes and periods,
and could have walked the streets of Athens, or Alex-
andria, or Rome, as well as those of Paris, or London,
or New York. Compare with these portraits those in
the studio picture dated 1507, representing Doge Lore-
dan in the midst of four councillors.1 How much more
generalized are ours, and how much more humanized!
To account for the difference, one must conceive that
a frontier in time had been passed. As in national
boundaries everything on one side instantly tends to re-
semble the perhaps distant capital, rather than what ex-
ists just across the barrier only a stone's throw away,
so it is possible that, in social and spiritual evolution,
moments come which really do divide age from age:
Quattrocento, let us say, from Cinquecento. Neverthe-
less, even if we allow for such a leap, that too takes time,
and we shall not be much out of reckoning if we let
several years elapse between the Spiridon portraits and
those in Mr. Walters' altarpiece.

Thus all the evidence points to a date for that work
not earlier than 15 10, the date of the Brera "Madonna."
And for reasons it would take too long to state here,
as they would involve the full discussion of the Borghese
"Madonna," it is probably no later than that pic-
ture. It is not utterly impossible, therefore, that the

1 Now in the Collection of M. Spiridon of Paris.

141

date of 15101 which Mr. Walters' picture once bore
with a false signature may have been based on evidence.
It is not inconceivable that the Brera panel was finished
early in that year, and ours begun late in the same year.

Having determined the date of this altarpiece, we
are in better position to ask who was its executant.
That it was Bellini himself I find it hard to believe. Yet
I would give readier assent to his having painted it
than to its having been done by any of his followers
or assistants known to us by name. Least of all would
I think of that figment of Dr. Paoletti's fancy, the so-
called "Pseudo-Basaiti." Doubtless we who ascribed
many of Bellini's studio works to Basaiti were wrong.
We were wrong, because, like the altarpiece before us,
they were conceived and designed by the great master
himself and carried out in his studio under his own
eye by assistants who are nameless, although for that
reason not necessarily inferior to those of Giovanni's
pupils who, after a little learning, quickly set up for
themselves. But that is no reason for throwing all
these paintings together and assuming that they were
from the same hand. In my opinion no two of these
pictures are necessarily by the same hand at all, and
there is no such an artistic personality as the Pseudo-
Basaiti. But of this more elsewhere.

There remains in America yet another picture which
might have been discussed in this chapter, for it is the
copy of a lost original by Giovanni Bellini. Only, as the
copyist happens to have been Giorgione, we shall put off
our study of this copy until we come to the younger artist.

1 Dr. Gronau in Rassegna d'Arte, XI, p. 96.

142

CHAPTER V

THE CONTEMPORARIES OF GIOVANNI BELLINI

THE closest of Giovanni Bellini's contemporaries
was naturally his own brother, Gentile Bellini. It
would be extremely interesting to know what were their
professional relations, and which, if either, was the
leading, the more creative spirit. Tradition going
back to their own day has it that Gentile was the elder
in birth and more theoretical in his art. But his "Ma-
donna" in the Mond Collection, if painted after 1480,
as the inscription seems to imply, is the work of a man
not more advanced than Giovanni at that date, although
at least as accomplished. Nor do his undisputed ear-
lier works, the organ shutters at St. Mark's, or the can-
vas of 1465 representing the "Blessed Lorenzo Gius-
tiniani," furnish grounds for supposing that his was
the more innovating, more inventive, more creative
mind. Yet ancient traditions are not safely disre-
garded. In this instance we can neither discard them
nor make much use of them, for the materials on which
to base a comparison have disappeared, no imaginative
compositions having come down from Gentile's later
years and none of any other kind (excepting one or two
portraits) from Giovanni's. What the existing ma-

143

terials enable us to do is to derive an impression, and
this, all due allowances being made, is of a difference
as between Holbein and Durer. Catchwords have
their uses, and this one will not lead too far astray,
namely that Gentile Bellini was, at the very least, the
Holbein of Venice, and probably by so much greater
as Venetian was greater than German painting.

MRS. J. J. CHAPMAN'S "SPOSALIZIO" AND "ADORATION"

In America there is nothing to give one an idea of
Gentile Bellini's art, and as he is the rarest of masters
there is but a ghost of a chance that we shall ever
possess anything of his. In the J. G. Johnson Collec-
tion at Philadelphia there are three pictures which
have a certain connection with him, a portrait of the
"Blessed Lorenzo Giustiniani," a "Nativity," and the
profile bust of a young woman. None are close to him,
or throw any light upon him, and I have nothing to
add regarding them beyond what I have said in the
catalogue of Mr. Johnson's collection, except for a word
concerning the Young Woman. Little though there
is in a profile of this kind to indicate even to what
school it belongs, I hazarded attaching her to the re-
mote following of Gentile, because when I first knew her
she was accompanied by a representation of "St. Francis
receiving the Stigmata," which reminded me of Gen-
tile's organ shutter at St. Mark's. At the time I did
not recall that female portraits, like enough to this one
in features, expression, coiffure and costume to confirm

144

the attribution to the Venetian school at least, occurred
in a "Birth of the Virgin" at Turin. For a reason that
will appear presently this picture and its companion,
an "Annunciation" (Fig. 56), have a certain claim on
our attention.

Both these pictures have been daubed over, but not
quite beyond recognition, and they retain something
of the simplicity and charm which so especially char-
acterize Venetian narrative painting when nothing in
the subject, the place, or the artist's ambition stands
in the way. As so few of these more intimate compo-
sitions have weathered the centuries these two inspire
an interest beyond their intrinsic value, for they help
to give a notion of the canvases that decorated the halls
of the Venetian mutual aid societies, and of the kind
of living and being that corresponded to the middle
class ideals of the later XVth Century.

Our interest here, however, is to place and to date
them. In the "Birth" (Photo. Anderson 17207), the
types, the costumes, and the patterns on the stuffs, all
point toward the eighth decade of the century. The
hoods of the women appearing on the left recall those
of Giovanni Bellini's "Madonna" in the Frizzoni and
in the former Sigmaringen Collections, which, as we
decided, were scarcely earlier than 1475. In the
spirited and beautiful "Annunciation," the face and
dress of the Blessed Virgin remind me of the Madonna
in Mantegna's "Presentation of the Holy Child in the
Temple." Her hand resembles one in the Frizzoni
"Madonna" just referred to. Her faldstool and the
vase are almost identical with those in the "Annuncia-

i45

tion" now in the Vienna Academy, which was executed
in Giovanni Bellini's studio for the Carita soon after
1470,1 except that the vase holds instead of lilies a small
tree. Now my impression is that the vase with a tree
growing out of it was introduced to Venice by Anton-
ello da Messina. Should that prove correct, our canvas
could not be dated earlier than 1475. The angel's hair
and dress are later than in the Vienna lunette just re-
ferred to, and his wings, both for shape and fulness of
feathers, remind me of Antonello again.

If our analysis of these two compositions at Turin
may be trusted, they were painted scarcely earlier than
1475 by a follower of Giovanni Bellini who almost cer-
tainly was acquainted with the works of Mantegna and
probably of Antonello as well.

The reason we had for speaking of them here is that
two companion pictures (Fig. 57 and 58), may be seen
in the collection of Mrs. John Jay Chapman at Barry-
town-on-Hudson. These represent the "Marriage of
the Virgin" and the "Adoration of the Magi." 2

The first of these represents the ceremony taking
place in the open air in front of an arched niche which
frames in, emphasizes and isolates the three principal
figures, the priest presented in a severely frontal pose,
with his beard of Byzantine and patriarchal length, the
still youthful Virgin, and the elderly Joseph. On our
right is a group of women, and on the left, another of
rejected suitors. Hills form the background.

1 Reproduced in Gazette des Beaux Arts for Sept., 1915.

2 Reproduced in Ludwig and Molwenti's "Carpaccio," "The Marriage" as
plate 7, and "The Adoration" as plate 165. The latter is also reproduced in
Testi's Storia della Pitturia Veneta, II, p. 273.

I46

One is reminded here of the narrative pictures from
the studio of Antonio Vivarini in the Walters Collec-
tion, and indeed the difference in artistic intention could
not have been great. Less repainted than the Turin
compositions, the women's faces and the folds of their
draperies are more reminiscent of Jacopo Bellini. On
the other hand, the group of gallants and the landscape
behind them, with its great crag, almost unmistakably
echo the hunting scene and other frescoes by Mantegna
in the Camera degli Sposi at Mantua. Now it is
naturally the latest authentic element in a work of art
which determines its earliest possible date, and as the
Mantegnas referred to were scarcely painted before
1473-4 our composition can be no earlier. Allowing
for a certain time to elapse between the execution of
these frescoes and their becoming known in Venice, we
easily reach 1475, which is the date we thought of as-
signing to the Turin pictures.

The "Adoration of the Magi" is a well grouped, rela-
tively quiet scene taking place as usual in the open air.
The three principal figures are placed as in Jacopo Bel-
lini and his master Gentile da Fabriano. The attend-
ant figures are more independently conceived. The
turbaned mage and something in the landscape remind
me of Mansueti, for which reason, when I first knew
them some fourteen years ago, I was inclined to ascribe
this and the other composition to him. Since then, hap-
pily, I have learnt to inquire more carefully into chron-
ological probabilities, to try to determine, in the first
place, when a work of art must have been conceived
and executed, and then whether the result fits in with the

147

date of the author to whom we would ascribe it. In
this case it fails to harmonize, for we concluded that
these paintings and their companions in Turin need not,
and I believe it could be demonstrated, could not be
placed later than about 1475, and Mansueti at the time
was a child of six or seven.

Yet the reminder of Mansueti is there, and must be
accounted for. Perhaps the simplest explanation is
that the turbaned head and the landscape having been
entrusted to Mansueti for restoration were replaced by
him in his manner — as indeed was the custom then.

All three canvases, Mrs. Chapman's as well as those
at Turin, at one time belonged to a dealer at Chioggia
named Natale Schiavoni, who had still four others, and
claimed that they had come from the Scuola di S. Gio-
vanni Evangelista. Should the other four come to light
again, they will doubtless furnish material for passing
a more accurate conclusion regarding their origin.
But whatever they may reveal, it is clear, that they will
never lend support to the opinions of those who would
attribute them to Jacopo Bellini. Apart from all ques-
tions of a more aesthetic and intellectual nature, dates
alone speak against this unhappy guess, for Jacopo was
dead in 1470 and these canvases were not painted till
five or six years later. Assuming even that these were
the paintings seen by Ridofi in the Scuola di^ S. Gio-
vanni Evangelista, his word has no authority, for tradi-
tion regarding the XVth century had, in his time, two
centuries later, got garbled or grown mute.

148

LAZZARO BASTIANI

In a temporal sense the closest of Giovanni Bellini's
contemporaries was Lazzaro Bastiani. Born some
years earlier, Lazzaro lived till 15 12. The archives ex-
plored first by Dr. Paoletti di Oswaldo and, on his lead,
by Dr. Ludwig, yielded a number of documents regard-
ing his family, and his private life, but, as usual, much
less about his career, although enough to prove that he
enjoyed a certain vogue, with consequent honours and
emoluments. Meanwhile his works had not remained
unknown to us. I remember being much interested in
them long before the scholars above mentioned had
begun their praiseworthy researches. I regarded them
for all their occasional attractiveness, and for all the joy
of discovering one after another for myself, as the
achievements of a feebly endowed artist with little if
any independence, imitating one after the other of the
more gifted men of his day, when their talents had
made imitating them worth while.

It was perhaps inevitable that people employing all
their energies in archives, and inexperienced in the com-
plicated, Protean, subtle problems incidental to the
study of the work of art and its creator, should have
said to themselves that a painter who lived so long and
enjoyed such esteem must really have been a "brilliant
artist" and one of the dominant influences in the schools
of his time.

It would, however, be hard to qualify the result.

149

In its most accessible form we find it in a bulky, and
sumptuous volume wherein Dr. Ludwig having parted
company with Dr. Paoletti, and acquired the invaluable
aid of Signor Molmenti's fluent pen, treats of Carpac-
cio. It is a book for whose existence we are grateful,
as it contains a number of interesting reproductions,
and much collateral information. But the earnest
student must be warned against accepting without the
most searching criticism any of its attributions, esti-
mates, inferences or conclusions. Not that they are
infallibly untrustworthy; but nearly so.

It is comforting to see that few if any of them have
been accepted by responsible scholarship. With re-
gard to one point alone does an idea of Dr. Paoletti's,
cherished by Dr. Ludwig and pleaded by Signor Mol-
menti, seem to have found favour, and it is that not
Gentile Bellini, as I and my elders and betters before
me concluded, but Lazzaro Bastiani was the real master
of Carpaccio.

I cannot believe that students of such high standing
or great promise as the Venturis, father and son, would
have accepted this view if they had devoted to the sub-
ject their usually careful and independent study.

This is scarcely the occasion to argue the matter to
the end. It must suffice to indicate the main heads. It
is in the first place a matter of chronology. Is it cer-
tain, for instance, that where Lazzaro resembles Car-
paccio closely he was the earlier? In my opinion Dr.
Ludwig has not succeeded in proving one instance of
priority on the part of Lazzaro over Carpaccio. But
if abler and better equipped critics could establish such

150

a case, it would not yet follow that the younger owed
anything to the older man ; for it first would have to be
demonstrated that their resemblances were due to Laz-
zaro and Lazzaro only, and not, as I among others be-
lieve, to their common source Gentile Bellini. It
surely is unthinkable that Lazzaro, who imitates the
Vivarini, imitates and flagrantly copies Giovanni Bel-
lini, imitates Antonello, and Alvise (and when I say
imitate, I mean more or less slavishly,) should not have
imitated Gentile.

The only extant works of Lazzaro which are so close
to Carpaccio that, if painted earlier, they might seem
to have inspired the latter, are the two at Vienna repre-
senting the "Last Communion" and the "Funeral of St.
Jerome." But such is our ignorance of Lazzaro's
chronology, and such the ups and downs and lack of
evolution and organic sequence to his career, that, de-
spite their singular crudity, it does not follow that they
were not painted very late, and after Carpaccio had
finished his for the Scuola degli Schiavoni. Dr. Lud-
wig's only reason for assigning them to the decade be-
tween 1470 and 1480, is that "about the year 1470 Laz-
zaro was enrolled ... a member of the Confraternity
of S. Girolamo." This is no reason at all, for there is
no necessary connection between the election to a con-
fraternity and instant (or indeed any) employment
therein, for that did not depend on membership. But
admitting that these compositions were earlier and even
considerably earlier than Carpaccio, it yet does not fol-
low that Lazzaro himself did not here imitate inven-
tions by Gentile, now lost. To me, with, on the one

151

hand, my knowledge of what a dependent creature Laz-
zaro was, and, on the other, my sense of the relation
between creative capacity and executive skill, it is in-
credible that he should have out of his own head con-
trived compositions even as rudimentary as these.

The inexperienced student, however, may ask how it
happens that an artist so inconsiderable as Lazzaro
should have enjoyed so great a contemporary reputa-
tion. There are many valid reasons. Here are a few.
The public at all times and in all places likes eclectic
and imitative artists who, by seeming to reconcile the old
and the new, do not give too sudden shocks to its taste.
The same public, finding difficulty in judging a new
artist, clings to the one it knows already, with growing
esteem, as his age increases — and Lazzaro lived to be
almost ninety. Furthermore personal and political
reasons may play their part; and finally there is the
reason of reasons, the rarity at all times and in all places
of great artists. We think of Venice as teeming with
genius. Very well : there were in the second half of the
XV th Century the two Bellinis, Carpaccio and Cima.
Add gifted provincials like Mantegna and Bonsignori
who occasionally worked there, and even the second-
rate Alvise, and you have exhausted the list of painters
of mark. But there was much work to be done, and it
is pitiful to what mediocre men Venice had recourse.
But for the good traditions of the school, and the
glamour everything of the Renaissance has for us, we
should find them quite as life-diminishing as the average
exhibitor of to-day. Students of Florentine Art will not
fail to recall that a man like Neri di Bicci, Lazzaro's

152

nearest Tuscan parallel as an artist, enjoyed a similar
popularity in Florence.

The attempt to hoist these mediocrities into fame —
however richly documented their mediocrity may be —
must be discouraged, if we are to use our studies for
their one justifiable purpose, the refining and advance-
ment of taste.

In America we have only one unquestionable work by
Lazzaro, an "Annunciation" (Fig. 59), belonging to
Mr. Hervey Wetzel of Boston. In a rather forbidding
courtyard behind a colonnade, Our Lady kneels at her
faldstool, while the Angel comes forward with his mes-
sage and the Dove flutters toward her. She has the
shaved forehead, that was the fashion in the middle
decades of the XVth Century, and her halo is like a
shallow goblet. The angel wears a cope, which is a
Flemish rather than an Italian trait. The figures are
not unpleasantly silhouetted, but the folds of the
Angel's skirt are lamentable. The architecture, on the
other hand, is done with care and success, and the colour
is agreeable.

It is far from easy to place this picture, for Lazzaro's
career has no discoverable logic of sequence. His
earliest dated work is the sub-mediocre "Madonna with
Saints and a Donor" of 1484, at Murano. I am not at
all sure that any of his extant paintings are of an earlier
period. If we regarded the Virgin's forehead alone
we should be justified in dating this canvas earlier, but
the columns with their sculptured bases and carved
belts, seem to belong to the later decades of the century.
So much, however, is probable; that this "Annuncia-

153

tion" is earlier than the one in the Correr Museum or
the one at Kloster Neuburg, or the "Annunciation" at
Padua.

The features of the Virgin and the cope of the Angel
lead me to wonder whether this picture was not painted
for a German. That would account for the old-
fashioned, somewhat Cranach-like profile of the one
and the un-Italian garb of the other, for both might
have been ordered expressly, the profile being perhaps
a portrait.

In the collection of Mr. J. G. Johnson of Philadel-
phia, there are two small paintings (Fig. 60), rep-
resenting the martyrdom of a saint, perhaps James.
In the catalogue of that collection I said: — "Obviously
these panels were painted by a Venetian of the XV th
Century. They combine unusual freedom of handling
with painstaking elaboration of perspective. The cos-
tumes, in so far as they are contemporary, are of about
1500, and so are the windows of the tower. The types
and movements of the figures echo Carpaccio in the 'St.
Ursula' series and Gentile Bellini in his 'Corpus
Domini Procession., At first glance these spirited and
brilliantly coloured little paintings suggested Lazzaro
Sebastiani, and it remains true that of all known mas-
ters it is to him they stand closest. But that pitifully
dull and timid craftsman is, in no other work correctly
ascribed to him, half so vivid or a quarter so ready.
Should further knowledge justify this tentative attribu-
tion, we should at the same time raise Lazzaro a step
in our esteem, and possess flagrant proof of his imitating
the much younger Carpaccio." I have nothing to add

154

:■...-.,. . I

OSTq

3us Lrc

Fig. 6o. Lazzaro Bastiani ( ?) : Scene of Martyrdom.

Collection of Mr. John G. Johnson, Philadelphia.

now except that such an interest in perspective as is be-
trayed here (especially striking in the burial scene,)
would be most unexpected in an artist of about seventy,
which was Lazzaro's age at the time these panels must
have been painted.

Ill

BENEDETTO DIANA

Lazzaro had for pupil not Carpaccio, but a painter
more on his own level, altho' still his superior, Bene-
detto Diana. This modest claim of Dr. Ludwig for
his hero we can safely grant. Diana merits interest be-
cause on one occasion he rose to a height so far above
his usual mediocrity. It was when, inspired by the
example of Giovanni Bellini, he painted the stately and
gorgeous "Christ at Emmaus" still to be seen at San
Salvatore in Venice.

I possess a photograph sent me by Mrs. Frederic S.
Van Urk of Kalamazoo, of a picture (Fig. 61), be-
longing to her. I have never seen the original, but the
reproduction reveals the types, the mannerisms, and the
formula of Diana in his more attractive phase. The
composition of this "Holy Family" is not common-
place, for the Madonna stoops as if to snatch the Child
from the ground, and these two figures with the draper-
ies are a variation on the theme studied by Leonardo
and Raphael and culminating in Andrea del Sarto's
"Madonna del Sacco" the theme of a mass as compact
as possible keeping close to the ground. But the male
figure, disproportioned and rising inexplicably out of

i55

the earth, makes one question whether Diana had any-
conscious understanding of the motive, or whether, like
Lotto, whom he at times recalls, he was simply follow-
ing a wayward fancy. Be that as it may, this oblong
design with its low and level horizon, its quiet group of
buildings, its spacious foreground, its unhackneyed at-
titudes, and its crepuscular light, is redolent of Venetian
art in its idyllic aspect.

For which reason I am inclined to regard it as an
achievement of Diana's advanced maturity. Yet we
may date it not much later than 1505. The Duke of
Portland owns a "Madonna with two female Saints and
a Donor" which resembles ours so closely that they must
have left the painter's hand at about the same time.1
The donor's type and dress and hair belong to the first
decade of the XVIth Century. It is interesting to note
that the Child, the trees, and the buildings still recall
Lazzaro.

CARPACCIO

Like his master, Gentile Bellini, Carpaccio seems to
have been first and foremost an historical painter, a
master of narration, and compositions from his hand of
the easel picture type are infrequent. For this reason
his works out of Venice are exceedingly rare. It is for-
tunate, therefore, that in America we have two and
probably three paintings of his, each showing him in a
different phase of his activity.

1 Reproduced as plate XXXIII in The Catalogue of the Venetian Exhi-
bition of 1912 at the Burlington Fine Arts Club.

156

CJ -"3

<: .

The earliest in date and the most typical is a sadly
ruined oblong canvas (Fig. 62), which once upon a
time belonged to Ruskin, the writer to whom, more
than to all others, Carpaccio owes his present fame.
It represents the story of Alcyone who rushes forward,
her hands already turned to claws, to throw herself into
the sea where floats the body of her husband. It is so
much like the enchanting paintings of the "St. Ursula"
series, with their gaiety, sprightliness, vivacity and gor-
geousness, that beyond question it was created in the
same mood. Indeed, one can be even more precise and
say that it probably was conceived and executed at
the time that the artist was at work upon the "De-
parture of Ursula" which is dated 1495. The view of
the headland and open sea, with that look of the
sky over a marine horizon which Venetian painters
of the Giorgionesque period rendered so evocatively,
adds to our acquaintance with Carpaccio as a land-
scape painter, and to our admiration of his lyrical
gifts.

Some ten years later, while he was at work upon the
fascinating designs at S. Giorgio degli Schiavoni,
where his genius still retains nearly all its freshness,
and exuberance and buoyancy, and where his touch at
times is as exquisite as one will ever see, he found the
leisure to design, if not to execute, the series now scat-
tered of the "Life of the Virgin," and to do with his
own hands canvases like the spacious and sumptuous
"Nativity" belonging to Lord Berwick, and the "Re-
pose of the Dead Saviour" acquired not too long ago
for the Berlin Gallery, and furthermore the arresting,

i57

impressive "Pieta" (Fig. 63), more recently purchased
by the Metropolitan Museum of New York.

This masterpiece, the discovery and attribution of
which we owe to Sir Claude Phillips, is by him entitled
"a Meditation on the Passion." For people not so
familiar as they should be with Carpaccio, it stands so
apart from the artist's works that even professional
students have been impelled to ascribe it to Giovanni
Bellini. I need not argue with them, but refer them
to Sir Claude's informing, convincing, exhaustive ar-
ticle (Burlington Magazine XIX, p. 144) where, in-
deed, he has anticipated all I have to say on even my
pet hobby of chronology. He brings it into connection
with the Berlin "Madonna with two Saints" as well as
with the "Repose" there, and with the "St. George
fighting the Dragon" at the Schiavoni, concluding upon
1505 or so as the probable date. Not to throw away all
the material I have collected, I will jot down a few odds
and ends to supplement Sir Claude's convincing argu-
ments.

The dead Saviour, although His body has every ac-
cent and touch of Carpaccio, is yet the element of this
work which makes one think most of Giovanni Bellini.
Quite naturally, for the feeling and action were both
inspired by some such a "Pieta" of Bellini's as the one
now at Berlin. Yet the all but identical figure occurs
in a "Pieta" by Carpaccio, more Bellinesque than ever
in design and sentiment, where, nevertheless, the two
angels are indisputably and obviously his. As this
beautiful work is little known, I reproduce it here
(Fig. 64), with the kind permission of its owner, Count

158

Serristori of Florence. It is earlier than ours, and less
generalized in form.

The Saint who faces Jerome is in every probability
Onofrio. He frequently appears as a pendant to the
great Church Father when the latter is represented as a
desert anchorite. An instance that comes to my mind
off hand is found in one of Montagna's altarpieces at
Vicenza. As for the St. Jerome, Sir Claude points out
his identity with the same saint in the Berlin "Ma-
donna." I would further adduce the Jerome, who,
with slight alterations in the way of softening the fig-
ures, appears in Lord Berwick's "Nativity" of 1508.1
To return for an instant to the Berlin "Madonna" it
shows on the hill to the left a castle with projecting
round towers exactly like the one that appears in the
"St. George and Dragon," the canvas which has so much
to connect it with the Berlin "Repose" and our "Medita-
tion." The volutes and curves on the shattered throne
wherein Our Lord reclines may be seen most conspic-
uously in the "Marriage of the Virgin" (Brera), a
painting of the same date as the last of the Schiavoni
compositions. This canvas, too, contains in a tablet
Hebrew inscriptions identical with some of those in the
New York picture.

A word about these inscriptions and I shall have
done. They should be submitted to the careful atten-
tion of a student of Hebrew epigraphy. They may
yield results not devoid of interest. As for me, I

1 This date is usually read as 1505, because the three parallel strokes after
the V have almost disappeared. They can still be descried however, and be-
sides, the placing of the letters on the cartel leaves no doubt that they were
intended to be there.

159

timidly and humbly venture to suggest that the square
block on which Onofrio sits, contains, just above the
false signature of Mantegna, the genuine signature of
Carpaccio. Although in Hebrew letters wayward and
much disguised, I read the possible equivalent of VIC-
TOR SACARPAT.

In the collection of Mr. Robert S. Minturn of New
York, there is a "Madonna with SS. Nicolas and Jer-
ome" (Fig. 65), which it is exceedingly, almost baf-
flingly hard to place exactly. That this picture is very
close to Carpaccio is obvious. The question is, how
close — close enough for his own, or not?

The design is as unusual as it is attractive, for the
large pheasant that looks up at the Child gives to the
composition a touch of Oriental splendour, while sup-
plying, by its shape and colour, a much needed support
for the somewhat conical mass formed by the Virgin.
The colour is sober but warm. The feeling is, for a
Carpacciesque work, unexpectedly intense.

The pattern and action of the Virgin and the Child
are taken from or suggested by some such Madonna of
Giovanni Bellini's Antonellesque period as is repro-
duced by Teniers in a painting at the Brussels Gallery
representing a section of the Archduke Leopold's Col-
lection.1 In type, however, neither is Bellinesque, and
as for the two saints they are unmistakably Carpacci-
esque, the Jerome in particular. His head resembles

1 A version of this, or possibly the picture itself in ruined condition, forms
part of the recent Gallicioli donation to the Bergamo Gallery.

160

Fig. 65. Carpaccio?: Madonna.

Collection of Mr. Robert S. 'MinUim, New York.

fTOSLiC

many a one in Victor's paintings of the first decade of
the XVIth Century. The Nicolas, on the other hand,
is so individualized as to suggest a definite, perhaps a
portrait model. He recalls one or two of the figures
surrounding the Saviour in an early Carpaccio belong-
ing to Mr. Thomas Brocklebank (The Roscote, Hes-
well, Cheshire). But the arrangement of the three
figures, with the heads so close to each other and on a
level, is Giorgionesque and points again to a date after
1500.

Carpaccio's authentic Madonnas are so rare that
terms of comparison are wanting. The Child's action
recalls the one in the Berlin picture, but the Virgin
herself not at all. It should be noted, however, that
that Virgin is so little our artist's conventional type that
critics who go chiefly by striking resemblances of type,
question whether she is by him. Ours has a certain
likeness to the "Madonna" in the Schiavoni altarpiece,
a ruined work designed at least and probably executed
by Carpaccio toward 15 10. In expression and in cer-
tain features of her face, there are reminders also of the
Christ in the "Precious Blood" at Vienna. All in all,
however, the breadth of the design, the fulness of the
Virgin's oval, and the patriarchal distinction of the
Jerome make it probable that this picture was con-
ceived by the artist not much before his supreme
achievement, "The Presentation of the Holy Child,"
dated 15 10.

But did Victor execute this distinguished impressive
work? I confess I find it hard to say why I hesitate to
affirm it. Everything is his, form, colour, mannerisms,

161

his spirit, his art; and yet I find a certain flatness, and a
certain dryness which prevent my getting the sensation
of certainty. I prefer nevertheless to give it the bene-
fit of the doubt, and to include it in the canon of Car-
paccio. Above all, let no serious student think of
ascribing it to his son, Benedetto, known to us only in
stupid, bulging, empty works, dating twenty and thirty
years later, but harking back to his father's Schiavoni
"Madonna," and to the "Presentation of the Holy
Child." It should be borne in mind that a picture is
not necessarily by the son simply because one suspects it
of not being by his father.

FOLLOWING OF CARPACCIO

Thus in the Walters Collection at Baltimore, there is
a "Holy Family" (Fig. 66). It is clearly Carpacci-
esque, but has nothing in common with the authentic
remains of Benedetto.

The Virgin, in dress of brocade, and in ample mantle,
sits behind a parapet, silhouetted grandly against the
landscape, while the Child is about to stroke her cheek,
and Joseph looks on. The colour is warm, fused and
flat, the drawing is precise, the modelling is carried out
a little more in light and shade than Carpaccio was
wont to do. The mass, but for the Joseph, would be
very successful in its pyramidal tendency.

Yet Carpacciesque as it is on the whole, and over-
whelmingly, there is something in the modelling of the
Virgin's face, in the shape and action of her left hand,

162

Fig. 66. Following of Carpaccio : Holy Family.

Collection of Mr. Henry Walters, Baltimore.

and in the Child as well, which distinctly suggest Cima
da Conegliano. And indeed it takes but little reflection
to recognize that the author of Mr. Walters' "Holy
Family" had in mind the action of Cima's most beau-
tiful "Madonna," the one formerly in the Abdy Collec-
tion and now belonging to Mr. Tuck of Paris, which
we shall reproduce and study later. Cima painted his
picture about 1495, but that offers no clue as to how
much later ours may be, for the former was known in
many versions. Indeed, it may as well have been one
of these that our painter had in mind, rather than the
original, of which he imitates nothing but the action
and, to a minor degree, the modelling; and such a ver-
sion he may have seen at any time. I suspect, however,
that it can not be much later than 1500. His massing
and placing are much more impressive than in the proto-
type, so impressive that it led me when I first saw it
many years ago to ascribe it to Bonconsiglio, perhaps
because it vaguely suggested his sublime "Pieta." Of
course this attribution does not hold. All one can con-
clude is that the author was a pupil of Carpaccio in-
fluenced by Cima's art. An analogous picture repre-
senting the Virgin and Child adored by the Infant
John, and accompanied by a female and an old male
Saint, exists, or did exist, in the Museum of Douai,
where it was ascribed to Bellini.

163

PIETRO CARPACCIO

Besides Benedetto, Victor Carpaccio had a son named
Pietro, and his name also has been bandied about in
guessing matches. As a matter of fact we have not
hitherto known a single authentic work of his. In the
collection of Mr. Walters, however, there happens to
be a panel (Fig. 67), which in every probability is
really his. It enables us to frame a notion regarding
him based on something sounder than freakish infer-
ence.

The painting in question represents "St. George fight-
ing the Dragon." It is oblong, as Venetian narrative
compositions were apt to be, and the armoured rider
instead of charging full tilt at the monster, as in both
of Victor's representations of the subject, careers his
horse and lifts his sword to hack away at the beast.
The action is scarcely an improvement, but it is inter-
esting to observe that instead of following in his father's
footsteps, Pietro here at least, imitates very closely a
design by Basaiti now in the Venice Academy. This
is dated 1520, and is itself inspired by Victor, but has
too much unity of purpose to make it in the least likely
that the reverse was the case, and that Basaiti copied
Pietro.1 In the landscape as well there are striking
resemblances, only that ours, with its more horizontal
lines of the horse and the hills, is much more in accord-
ance with the Carpacciesque formula. On a tree stump

1 That this treatment of the subject, due perhaps to a lost work of Gio-
vanni Bellini's, found favour we may infer from the fact that it was fol-
lowed by that popular complier Girolamo S. Croce in a painting now at
Stockholm.

164

to our left we read on a tablet the words Petrus Venetus.
It scarcely is hazarding too much to conjecture that
this Petrus, who remains so Carpacciesque even while
imitating Basaiti, is none other than Pietro, the son of
Victor. Although not devoid of a certain charm, it is a
mediocre performance, and has been restored not too
well, but it will suffice to prevent the conscientious
student from attributing to the same hand genuine works
of the great Carpaccio, like the "Madonna with SS.
Jerome and Catherine" of Berlin, or pleasant school
pictures, such as the Madonna with the same Saints at
Carlsruhe.

ANTONELLO AGAIN

In the rest of this chapter we shall discuss Alvise
Vivarini, Montagna, Cima da Conegliano and Bonsig-
nori. The last three not only were fairly close contem-
poraries, but had much in common, owing something
to Alvise, who was about ten years their elder, but,
along with him, much to Giovanni Bellini and as much
to Antonello. Indeed, the chief characteristic of all
the contemporaries of Giovanni is their heavy indebted-
ness to the great Sicilian. It is considerable in Lazzaro
Sebastiani, and even, on one occasion, in Carpaccio.
Thus, in the "Madonna" at S. Giorgio degli Schiavoni,
the throne, the draperies and the arrangement are all
but copies from Antonello: from some such picture,
perhaps, as the one at Vienna regarding which we have
already said that it may be a ruined fragment of the
lost S. Cassiano altarpiece. It is not probable however,

165

that, excepting Alvise, any of the masters we shall study-
in the rest of this chapter were personally acquainted
with Antonello. They were almost certainly too young
to have known him during the year 1475 which he spent
in Venice. It was rather from the works he left behind
there that they drew their inspiration. We have in
Tuscany the parallel case of Masaccio, whose paintings
were assiduously studied for a century.

Five and twenty years ago I refused to take account
of the tradition regarding Antonello's commanding
position in Venetian painting, because I could see no
palpable proof of it. And, in truth, at that time only
a few portraits and the two "Crucifixions" at Antwerp
and London passed unchallenged as his handiwork.
The exquisite "St. Jerome" as well as the Dresden "St.
Sebastian" were little known and still under discus-
sion, the sublime Correr "Pieta" was regarded as
Bellini's, the Benson "Madonna" was passing for a
Fogolino, and the "Virgin's Annunciate" of Palermo
and Munich, as well as Antonello'si most considerable
work the "Annunciation" now at Syracuse, had not yet
been heard of. Now certain features, properties and
traits which all these new works make it easy to lead
back to Antonello abounded in Alvise Vivarini, and so
with the simplicism of youth I attributed to this master
a dominating influence, not indeed so ludicrously
groundless as that which Paoletti and Ludwig invented
for Lazzaro Sebastiani, yet one which my further
studies have nevertheless tended to diminish and dis-
prove.

Both as a creator and as a teacher Alvise collapses to

166

a very secondary personality. I need say no more
here, for I already have published recantations, which
the reader will find in the Gazette des Beaux Arts,1 and
in the third series of my "Study and Criticism of Italian
Art."

Before we begin to examine the paintings of Alvise,
Bonsignori, Montagna and Cima that we happen to
have in America, I should like to tabulate a certain
number of peculiarities which may indicate that the
picture in which they occur was designed under the
direct or indirect influence of Antonello.

i. A decided tendency toward conical or pyramidal
masses and shapes (as in his Messina "Madonna," Pa-
lermo "Annunziata," Benson "Madonna," Dresden
"St. Sebastian," etc.).

2. Squarish thrones with globes on the arms.

3. Knees of sitting figures rather wide apart with the
draperies drawn across diagonally, and the folds in a
sprawling meander over the feet.

4. Small folds in the shape of loops like isosceles
triangles, and creases in draperies taking the place of
folds.

5. Creased curtains, creased linen or damask, and
creased cartels for signatures.

6. Flat cushions, particularly when under the feet
of the Madonna.

7. Dwarfed trees in vases or pots.

8. In colour, a preference for pale cool tones (as in
the Dresden "St. Sebastian").

1 La Sainte Justine de la collection Bagatti-Valsecchi. June, 1913.
Une Madonne d'Antonello da Messina. March, 1913.

167

9. In surface, a tendency toward a high polish (as
in many of his portraits) .

I would not be taken to mean that any one of these
items, or even all of them combined, are a necessary
and mechanical proof of Antonello's influence. Yet
in any work in which these features occur even singly,
not to say in numbers, it would be certainly safer, before
denying it, to make sure that this influence could
not have been exerted. Each of them, it is true, may be
discovered earlier in Venice, but they all grew singu-
larly more frequent there after Antonello.

Antonello's influence may further be traced in a tend-
ency towards certain facial ovals, resembling the
rather homely one of his Benson "Madonna" or the
more geometrical one of the Dresden "Sebastian" (The
latter, however, leaves one doubting whether it be not
in turn, influenced by Bellini). Then there is a cer-
tain portrait type, energetic, and emphatic, known to
all. Finally there is the use of heavy brocades, which
may have been made much more fashionable by An-
tonello.

We shall now turn to Alvise Vivarini.

VI
ALVISE VIVARINI

In the Walters Collection at Baltimore there is a
"Madonna" (Fig. 68), who is seen between a green
curtain and a parapet upon which, with her right hand
she supports the Child erect on a cushion. He blesses
with His divine right hand, but with His human left

1 68

Fig. 68. Alvise Vivarini : Madonna.

Collection of Mr. Henry Wallers, Baltimore.

He pulls a bird by a string. It is only a quite average
achievement by Alvise, but it is very characteristic.
Nothing, for instance, could be more peculiar to him
than the drawing and modelling of the nose and nos-
trils. Only less so, because found as well in his
teachers and close followers, are the eyes, with the
pupils rolled down to the lower lid. The date is not
hard to determine, for this panel must have been
painted between the Naples Triptych of 1485 and the
National Gallery "Madonna." The latter, however,
is of no later date than 1488, for in 1489 was designed
that Vienna "Madonna" which was the precursor of Al-
vise's one popular work, the Redentore "Madonna and
Angels." But judging by the S. Giovanni and Bra-
gora "Madonna," which preceded the Vienna one, as
it in turn was preceded by the National Gallery one,
the interval that elapsed between the last two could
have been scarcely less than two years. At the same
rate of progress our "Madonna" must have been
painted late in i486. It is curious that after the
wretched picture at Barletta of 1483 and the poor one
at Naples of 1485, Alvise should have executed his best
work, the earlier Berlin altarpiece, and then dropped
back again directly to the mediocrity of the "Ma-
donna" here. It is a case of ups and downs extremely
rare in artists whose reputations have weathered the
centuries.

Except in the triangular folds visible above the Vir-
gin's left wrist, there happens to be little direct trace of
Antonello's influence in Mr. Walters' "Madonna."
There is, naturally, more of the Sicilian, renowned

169

above all for his portraits, in the Head (Fig. 69), by
Alvise of a smooth shaved elderly Venetian belonging
to Mr. J. G. Johnson of Philadelphia. Although
painted after 1490, as the cap and hair indicate, this
hale and lively presentation is still distinctly Antonel-
lesque. It is not to be compared with such beautiful
studies as that of a boy in the Salting Bequest of the
National Gallery, or in Baron Schickler's Collection
at Paris, but holds its own with any other portrait the
attribution of which to Alvise is beyond legitimate
doubt.

VII

BONSIGNORI

At this point it will be convenient to speak of Fran-
cesco Bonsignori. Although a Veronese by birth, and
first trained, no doubt, by a Mantegnesque compatriot,
and later in life himself sucked into the current of
Mantegna, he was for some years in his early manhood
so strongly influenced by the Vivarini and Giovanni Bel-
lini as to count among the Venetians. His paintings
of those years betray, too, as is natural, a certain ac-
quaintance with Antonello, but far less than we shall
find in the works of Montagna or Cima.

In America we have five heads of his, four of them
portraits. Three of these are in the clear, incisive,
energetic style of design and presentation which very
likely accounted for the great favour they enjoyed at
the court of Mantua.

The earliest of them, probably, is the bust of an
elderly man belonging to Mr. J. G. Johnson of Phila-

170

Fig. 69. Alvise Vivarini : Head of a Man.

Collection of Mr. John G. Johnson, Philadelphia.

Fig. 70. Francesco Bonsignori : Head of a Warrior

Collection of Mr. Henry Walters, Baltimore.

delphia. I refer to the catalogue of that collection for
a reproduction. It has the directness, firmness and
decisiveness of the best XVth Century portraiture in
or out of Italy. Its attribution is based on a compar-
ison with the signed "Head of a Venetian Senator" in
the National Gallery. Ours, however, is of a deeper
tone, more like the general harmony of the polyptych
in S. Giovanni e Paolo at Venice. It is therefore earlier
than the "Senator," which is dated 1487. Another
consideration helping to fix the date is that Bonsig-
nori's portraits during their author's middle years, tend
to become more and more Mantegnesque, more linear
in method and larger in scale. Mr. Johnson's is the
least Mantegnesque in all these respects, and for this
reason we may safely place it at the beginning of the
series, although after the likeness of Gianfrancesco
Gonzaga at Bergamo.

The next in date is the "Head of a Warrior" (Fig.
70), in Mr. Walters' Collection at Baltimore, perhaps
the most closely characterized, firmest and best con-
structed of Bonsignori's portraits. In colour too, it is
the most vigorous. Its attribution cannot be subject
to dispute, for everything about it witnesses to the mind
and hand of the master. It remains relatively light in
colour, and we should therefore place it before the
"Senator" of 1487. The vein running from the cheek
down to the throat, instead of being ignored, is insisted
upon in a way that reminds one of the extravagantly
prominent veins in the figures of the Polyptych re-
ferred to in the last paragraph. We may take it that
ours was done soon after that. As for the identity of

171

the person represented, I have failed to make it out.
He probably was connected with the court of Mantua.
The most imposing of Bonsignori's portraits is one
of an elderly warrior of commanding personality and
great force (Fig. 71), in the Widener Collection near
Philadelphia. It is so loose and free in drawing and
so large in scale that I take it to be of a date later than
the "Senator" of 1487. The stiff flat-topped hat may
already have been too much out of fashion to be worn
even by an elderly man. It is possible, therefore, that
this likeness was done not after life but after an earlier
effigy. Here, again, there is no clue to identify the
person represented, but it is even more probable that he
belonged to the court of Mantua. One is tempted to
believe that he was a Gonzaga.1 To a date considerably
later, perhaps twenty years later, belongs another, the
bust in the Walters Collection (Fig. 72), the fourth of
Bonsignori's portraits in America. It is in quite a dif-
ferent style from the first three, not at all so linear,
more modelled in light and shade, softer and less in-
cisive in handling. The artist is here interested in the
psychology of his sitter; it is a rendering of character
subtle, reflective and discriminating. We should find
no serious difficulty in conversing with him, whereas
the obstacles to any communion between us and the two
warriors would most likely be insurmountable. That
this portrait is nevertheless by Bonsignori there can be
no reasonable doubt. Despite differences, the map-
ping of the face, the modelling, and the shape of the

1 The attribution and the false signature are discussed in my "Lorenzo
Lotto," 2d ed., p. 42.

172

7i. Francesco Bonsignori : Bust of a Warrior.

Collection of Mr. Joseph Widener, Philadelphia.

Fig. 72. Francesco Bonsignori : Male Portrait.

Collection of Mr. Henry Walters, Baltimore.

ear are his, and the more modern, more humane type
is paralleled by the monk in the "Madonna and Saints"
of the Layard Bequest in the National Gallery, an ob-
viously late achievement.

The fifth Bonsignori in our collections, belonging to
Mr. J. G. Johnson, is an even later work than the last,
for if I mistake not, it already betrays the influence of
Lorenzo Costa who came to Mantua to replace Man-
tegna in 1507. It is the bust of the boy Saviour seen
behind a parapet on which His hand is resting. But
for the halo and the tunic, I should be tempted to re-
gard it as a possible likeness of Federigo Gonzaga as
a boy, of that Federigo whose portrait by Francia is
now in the Altman Bequest of the Metropolitan
Museum. It is signed with the initials F. B. A fuller
discussion and a reproduction will be found in Mr.
Johnson's catalogue.

VIII
MONTAGNA

Few other Madonnas have more of the restrained
pathos, and earnestness as well as the humanity of
Giovanni Bellini's Virgins, than those of Bartolommeo
Montagna. Their author was one of the most impres-
sive and inspiring of old masters, and I note with great
satisfaction that our collectors have appreciated him.
Italy apart, no country in Europe has more of his
art than we already have in America. It is satisfactory
likewise that the sacred subjects here are all from his
golden decade. The others are portraits which, on

i73

account of their rarity among his works we should wel-
come even if they were less admirable than they are.

The golden decade I refer to was from 1480 to 1490.
During those years Montagna painted nearly all his
grandest if not his most grandiose works, austere yet
sumptuous, splendid, yet of cool, pearly tone and trans-
parent colouring. But even this decade did not end
without premonition of the blight that was going to
make his paintings increasingly disagreeable, even
when their design remained magnificent. They began
to be visited by scorching blasts which finally grew
insufferable. Bricky reds, and other hot colours,
soot and grime, seem to have covered them. No doubt
much of our present sensation is due to pigments gone
wrong, but that is no excuse here any more than it is
in the somewhat parallel case of Tintoretto. Then,
too, a certain slovenliness in composition set in, which
ended in a design so unworthy of a great artist as the
fresco of 15 12 at the Santo in Padua. To this may be
added weaknesses of drawing, and clumsiness of setting
and arrangement, as in the even later altarpiece at S.
Maria in Vanzo, in Padua. Perhaps Montagna paid
too dear a price for such imposing effects as strut in his
Brera masterpiece of 1499. It is the most Signorel-
lesque design in Northern Italy, and the coincidence
is curious, for Luca and Bartolommeo both ended as
execrable colourists.

The date of his birth is unknown and his latest and
completest biographer, Dr. Tancred Borenius x will

1 "The Painters of Vicenza," London, 1909, a scholarly and amiable book,
one of the very few that have appeared in the last twenty years which the

174

not commit himself to a statement more precise than
sometime before 1460. But as he enjoyed enough fame
in 1482 to be invited, provincial though he was, living
in a provincial town, to do important work in Venice
itself, we shall scarcely be rash in putting his birth back
as far at least as 1455. This is a point of some interest
to me, as I can not help thinking that he must have
come under Giovanni Bellini's influence toward 1475.
My reason is that looking at the heroic, austere figures
of the latter's Pesaro "Coronation" I have always been
struck by their singular resemblance to certain of Mon-
tagna's. It is also true that, until the other day, many
of us were inclined .to ascribe to him that Vatican
"Pieta" which as has recently been proved by Dr. Friz-
zoni, originally formed part of the Pesaro Bellini.
Dr. Borenius may well congratulate himself on not
having shared our error though, perhaps, no work not
by Montagna bears so close a resemblance to his style.
If we might assume that he was born as early as
1455, it would become possible to believe that he
came in personal contact with Antonello during the

student of Venetian art need consider. I do not always agree with Dr.
Borenius' chronology. Thus he would place the S. Giovanni Ilarione altar-
piece with the earliest works, soon after 1480 therefore, but it certainly be-
longs some twenty years later. On the other hand, he would make the
Belluno Madonna with the standing Child contemporary with the Brera
altarpiece of 1499, whereas it appears to me to be of the same date as the
former S. Bartolommeo altarpiece at Vicenza, which I place with the earliest
works and scarcely later than 1481. Again, Dr. Borenius disputes the tradi-
tional date, 1490 namely, of the altarpiece in the Certosa di Pavia which he
would place later. I think it borne out by internal evidence, and correct.
With his attributions, on the other hand, I am in much closer agreement. I
dissent from him, however, when he takes away from Montagna the im-
portant if rather ruined altarpiece of 1497 at Highnam Court, and the
"Christ between Sebastian and Roch" of the Venice Academy.

175

latter's visit to Venice in 1475. I should like to believe
it, for in many of his earliest works that have come
down to us (none, however, dating before 1480),
Montagna is Antonellesque in a way and to a degree
that might imply acquaintance with Antonello himself
and not only with the few works that this artist could
have left behind during his brief visit to Venice. It is
to be feared, however, that even if we grant the earlier
date of his birth, Montagna was, nevertheless, too young
and undeveloped to take advantage of the opportunity
thus offered, and that it took him, as it seems to have
taken nearly everybody excepting Giovanni Bellini
himself, several years to wake up to the Sicilian's genius
and to learn to profit by it.

I could wish that we owned a Montagna as palpably,
obviously Antonellesque as the ''Madonna" in the
National Gallery, which it was the fashion, when I
began my studies, to ascribe to Fogolino ; * or as patently
Bellinesque as the one in the late Sir Wm. Farrer's
Collection, or Madonnas like the one at Belluno and
at Lord Zouche's which are the next of kin to Barto-
lommeo's greatest as well as earliest achievement, the
S. Bartolommeo altarpiece at Vincenza. None of our

1 Reproduced in Venturi VII, part IV, p. 444. In the same volume will
be found most of Montagna's works. The National Gallery "Madonna"
which, after the Farrer "Madonna" is Bartolommeo's earliest extant paint-
ing, was done by a man who had acquaintance with works by Antonello like
the Palermo "Virgin Annunciate," and above all with Mr. Benson's "Ma-
donna." It was no doubt the striking resemblance that led us to consent to
the guess that the last named was by Fogolino. To this residuary legatee
of all puzzling paintings showing a vague Antonello-Montagnesque character
Prof. Venturi in the same volume p. 648, figure 417, attributes the "Madonna"
in the Vienna Museum which has been frequently referred to here as ex-
ceedingly close to Antonello himself.

176

Fig. 73-

Bartolommeo Montagna : Madonna.

Museum, Worcester, Mass.

Madonnas either goes back to so early a date — not later
than 1483 — or shows such manifest signs of indebt-
edness to Bellini, and even more particularly to An-
tonello.

In the earliest Montagna in American possession, the
Antonellesque influence can scarcely be felt. It is
there, but it would be hazardous to decide, if we had
no other information, whether it was direct or derived
from Bellini in his own Antonellesque phase — that
creative period between 1475 and 1480.

This earliest of our Madonnas, however, if not ob-
viously is yet distinctly Bellinesque. It is a panel
(Fig. 73), which not long ago passed from the collec-
tion of N. D. Fanny Vaeni, at Venice, into the Museum
of Worcester, Mass. The Blessed Virgin is seen against
a dark background. In front is a parapet upon which
rests a book. In both her arms she tenderly holds the
Child, with her hands pressed against His naked body,
while He clings to her with His right arm around her
neck. The mantle, which is thrown back from the
elbows, reveals a richly brocaded dress. The Virgin,
in place of the conventional halo, has a radiant light
streaming from her head, and her grave yet serious
face with its large eyes looks as if she were listening
and thinking.

I am tempted to believe that a "Madonna" with the
same motive by Giovanni Bellini must Have existed and
inspired this painting, for it is impossible that he who
was so much interested in the theme of the Mother and
Child, had not hit upon this arrangement. Among the
extant works of his Antonellesque period the nearest to

177

the Worcester Mantegna is the Berlin variant of the
S. Maria dell'Orto panel, (Gronau "Bellini" p. 75).
The masses of the two groups, the action, the brocades,
the slashed sleeves, have much in common, only that
ours tends to a volume more compact, more pyramidal,
(more Antonellesque that is to say), as we find in Bel-
lini himself in the Rovigo and Bergamo Gallicioli
"Madonnas."

These Bellini panels, however, were painted between
1476 and 1479, while ours is of a decade later, and this
fact tends to confirm the conclusion that it really was
during the years following directly upon the Pesaro
"Coronation" that Montagna frequented Bellini. The
contact must have been pretty close if its effects not
only outlasted the absorption in Antonello but remained
so vivid after ten years. We have still to give a proof,
however, that the date assigned to the Worcester "Ma-
donna" is the correct one.

In brief, it is this. Our Virgin is in facial type
closest of all to the one in the collection of the late
Miss Hertz, but already suggests the Vicenza "Nativ-
ity," the Brera "Madonna with Francis and Bernar-
dine," the J. G. Johnson altarpiece at Philadelphia,
and the "Madonna with Onofrio and the Baptist" at
Vicenza again. These altarpieces in the order men-
tioned were painted, as I venture to think I can prove,
not earlier than 1488 and not later than 1490. But the
Hertz "Madonna" which preceded the Worcester one
followed in turn the Bergamo "Madonna with Roch
and Sebastian" dated 1487. That ours really belongs
between the last named and the group of altarpieces

178

Fig. 74. Bartolommeo Montagna: Madonna.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

just referred to is further shown by the fact that the
type of Child with a rather ugly nose and rusty look
in the eyes, the defects of which we scarcely feel as
yet, has got much more disagreeable in the Brera one,
and persists in two other "Madonnas" of the same pe-
riod, the one in the Verona Gallery, and the other in
Mr. D. F. Piatt's collection at Englewood. We may
conclude therefore that the date of 1488 for the Wor-
cester "Madonna" can not be far out.

It is a curious coincidence that of all Montagna's
works known to me the next in date to the Worcester
painting is a "Madonna" (Fig. 74), in the Metropoli-
tan Museum of New York. She appears behind a
ledge upon which the Child is sitting, with His hands
about her arm, looking up at her, while she, with hands
crossed over her breast, looks lovingly but gravely at
Him. Over the Worcester panel with its blind back-
ground this has the great advantage of a background
of beautiful landscape. It is a typical one. The tone
is pearly and cool.

Here again, one is tempted to suspect a Bellinesque
prototype, altho' the Madonna with her more geomet-
rical volume, and crossed hands is closer than the last
to Antonello as, for instance, in his Munich "Virgin
Annunciate."

Its affinities with the Hertz picture are manifest, in
sentiment, type and background. I am inclined never-
theless to place it not next to it but after the Worcester
"Madonna." My chief reason is that our "Madonna"
is followed closest by the one recently acquired by Mr.
Henry Walters, which work, besides having much

179

in common with ours, anticipates quite as much in Bar-
tolommeo's altarpieces and panels already mentioned
as belonging to 1488-1490. The Walters panel, for
instance, is the earliest in which we find the reds and
the dark shadows which rendered our painter's late
works less and less pleasant.

Within a year after the Metropolitan Museum "Ma-
donna," Montagna must have painted the altarpiece
now belonging to Mr. J. G. Johnson, which, as I learn
from Dr. Borenius, comes from S. Maria dei Servi at
Vicenza. On a tessellated platform in a spacious land-
scape stretching to mountains and jagged crags, the
Blessed Virgin sits enthroned, with the Child on her
knee, while the heroic figure of St. Lucy, and the some-
what senile one of Nicholas of Bari keep watch and
ward.1 It is a pattern of sweet simplicity, a tale told
a thousand times, but of which, when well told as here,
one never tires.

It fits in, in every way, between the "Nativity" and
the "Madonna with Onofrio and the Baptist" at Vi-
cenza. The Lucy here is nearly the figure of the Mag-
dalen in the "Nativity." Our Madonna resembles
those in both, as well as the one in the earlier Brera
altarpiece already referred to. The landscape sug-
gests a "Madonna" in the Verona Gallery which for
independent reasons can be assigned to 1489- 1490.
The Child, however, harks back to the one in the Ber-
gamo painting of 1487. That Mr. Johnson's picture
is nevertheless later is proved not only by the heavier

1 Reproduced and more fully described in the catalogue of the collection.
Also in Venturi op. cit.

180

colouring — Lucy is dressed in brick-red — but by the
crude fact that the Nicolas quite patently was suggested
by the Saints in Bellini's Frari Triptych of 1488. In-
ternal evidence leads me to conclude that our altarpiece
must have been painted some time in 1489.

It is during those years that Montagna first shows
unmistakable signs of contact with Alvise. The St.
Clara in the Vicenza "Nativity" recalls more than one
of the latter's Abbesses, and the Blessed Virgin in the
Caregiani "Madonna with the Baptist and Francis"
was surely designed by one acquainted with Alvise's
Redentore "Madonna"; but in Mr. Johnson's altar-
piece there is as yet no trace of this. It was a passing
contact without great effect. Alvise never had the in-
fluence over Bartolommeo which twenty- five years ago
I imagined him to exert over many Venetian painters.
On the other hand, chronology and every consideration
besides, render Morelli's notion that Carpaccio was
Montagna's master quite absurd. The works of the
sculptor Bellano, however, seem to have affected him
towards and after 1490, if we may judge by the sil-
houetting and relief, as well as subtler traits in some of
his paintings of that period, particularly in the Certosa
di Pavia altarpiece of that precise year. The St. Lucy
in Mr. Johnson's panel reminds one vividly of the one
in Bonsignori's altarpiece at S. Paolo in Verona, and
reminds us at the same time of the connection I suspect
there must have been between them in their earliest
days at Verona, under Domenico Morone or some
other Mantegnesque artist of that town. It is likely,
by the way, that Montagna's hot colouring may be due

181

to a Veronese germ which had the same corrupting
effect on a number of the painters of Verona just before
and for a time after 1500 — in fact until the great Paul
climbed up into a cool, clear, silver world again.

Cursory mention has just been made of the Caregiani
"Madonna with the Baptist and St. Francis." 1 It is a
noble work of great distinction and suavity. The
Blessed Virgin herself is presented in a rigidly frontal
pose, rare in Venetian painting of the late Quattro-
cento. In this respect, as well as in the oval of her
face and the still Antonellesque volume of her draped
figure, she evidently was inspired, as already observed,
by Alvise's Redentore "Madonna." As that can be
dated late in 1489, or early in the following year, Mon-
tagna's can be no earlier. On the other hand, without
reference to the Redentore prototype, I should not
place it later than the Certosa altarpiece of 1490,2 for
after that the Child that we found in the Hertz Ma-
donna never appears again, nor the gently billowed
creasings of the curtain.

If we have gone out of our way to mention the Care-
giani picture, it is because it helps us to understand and
date a "Madonna" (Fig. 75), belonging to Mr. D. F.
Piatt, of Englewood, N. J. The Blessed Virgin is seen
between a parapet on which sits the Child, and a low

1 Reproduced in Venturi VII. part 4, p. 463, and better in I' Arte VII, p. 73.

2 Dr. Borenius disputes the traditional date of this work, which he thinks
later. But its architecture, silhouetting, and tonality are just what they
should be for 1490, and the Madonna's right hand, with the thumb turned
back, is still Antonellesque, as in the early National Gallery and Belluno
"Madonnas," while the head of the Child, scanned very closely, is nearer
to those in the paintings of this moment than to any elsewhere. In fact, the
Virgin herself is but a variant upon a very early one at Belluno.

182

Fig. 75. Bartolommeo Montagna : Madonna.

Collection of Mr. Dan Felloives Piatt, Engletvood, N. J.

wall against a hilly horizon. Her look is abstracted
as she clasps Him with both hands — much as in the Wor-
cester picture. He rests one hand in her neckerchief as
if it were a sling and the other He presses on a book.
Evidently the artist, after designing the Caregiani pic-
ture, desiring to keep the position of the Child's right
arm as unaltered as possible, while changing the rest,
produced Mr. Piatt's "Madonna." Independently of
this consideration, however, I should place her after the
Caregiani picture and yet before the Certosa altarpiece,
for while the action and oval of the Madonna's head
and the head of the Child as well are very close to those
in that work, the volume is still Antonellesque, while
the pattern of the whole and the action of the Child are
Bellinesque. Mr. Piatt's panel can thus be dated as
1490. It is to be hoped that the hand and wrist on the
book are not as they looked when they left Montagna's
studio.

There are no other Madonnas of his, that I know of
in our collections. Before turning to his two portraits,
I wish to draw attention to the fact that results from
our examination of his works up to this point. It is
that Montagna, although working in Vicenza, kept
closely in touch with Venice. Thus, his first and
greatest masterpiece, in S. Bartolommeo at Vicenza,
could not have been painted a year after Bellini's S.
Giobbe one; the one we saw at Mr. J. G. Johnson's not
a year later than the same artist's Frari Triptych ; and
the Caregiani "Madonna," again, not a year later than
Alvise's Redentore "Madonna."

The more interesting of his two portraits in Ameri-

183

can possession is the one of a lady represented as St.
Giustina of Padua with a dagger in her breast, (Fig.
76), in the Altman Bequest of the Metropolitan
Museum. In the Hainauer Collection whence it came
it was ascribed to Lorenzo Costa, but I do not fear that
my attribution to Montagna will be disputed. I will
not attempt to describe or characterize the portrait,
for the reproduction will tell the student more than I
could. The costume and hair are of the first decade of
the XVIth Century, but I am inclined to think not quite
Venetian. Now everything in this panel connects it
with Montagna's paintings at Verona of 1504- 1506,
and I suspect we shall not be far out if we assume that
it was painted there during those years.

It was not uncommon to let one's self be portrayed
under the guise of some saintly person. Here, how-
ever, the disguise was merely perfunctory and super-
ficial, for the elaboration of the costume and hair and
the jewels contradict the knife and the palm. Those
of us, however, who are intimately acquainted with
Montagna's types from toward 1500 for some six or
seven years, may well ask what, after deducting all that
is specifically characteristic of him, remains of the
sitter. But if that question were asked before every
portrait, modern as well as ancient, surprisingly few
would leave more of a residue of objectivity than this.

The other head is in Mr. J. G. Johnson's Collection
at Philadelphia and represents the profile of a Bene-
dictine Monk with hands folded in prayer. I must
again refer the student to the catalogue of that collec-
tion, where they will find it described and reproduced.

184

Fig. 76. Bartolommeo Montagna : Portrait of Lady Represented a*
St. Justine of Padua.

Altman Bequest, Metropolitan Museum of Fine Art, New. York,

Fig. yy. Speranza : The Saviour Blessing.

Collection of Mr. Henry Walters, Baltimore.

I said there "The mask is as plastic, as vigorous, and as
detailed as the portraits of Bonzes carved in Japan
some few centures ago." The colouring and the tech-
nique incline one to date it toward 1510.

SPERANZA

Montagna had a considerable following, yet except-
ing Buonconsiglio, with his touch of the Byronic re-
vealed so surprisingly in his all but sublime "Depo-
sition" at Vicenza, and in the Layard head of a demonic
Christ, none of them would be worth studying but for
the need of distinguishing between their best and Mon-
tagna's worst. When I was young it was the fashion,
for instance, to ascribe any and every Montagna that
did not please one to Speranza. Thus, the National
Gallery "Madonna" (No. 1098) of about 1489, and the
"Noli me Tangere" of a few years later, now at Berlin,
used to be assigned to him by eminent connoisseurs, and
quite recently Dr. Borenius was tempted to attribute
to him the altarpiece of 1497 at Highnam Court, some-
what ruined but signed, dated, and in every way, save
for its repainting, acceptable as Montagna's.

For this reason, and because his authentic works are
extremely rare, every signed painting by Speranza is
welcome, apart from any question of its own intrinsic
merit. There is such a painting (Fig. jy) , in the Wal-
ters Collection at Baltimore. It shows against a dark
background a head of the Saviour slightly turned to
right, with His right hand blessing. I confess that,
but for the signature, it would take no little trouble to

185

hit upon the author of this design, with its vague re-
minders of portraits by Giorgione and the young
Titian. It is nevertheless based upon a picture with
the same subject by Montagna, which is dated 1502, and
was until the other day in the Delarofr" Collection.1
I suspect this imitation was made some years later, for,
as just said, it betrays a good deal of Giorgionesque in-
spiration. Singular that a tenth-rate artist, when in
the twenties, should be so sensitive to the new, when an
all but first-rate man in the fifties was not. Montag-
na's works betray no sign at any time of their author's
acquaintance with Giorgione.

IX
CIMA DA CONEGLIANO

After Giovanni Bellini and Carpaccio and be-
fore Giorgione, the best beloved painter of Venice
remains Cima da Conegliano. No wonder, for no
other master of that time paints so well the pearly
hazes that model the Italian landscape with a peculiar
lightness and breadth. He calls up memories of
hours spent among the foothills of Alps and Apen-
nines, cool and covered with violet grey mist. His
castles, his streams and his foliage have the same
gift of recalling and even communicating pleasant
states of body and mind. His figures are severe and

1 Reproduced in Sale catalogue (No. 229) and in d'Arte 1912, p. 129, as
well as in the delightful and invaluable Russian monthly, Starye Gody, June,
1912, opp. p. 6.

186

chaste but seldom morose, and occasionally they have
quivering nostrils and mouths of surprising sensitive-
ness. I seem to recognize in his women a kinship to
certain of ours, produced by generations of Puritanic
repression and selection and rebellion.

So much for Cima's character as an illustrator.
Judged by the requirements of decoration, he stands
only under Bellini. He is a draughtsman of strenuous
and exquisite precision, with a sense of line scarcely
surpassed in Venice. His colouring is transparent,
cool, pearly, and nevertheless seldom if ever cold or
harsh. His modelling is firm, at times rather suggest-
ing porcelain. Yet he has neither the abandon of a
Carpaccio nor the intimacy of a Giovanni Bellini. He
remains more external, more schematic, as if he con-
structed rather than created his figures; and in this, as
in certain other respects, resembles Mantegna. Nor
indeed was he so unlearned and unintellectual in the
pursuit of his art as is often supposed. Antiquity for
instance, was not a matter of indifference to him; he
is the first Venetian to practice contrapposto e. g. the
Parma altarpiece with Andrew and Michael — ; and
to my knowledge, if he. did not invent, quite early in his
career he introduced the motive of the Child addressing
Himself to one side and the Virgin to the other of the
company present — a motive which was destined to such
magnificent developments during the next two gener-
ations. Whatever may be the intrinsic value as pure
art of these innovations, a man who was among the
first, if not the first, to use them must have had (for a
Venetian) a most unusual awareness of the specific

187

problems raised by his art. On the other hand, he was
as little of a narrator as the Bellini, and scarcely more
dramatic, while his range was much narrower.

His earliest dated work, the altarpiece of 1489 at
Vicenza, reveals, as is scarcely the case with the earliest
work of any other master, the talent, the character and
the quality of a whole career. It is true that he was
about thirty at the time, but then we have no painting
more youthful by any other of the great Quattrocento
Venetians. Quite likely none of the extant panels by
Giovanni Bellini were designed before he was thirty,
but what a gulf between them and his masterpieces of
about 1487; whereas the differences between the Cima
of 1489 and the Cima of the last important picture, the
Brera "St. Peter" of 15 16, are relatively slight, altho'
the same number of years had elapsed.

His chronology is therefore exceedingly hard to deter-
mine. Students, who had not made a special and seri-
ous business of it, might easily confuse early with late
works, or the opposite. It is like those rivers where
you can scarcely distinguish between upstream and
downstream. Yet the effort must be made, not only as
a duty to one's profession, and for sport, but also be-
cause certain questions depend for their answers on
points of date. They are concerned to some extent,
as we shall see, with Cima's origins, but more still with
his putative offspring.

In general, Cima tends to get more atmospheric as
he advances, to envelope his figures more, to be more
detailed in his landscape and to get more coloured.
Toward 15 10, when he was about fifty, he begins to

Fig. 78. ClMA DA CONEGLIANO : MADONNA.
Art Museum, Detroit, Mich.

show signs of decline, due probably to failing health,
which was prophetic of his death some seven years
later. But even in those failing years he painted mas-
terpieces like the Arcadian altarpiece of the Louvre,
the "Tobias" of the Venice Academy and the "St.
Peter" of the Brera. The drawing, however, is fre-
quently enfeebled, and the colouring occasionally over
enamelled and almost harsh. Yet, even then, in no
well preserved autograph work, is he perfunctory, nor
does he fail of his atmospheric effects.

We can scarcely hope at this late day to acquire for
America anything like the great altarpieces which re-
veal Cima at his completest; but short of such master-
pieces, he is already well represented in our collections,
and happily with works of varying style, earliest as well
as latest.

The earliest painting by Cima that I have come
across is a "Madonna" (Fig. 78), in the Public Gal-
lery of Detroit, Michigan. The Blessed Virgin, a
compact figure, like a well composed bust on a pedestal,
is seen between a curtain and a parapet on which sits
the Holy Child. He tries to attract her attention by
touching her hands folded in prayer. His halo is
unique and singular for it is made up of twigs. In the
background appears a cliff of horizontal masses of
rock. On the parapet we read in broad, square Roman
capitals: — Joannes Bta Coneglanensis.

189

Even without a signature, the oval, the hands and the
modelling would have made it easy to recognize this
painting as Cima's. On the other hand, it is outside of
the ordinary canon of his works, so that we are obliged
to place it earlier than the earliest usually recognized
hitherto, that is to say the Vicenza altarpiece of 1489.
This is a conclusion we are driven to by the fact that
never again is Cima at once so Antonellesque and so
Bellinesque. The sculptural compactness already
noted, the pyramidal mass of the two figures, the coni-
cal effect of the Virgin alone, betray the strong in-
fluence of Antonello, while the type and action of the
Child, and the feeling of the whole witness no less to
contact with Bellini. We are reminded of the series
of the last named artist's "Madonnas" painted between
1480 and 1485, which we had occasion to discuss in a
previous chapter, and particularly of the one in the
Metropolitan Museum.

When I first saw this picture in 1902, I jotted down
in my notes that it was "like an early Montagna." It
is even more like the Vicentine painter's work than I
could have demonstrated at that time, for then I was
not acquainted with his "Madonna" of the Metropoli-
tan Museum and of the one recently acquired by Mr.
Walters, both so singularly resembling ours in feel-
ing, composition and action. These striking resem-
blances may be sufficiently accounted for by the fact
that Montagna, like Cima, was formed by Bellini while
this genius felt the inspiration of Antonello, and passed
on its influence to his ablest followers. In that case
they could scarcely have avoided acquaintance with

190

one another, and must have affected each other. If we
turn back to the last section where we studied the chro-
nology of Montagna, we shall find that we dated the
Metropolitan and Walters "Madonnas" as of 1488.
It is a curious coincidence that the Detroit Cima, so
close to those two designs, should be of about the same
time, for the advance visible in his Vicenza altarpiece
of 1489 requires that a year or two at least should have
elapsed between it and ours

In 1905 Dr. Rudolf Burckhardt published a mono-
graph on Cima. It is a constructive aesthetic apprecia-
tion worthy of the author's great namesake Jacob, and of
Wofrlin, Jacob's pupil and his own master. It is full,
too, of important information culled from inscriptions
and archives, but is not quite so praiseworthy in its con-
noisseurship, altho' always modest, reasonable, and
totally devoid of charlatanism. Owing no doubt to the
many excellent and even beautiful qualities of his
study, a suggestion of Dr. Burckhardt's as to Cima's
beginnings met with a success that on other grounds
it would be hard to explain. The suggestion was that
Montagna was Cima's first master.

Now I wonder whether such an idea would have
occurred to Dr. Burckhardt, if Cima's earliest dated
work at present known, did not happen to have been
painted for Vicenza. As a matter of fact, there is no
reason why it need have been painted on the spot, since
it is on canvas. The exact contrary, indeed, may be
inferred, for in 1489 altarpieces were still painted on
wood, and probably never on canvas except for some
definite reason, such as the greater facility of transport.

191

It would seem more than likely, therefore, that Cima
executed this work elsewhere. Just where is not cer-
tain, but it was probably in Venice, and for the follow-
ing reasons. The dominant visible influence is Bel-
lini's and the Madonna and Child betray acquaintance
with his Frari Triptych of 1488 and with the lost orig-
inal of the "Madonna'' of which the copy by Tacconi
dated 1489 is now in the National Gallery. Cima's
acquaintance with these designs almost directly they
were completed may be taken as proof that he was see-
ing Bellini frequently, and therefore that he was already
established in Venice, for the Vicenza altarpiece dated
March 1, 1489, must have been begun some time in
1488, while the "Madonnas" by Bellini just mentioned
were probably still in that master's studio.

I confess that with the best will in the world I can
discover nothing specifically Montagnesque in Cima's
Vicenza altarpiece, nor the slightest proof that Cima
was even in a limited sense Montagna's pupil. They
have much in common, owing to their common devo-
tion to Bellini and Antonello, but their tendencies were
widely different. The chief differences are perhaps
that Montagna silhouettes and is more Bellinesque,
while Cima is more severely geometrical, models much
more carefully in the round, and is more intimately
Antonellesque. Indeed there is no other artist of
eminence who so much as Cima deserves the title of
Antonello's heir and successor.1 Of course I am speak-
ing of both as Decorators and not as Illustrators.

1 In the Miglionico Polyptych of 1499 the Virgin Annunciate still has her
hands crossed over her breast, as in Antonello.

192

And yet there exists a certain resemblance between
Cima's Detroit "Madonna" and the Montagnas of the
Metropolitan Museum and the Walters Collection
which implies perhaps more than a common training.
We may infer a certain contact between them — which
indeed easily could have taken place in Venice. Only
it seems more probable that the leading spirit was Cima
and not Montagna. Thus it is likely that, of the three
pictures just referred to, the one by Cima is the earliest.
It seems to have made a definite impression on Mon-
tagna, for his "Madonna" at Lord Lucas', painted after
1500, is still reminiscent of it. Cima's Vicenza altar-
piece too, must have remained an object of admiration
to Montagna, for his "Jerome" in the Venice Academy
altarpiece of 1507 as also the whole design of the
still later one at S. Corona in Vicenza are evidently
traced upon Cima's lines. Of the "St. James" I find
reminiscences in such Montagnas as the Bellinesque
"Christ bearing the Cross," of after 1500, in the Vi-
cenza Gallery. Dr. Borenius, believing the St. Gio-
vanni Ilarione panel to be a very early Montagna,
thought it was the inspiration of Cima's first dated
altarpiece. For myself, I see no connection between
the two works, despite the obvious fact that both con-
tain four figures and show foliage above a high wall.
But assuming that one of these works was indebted to
the other, it was Montagna's to Cima's, for the S. Gio-
vanni Ilarione altarpiece could not have been designed
earlier than toward 1500. Dr. Burckhardt sees a great
likeness between the St. Sebastian in Cima's Olera
Polyptych and the one in Montagna's Bergamo panel

193

of 1487. The likeness is undeniable, but Cima's is
much closer still to the Sebastian in the early Bellin-
esque shutters in the Metropolitan Museum that we
studied at the beginning of the last chapter.

Having attempted to dispose of the contention that
Montagna was Cima's master, I would not now be
taken to mean that Cima was Montagna's. I repeat
that both were formed by Bellini and Antonello, but
that, of the two, Montagna, the inferior craftsman, was
the more sensitive to the other's qualities. Before leav-
ing the question of origins and influences, I wish to say
that I still believe that Cima, when he first came to
Venice, may have gone to Alvise, for I recognize traces
of such an early connection. Later Cima must have
had his Classicizing and Academic tendencies strength-
ened by the example of the Lombardi ; while his works
from the Carmine altarpiece on, make us realize that
Cima was far from unaware of Giorgione's feeling for
light.

Before leaving the Detroit picture, I should like to
be able to say what were its exact relations to the Olera
Polyptych. Unfortunately there exists no photograph
of this remarkable but inaccessible work, and my recol-
lection of it is not clear enough for such a purpose. I
seem to remember the Madonna there being of some-
what later character, more like, though undoubtedly
earlier than, the early one in the Cook Collection at
Richmond.

Mr. Walters, of Baltimore, has a "Madonna" (Fig.
79), of vigorous, saturated colour, and large design,
but somewhat discontented expression, which is un-

194

Fig. 79. ClMA DA CONEGLIANO : MADONNA.
Collection of Mr. Henry Walters, Baltimore,

doubtedly an early work. The only question is
whether it is earlier or later than the one at Vicenza.
If I mistake not, the feeling, as well as the pattern, are
reminiscent of Bellini's "Madonnas" of about 1488,
and particularly of the one in the National Gallery
which we studied in the last chapter in connection with
its studio version at Worcester, Mass. The long, yet
full oval of the Virgin's face as well as the Child's type
and look probably hark back to another work of the
same date now represented by a studio version in the
"Madonna with a Donor" of the Nemes Collection.

We find the same Madonna in another work of Cima's
at Troyes ; there she is seen between the Baptist and St.
Francis, with six cherubs above her which are possibly
reminiscent of those in Bellini's Murano altarpiece.
St. Francis, on the other hand, reminds us of the more
ascetic figures of Alvise in his panel of 1480 now in the
Venice Academy. Nearly the same Madonna and
Child occur in an altarpiece in the Brera, where we see
besides, Sebastian and the Baptist, the Magdalen and
Roch, and a number of male and female donors. This
ruined but extremely interesting work shows, for the
first time to my knowledge in Venetian painting, the
dramatic and unifying device already mentioned at the
beginning of this section, of the Madonna addressing
herself to one side of the picture while the Child turns
to the other. This innovation is so remarkable and
comes so early in Cima's career, that one wonders
whether he invented it, or took it over from some lost
work of Alvise. The reason for the question is that
the action of the Madonna's left hand, with its eloquent

195

appeal, is manifestly taken from the Alvise altarpiece
just referred to, and that this action must have led in-
evitably to giving the Child a similar gesture. The
Brera work is interesting again for its portraits. Cima
could scarcely help having been a portraitist and those
here, when in their original state, must have been nearly
on a level with the best then produced in Northern
Italy.

For the question of date the following points may be
considered. Beside what we have already noted as
Alvisesque, I seem to find that the proportions of the
Child recall Alvise. Indeed I know no other work
of Cima's in which there lingers so much of that artist.
The Sebastian, on the other hand, is Bellinesque and
very close to Cima's early St. Sebastian at Olera. The
costumes and the head-wear do not yield data precise
enough, but three of the younger women wear their
hair as Carpaccio's "Two Ladies" in the Correr Mu-
seum, and, for that reason chiefly, bear a striking re-
semblance to them. The precise date of these is not
known but they are scarcely earlier than 149 1 or later
than 1495, dates which do not advance us. Dr. Hadeln
in his admirably succinct yet complete article on Cima
in Thieme and Becker's "Lexikon," says that on in-
ternal evidence he would place this work before the
Vicenza one of 1489. I am inclined to agree with him.
In the first place it looks as if it must precede the Wal-
ters and the Troyes "Madonnas," which, we found, to
be so reminiscent of various Bellinis towards 1488 that
they probably were designed directly after them and
before Cima did the Vicenza picture. That would

196

Fig. 80. ClMA DA CONEGLIANO: MADONNA.
Collection of Mr. John G. Johnson, Philadelphia.

place the Brera panel after the Detroit and Olera works
but before the Vicenza one. In the second place, it is
difficult, perhaps impossible, to fit those three paintings
into any series of Cima's works after the Vicenza altar-
piece. We may conclude plausibly that Mr. Walters'
"Madonna" was painted before the early Brera altar-
piece and the one at Vicenza dated March i, 1489.

Several years of Cima's career after this point are
unrepresented in our Collections until we come to Mr.
J. G. Johnson's "Madonna" ( Fig. 80) , which must have
been painted toward 1494. The Virgin is seen almost
sideways against a curtain, while she holds the Child
with one hand under His thigh and the other at the back
of His head. It is a boldly silhouetted, severe, almost
stern group, and hard and somewhat dry in execution
as well, but the whole mitigated by one of Cima's de-
lightfully precise studies of landscape with everything
as well placed and related as in Antonello's priceless
and too rare paintings. Unfortunately the restorer has
scoured Mr. Johnson's panel unmercifully, but some
years ago at M. Sedelmeyer's in Paris, I saw a version
of this picture which had not suffered such drastic treat-
ment and was more enveloped and atmospheric. The
design seems to have been a favourite, for besides these
two equally autograph versions several studio or school
copies are known. The best of them, to which the mas-
ter himself may have given a helping hand, belongs
to Mr. Beekman Winthrop of Westbury, Long Island.
It has the advantage of being in its original frame;
an advantage so great that I do not hesitate to say that
I would rather own a good studio version of a picture

197

in its own setting than a forlorn original, torn from
everything related to it. The late Mr. Theo. Davis
owned a good school copy. Another was in the
Meazza Collection sold in Milan in 1884. In the Ster-
bini Collection in Rome there used to be a good studio
version of a variant, the head of the Child being turned
toward us instead of away. A somewhat later edition
by Cima himself was in the market not long ago.

My reasons for dating it toward 1494 are that type,
draping, peculiarities of folds and even pettier minutiae
lead one to place it between a lost original now repre-
sented by versions in the Uffizi and Padua and the
"Madonna between Jerome and the Magdalen" of Mu-
nich. Now the Uffizi original must have been very
close to the "Madonna'' in the Conegliano altarpiece
of 1493, while the Munich picture anticipates but
slightly the Hermitage "Annunciation" of 1495, and
Mr. Edward Tuck's "Madonna" (Fig. 81), of the same
year.

That Madonna is so delightful and so interesting
that although it is in Paris I venture to speak of it here,
and with more reason as it belongs to a public-spirited
countryman of ours whose generosity his alma mater
has already frequently experienced.1 Scarcely another
of Cima's Madonnas is so fresh, so smiling, so joy-
ously maternal, and the action of the Child is unusually
playful, although with that rather solemn playfulness
which characterizes Cima's "Bacchanals." The
breadth of the design, the quiet simplicity of the land-
scape, the cheerful colouring, the crisp drawing and

1 It was in the Abdy Collection.

198

Fig. 8l. ClMA DA CONEGLIANO : MADONNA.
Collection of Mr. Edward Tuck, Paris.

the firm modelling mark this as the earliest of the mas-
ter's mature achievements. Thereafter his art oscil-
lated a bit, and even changed a trifle but never for the
better, and on the whole remained true to this kind of
craftsmanship to the end. Something in the gracious-
ness and purity of this Madonna, as well as in the rather
porcelain-like modelling affects us almost as would a
Delia Robbia. On the other hand, the folds over the
Virgin's breast betray a definite study of Mantegna.
This, by the way, is not the only trace of the Paduan
to be found in Cima's works. A very obvious instance
is the action of the Virgin in the Montini altarpiece at
Padua.

Mr. Tuck's Madonna is not dated, yet we are not at
a loss for the exact year. For a long time there used
to be a picture in the Piccinelli Collection at Bergamo
signed by Antonio Maria di Carpi * and followed by
the figures 1495. This painting, now at Budapest, is
a faithful enough copy of ours, and must have been
made directly upon the completion of the original,
which on stylistic grounds could not be of an earlier
date. The next year Cima himself executed a replica
now in S. Maria delle Grazie at Gemona. The Child
alone remains untouched, the rest having been daubed
over pitilessly, but this Child is more attractive than in
Mr. Tuck's. Studio and school versions exist, the best
to my remembrance being one also at Budapest.

After this again some seven years of Cima's career
are left unrepresented in American collections. They

1 Nothing else is known of him, and I am not acquainted with any other
painting that can be ascribed to him.

199 t»

are years during which the painter was gathering his
strength for his supreme masterpiece, the picture on
an altar in S. Maria dell' Orto. It is a work usually re-
garded as one of Cima's earliest. I agree with Dr.
von Hadeln that it is nothing of the kind and I would
place it soon after 1500. By common consent a Trip-
tych and lunette originally at Mestre but now scattered,
was painted at about the same time as the "Constantine
and Helen" of 1502 in S. Giovanni in Bragora at Ven-
ice. The central panel representing St. Catherine is
now in the Wallace Collection, the Sebastian and Roch
at Strassburg in Alsace, and the lunette (Fig. 82) is
now in the collection of George and Florence Blumen-
thal of New York.1

The lunette shows us the Blessed Virgin, a sweet
gracious face, holding the Child Who blesses, while
Francis and Anthony eagerly and zealously look and
listen. Their fervour is rather unusual in Cima and
was brought about perhaps because the space at com-
mand required the figures to lean forward. The whole
produces not a little the effect of a fine Delia Robbia
lunette.

It is interesting to observe that the Madonna harks
back to Mr. Tuck's, almost as if its author had not
meanwhile painted the Dragan altarpiece in the Venice
Academy and the Miglionico Polyptych. Our lunette
has the disadvantage, however, of not being an auto-
graph work from beginning to end. No doubt the

1 How this triptych looked not on its original altar but in XVIIth century
setting may be seen in an engraving reproduced by Dr. Burckhardt in his
monograph, p. 40.

200

whole was designed by Cima and the Virgin's face and
throat were painted by him. In the rest there is some-
thing strange in type and expression, heavy in the
modelling of the hands in particular, and careless in the
draperies, which betrays the touch of an assistant.

For a Venetian painter of his time Cima must have
been unusually adverse to the frontal position of the
Madonna (which he seems to have avoided unless re-
quired by ritual reasons), and curiously pre-occupied
with questions of pose. He tries one sideways position
after another, and ends finally with the pronounced
contrapposto of the Virgin in the Parma altarpiece with
Michael and Andrew. On the way thither toward
1505, he must have painted the picture now at Lady
Wantage's in which the Madonna not only sits sideways
but on a stone seat which is itself placed athwart. The
compactness of the grouping by the way is still An-
tonellesque although Cima here took over the motive
so fashionable at the turn of the Century, of the Mother
holding the foot of the Child in her palm. This pic-
ture, too, must have enjoyed considerable popularity.
A loose version of it by some timid assistant, ill at ease
in the vehicle he was using, was in the collection of
Mr. Pfungst of London. Cima himself must have re-
versed the design, for two excellent studio versions of
this variant are known, one in the Salting Bequest of
the National Gallery and the other in the Caregiani
Palace at Venice, besides a copy at Bergamo. In Mrs.

201

J. L. Gardner's collection in Boston there is a replica
from Cima's own hand. The larger modelling and
simpler folds lead one to suspect that it may have been
done two or three years later.

Some few years later, Cima designed one of the most
monumental and most impressive of his Madonnas,
which, yet like the group last discussed, avoided the
frontality so conducive to those effects. A much
draped but heroic figure, the Blessed Virgin, sits side-
ways behind a parapet against a great curtain and holds
the Child against a sober, almost featureless landscape.
Unfortunately I am unable to give a reproduction of
this almost Michelangelesque masterpiece, for the es-
tate of the late Mr. Quincy Shaw of Boston, to which
it belongs, is still unsettled. By a compensating acci-
dent, however, a version of this Madonna made some-
what later by a gifted pupil, happens to exist in the
Walters Collection, and this version we reproduce in-
stead. (Fig. 83.) But it fails to convey a full sense of
the original although it enjoys over it the advantage
of a great arched window opening out on an' enchanting
prospect. One is tempted to believe that before yield-
ing to the seduction of the Giorgionesque newness, and
before his health began to give way, Cima gathered up
all that was largest and sturdiest in himself for this su-
preme effort. *

202

Fig. 83. Variant after Cima da Conegliano : Madonna.
Collection of Mr. Henry Walters, Baltimore.

In 1509, or in the following year, Cima painted a
"Nativity" still in the Carmine at Venice which marks
an epoch in his career, for it is the earliest of his works
which displays that Romantic treatment of light in
landscape which we associate with the name of Gior-
gione. No single feature is taken over from the
younger painter, nevertheless it is clear that the author
of the Carmine picture had been moved and inspired by
him. If Lord Allendale's "Nativity" was by the latter,
one might say confidently that Cima had seen it, but its
attribution to Giorgione is doubtful, and it is more
likely that its painter drew upon Cima's composi-
tion.

Just before and just after this moment, Cima designed
a number of mythological subjects which doubtless
served to adorn caskets. Several of them have come
down, as for instance the "Endymion," and the "Apollo
and Marsyas" at Parma, the "Judgment of Midas"
in Count A. Moltke's collection in Denmark, and the
"Bacchus and Ariadne" in the Poldi Museum at Milan.
In Mr. J. G. Johnson's collection there are two com-
panions to the last. The wider panel (Fig. 84) shows
Silenus riding a piously resigned ass, over a flowery
meadow by an inlet of the sea. A satyr, leaning on a
thyrsus, supports the rider's heavy head, which is turned
up to drain a huge gourd. Another satyr, blowing in
a shell, precedes them, and a third follows swinging a
vine-branch. The other panel represents a vigorous
youthful nude, girt with vine-leaves, supporting a cask
on his shoulders. They are among the most fascinating
paintings of Venice, exquisite in their pearly colour,

203

severe in drawing, relief-like composition, and humour.
Their "solemnity suggests, rather than a delirious revel,
some ritual playing at play like the ball game which
figured at a great medieval festival in a certain French
Cathedral."

After 1 5 10 Cima's health must have begun to de-
cline : his works thereafter show failings and inequali-
ties, from which however he again and again pulled
himself up triumphantly. Our collections can scarcely
claim any of the best achievements of these
last years. Those we possess are, nevertheless, works
one can appreciate and enjoy.

The earliest one of them probably is a small picture
belonging to George and Florence Blumenthal of New
York, which, when it was in the Hainauer Collection,
bore the crudely forged inscription in square letters of
Ionnes Bellinus faciebat. It represents the Virgin, a
nice country lass, turning toward St. Clare, while the
Child reaches out toward St. Francis. This action of
the Child is characteristic of Cima's later years, and
usually He is eager to touch the palm or cross in the
Saint's hand, as we see in the kindred picture at Frank-
fort. In the Blumenthal panel although the action re-
mains the same, it would seem as if He were handing
the cross to the Seraphic Father.

Nearly contemporary with this must be the Triptych
acquired some years ago from the Leuchtenberg Col-
lection by the Metropolitan Museum: St. Anthony

204

Abbot standing on a pedestal against a curtain, turning
to St. Lucy, while on the other side St. Roch touches
his incurable sore. One may hazard the suggestion
that both these saints are portraits, for they are indi-
vidualized to an unusual degree, and St. Lucy's cos-
tume is perhaps too modish to have been intended for
a real saint. It is interesting to note that the impres-
sive figure of Anthony harks back to the one in the
Carita triptychs designed soon after 1470 by Giovanni
Bellini. For all its excellent qualities, this painting is
not convincingly an autograph. Assistants have un-
doubtedly had a large hand in it.

One of Cima's last works (Fig. 85), is the over-
cleaned but beautiful panel with its sensitive faces in
the Library of Mr. J. P. Morgan.1 Three figures are
seen against a landscape and sky, and their scale, their
relations already suggest something more like Palma's
"Three Sisters" than a customary Quattrocento compo-
sition. The Blessed Virgin holds the ring which the
Child is about to give to Catherine while He snatches
at the Baptist's cross. His action is a good deal as in the
little panel of the Blumenthal Collection, only it is con-
siderably more ample, and more eloquent. The head-
wear of Catherine is so like that in Bellini's beautiful
Nude of 15 15 in the Vienna Museum that we can as-
sume the same phase of fashion. Certainly Mr. Mor-
gan's picture is of no earlier date, and it probably was
painted a couple of years later.

1 It seems to be identical with the picture shown at the Manchester Ex-
hibition by Mr. Watts Russell. Cf. Crowe and Cavalcaselle (new edition) i,
p. 248, note 2.

205

cima's followers

The four or five paintings in our collections by name-
less followers of Cima could be dismissed with brevity
but for the witness they bear to the need and value of
the close chronological determination of every work of
art of doubtful authorship. The core, so to speak, of
each considerable Italian painter of the Renaissance is
now something settled and fixed. Beyond that, however,
there is room for inference. This is particularly true
with regard to the first years of a career. We have piti-
fully few certain works dating from the beginnings of
most Venetian artists. And the more obscure painters
have as yet but fluctuating personalities. As in any other
science, we are bound to try every plausible chance of
attaching the unknown to the already known, and to
see whether finally the chain holds together and makes
a unity that cannot be broken. Our fancy can safely
be allowed a certain freedom, provided it is frequently
brought to book. For this sobering and eliminating
process there is no such measure as chronology.

Thus I was inclined to ascribe a "Madonna" in Mr.
Henry Walters' Collection to Filippo Mazzola of
Parma. Its colour and handling reminded me of a
Cimaesque painting by that master at Berlin, and I
thought that had he gone further along that road, he
easily could have come to paint the panel in question.
Publishing and reproducing it in "Art in America"
(1915 p. 170) and commenting on its relation to the

206

Madonna in the Louvre altarpiece, I added, " If I re-
tain a doubt it is due to the question of date. Mazzola
died in 1505 and the type of Madonna here imitated
would seem to me unexpectedly advanced for a work
painted by Cima at this epoch." Since then careful
study of Cima's chronology has convinced me that a
Madonna and Child of the type in the Louvre picture
could not have been painted before 151 1 at the earliest,
and that an imitation thereof could not be from the
hand of Filippo Mazzola. Nevertheless the relation
to his craftsmanship there observed is not useless. As
the Louvre picture was originally at Parma it is likely
that Mr. Walters' "Madonna" was painted there by
some close follower of Mazzola.

Again there is a "Madonna" in Mr. J. G. Johnson's
Collection which some of us believed to be by Sebas-
tiano del Piombo.1 It had not escaped notice that it is
a copy of a "Madonna" by Cima in the National Gal-
lery, but it is painted in a style so much larger and
looser and with such an avoidance of dainty detail, and
such a breadth of planes, that at first sight it reminded
me of Palma. But the head and features and expres-
sion of the Child are so like Sebastiano's that, inspired
by the notion entertained by many students that
Sebastiano was a pupil of Cima, I concluded that he
must be the author of this full-blown Cinquecento
translation of a Quattrocentist's work. But there are
many good reasons for assuming that Cima did not
design his version before 15 13 at the earliest. Perhaps
the most obvious proof is in the spirited action of the

1 Reproduced in Catalogue and in Venturi's Storia VII, 4, fig. 495.

207

Child Who seems eager to tear away from His mother,
as if He symbolized the ripe Renaissance with its on-
ward rush away from its immediate past. He is in-
deed not unfamiliar to us, yet not in paintings of Cima's
exact contemporaries, but in Titian, in the Dresden
"Santa Conversazione." I am convinced that here the
younger borrowed from the older artist who, as has
already been stated here more than once, was unusually
interested in movement and action, anticipating in
that respect the next generation, although in line,
handling, and touch remaining so entirely of the Quat-
trocento. But that is by the way. The point to be
made is that before 15 13 Sebastiano, had he ever been
a pupil of Cima's, had become the closest of Giorgione's
followers, while in that exact year he was in Rome
doing all he could to identify himself with Michel-
angelo. Neither then nor ever after was he likely to
paint in this fashion, even if it had occurred to him to
copy Cima.

Yet again, I was strongly tempted to ascribe to Sebas-
tiano a little picture (Fig. 86), of extraordinary beauty
of colouring belonging to Mr. Grenville L. Winthrop
of New York. We see the Virgin sitting sideways
hehind a parapet against a gorgeously patterned cur-
tain, while the Child reaches out to bless St. James
seen against the pillars of a portico. The saturation
and sparkle of the colour, a good deal in the James re-
minding one of the figures at S. Bartolommeo in Rialto,
and the portico recalling the St. Giovanni Crisostomo
Altarpiece, made me say, "Here we have Sebastiano
still in Cima's workshop but already revealing himself

208

in this and this and this." But the type of Madonna,
the action of the Child can anticipate but slightly those
in the Blumenthal "Madonna" or in the Franfort "Ma-
donna with SS. Catherine and Nicolas" and they cer-
tainly were painted after 1510. The pattern on the
curtain is almost identical with those in such late works
of Cima's as "Tobias and the Angel with the Baptist
and Nicolas," as well as in the latest of his Altarpieces
in the Venice Academy, or the "St. Peter and Paul and
Baptist" in the Brera. Necessarily, therefore, Mr.
Winthrop's jewel-like little panel must have been
painted at a time when Sebastiano had already done his
most attractive Roman masterpieces.

These errors were made because of an hypothesis —
that Sebastiano started his career in Cima's studio : and
the hypothesis was founded on a "Pieta" in the Layard
Collection which bore Sebastiano's signature.1 The
inscription was questioned by Cavalcaselle but the
warm colour and sombre, brownish tone seemed to
anticipate so much of the mature Sebastiano, that I was
always inclined to accept this little panel as his. But
latterly the study of Cima's chronology has convinced
me that I was wrong, and for the following reason. A
picture has recently been left to the Hermitage by
Count Stroganoff which turns out to be the original
Cima of which the Layard one is a variant. Now the
Hermitage "Pieta" could not have been painted very
long before the Carmine "Nativity," and the Layard
version must have been contemporary with the latter
work. But when Cima was painting that work Sebas-

1 Venturi's Storia, VII, 4, fig. 430.

209

tiano already had the S. Giovanni Crisostomo altar-
piece behind him and was perhaps preparing to leave
Venice for Rome.

A name that occurs in catalogues and writings on
Venetian art with a frequency that is not great, yet but
of relation to the known achievement of its bearer, is
that of Pasqualino. The only interesting fact known
with regard to him is that his failure to execute a com-
mission to paint a "Presentation of the Virgin" gave
Titian, some decades later, the opportunity of design-
ing one of his noblest and most splendid compositions.
Three signed works by this insignificant painter are
known, but I am actually acquainted with one of these
only, the "Madonna" of 1496 in the Correr Museum.
A careful study of this one permits me to agree with
those students who attribute to him a "Madonna" in
the Rovigo Gallery and a "Magdalen" in the Giustin-
iani Palace at Venice, and to ascribe to him on my own
account a "Madonna" in the collection of the late
Baron Sartorio of Trieste.

A number of years ago there was exhibited in the
Boston Museum of Fine Arts a "Madonna" (Fig. 87),
signed by Pasqualino, belonging to Mr. C. Felton of
Santa Barbara, Cal., and I understand that this panel
now belongs to Mrs. Felton. It represents the rather
haughty Virgin seated against a curtain, with a prayer
book in her hand and the Child attempting to stride
forward on her knees but held back by her other hand.

210

Fig. 87. Pasqualino: Madonna.
Collection of Mrs. Felton, New York.

On our right is seen a strip of landscape and sky, and
below a parapet with the signature in square letters.
The authenticity of this signature has been doubted
and the photograph gives no data for a decision, but it
matters little, for the painting is certainly by the artist
with whose name it is inscribed. A moment's concen-
trated attention and comparison with the Correr "Ma-
donna" will convince one. At first sight it looks as if
it must have been modelled on a late Cima, but close
study reveals that it can not be much later than the
Correr picture, and that Pasqualino must have copied
some lost design of about 1500 in which Cima antici-
pated certain features of his latest style. The broad
flattened nostrils of the Child are characteristic of Pas-
qualino, and we find them again in the Rovigo "Ma-
donna" and in the Giustiniani "Magdalen." The
hand is on the way to the shape of the Virgin's left
hand in the Rovigo picture.

The Rovigo "Madonna" betrays, if I mistake not, a
certain connection with Previtali, in which case the
latter would have been influenced by Pasqualino.
Another Bergamask was connected with him, for a
quaint and curious "Madonna with two Saints and a
Monkey" that some years ago passed through the shop
of Signor Bardini of Florence, was signed by Jacopo
Gavazi, and obviously inspired by some such picture
as Pasqualino's Correr "Madonna."

Finally, before completing this chapter on Giovanni
Bellini's contemporaries a word must be said about
Jacopo di Barbari, one of whose rare authentic works

1 Reproduced in Catalogue and in Venturi's Storia VII, 4, fig. 435.

211

is now in Mr. J. G. Johnson's Collection.1 The pic-
ture, which is signed and dated 1503, exhibits the piti-
ful sight of an old dotard caressing an anaemic young
female who looks as if, besides all her moral distress,
she was suffering from both headache and toothache.
It is singular that subjects like this should have been
so relatively common in the North and so rare in the
South. In Italy, at least, and at that time, civilization,
taste, morals and public opinion would have joined
together to prevent the exaltation of such senile las-
civiousness. The desire for the portrayal of scenes like
this betrays a state of mind more akin to that of the
Marquis de Sade than of Cesare Borgia.

I find it hard to believe that Barbari first went to
Germany in 1500 as is always stated, and it seems to me
unlikely that one of the race of gods should after such
a brief exile have got so Teutonized as we find him in
this and in his few other signed and dated paintings.
I suspect he must have frequented Germany before
1500, or indeed that he was half German in blood.

Be that as it may, our interest in him as a painter is
much diminished since we have taken away from him
the fascinating "Head of a Youth" at Vienna, the head
of Bernardo di Rossi at Naples, the frescoes on the
Onigo monument at Treviso, etc. What remains is
enigmatic and inferior. Barbari returns to the reputa-
tion he had before Morelli. He remains the author
of a number of engravings which at times exhale a sin-
gular pathos of listless world-weariness. They are
said to have small value as craftsmanship, but they cer-
tainly rank high as a certain type of illustration.

212

CHAPTER VI

GIOVANNI BELLINI'S PUPILS AND FOLLOWERS

THIS chapter will treat of two generations of Bel-
lini's pupils and followers, in so far as they are
represented in American collections.

"Generation" as applied in art history does not mean
the conventional term of 33 years, but a period less
definite, longer or shorter according to time, place, and
circumstances, characterized by a common purpose, by
common ways of visualizing, and by common methods
of execution. Under anthropological conditions such
a generation may last for. centuries, or even thousands
of years, as was the case with such prehistoric schools
of art as the "Mousterian," "Aurignacian," "Solu-
trian," and "Magdalenian," and as is still the case with
the few remaining "savages" in uttermost Africa or
Australia who have escaped the benefits of civilization.
In Egypt more often than not a generation of artists
was at least as long lived as a dynasty. In Greece
between 475 and 275 B. C, the generation had a short
life. Then again in our Western World, the years be-
tween about 700 to about 1 100 divide into very few gen-
erations. In the XIHth Century, on the other hand,
generation follows quickly upon generation of Gothic
builders, carvers and painters. In the Italian Renais-
sance, finally, we come to a moment when evolution is

213

so rapid that five or six, or, at the utmost, ten years is
the length of a generation. Take Botticelli and Leo-
nardo. We never think of the first except as an ex-
ponent of the Quattrocento, and seldom of the second
except in connection with Raphael and Michelangelo.
Nevertheless Botticelli and Leonardo were born within
eight years of each other. It would seem as if we
might infer that for students of the history of art a
generation gets shorter as the general movement of
civilization grows more rapid. The pace in turn may
depend on the kind of civilization, and it may be sug-
gested that it is much swifter in a highly mechanized
than in an unmechanical state of culture. We may
go further and conclude that owing to our extremely
advanced mechanization the movement has got so ver-
tiginous that, so to speak, the generations have no time
to be born. Cubism was not half shaped when it was
swallowed by Futurism. Futurism in turn was
blighted by Blastism, and the last news is that Blastism
has been smothered by Rauquism.

After Carpaccio, Montagna and Cima, there remain
three generations of pupils and followers of the Bellini.
In the first place there are those like Rondinelli, who
never reach out beyond their masters, and scarcely
even keep up with their advance. They are rapidly
succeeded by the Basaitis and Catenas and Bartolom-
meo Venetos, who, in their riper years, besides stretch-
ing the Quattrocento precepts and usages to the last
limit, endeavour to express themselves in the new way,
and at times hit upon a harmony of the old and the new
having a charm and even a fascination without which

214

Italian art would be the poorer. Last comes the new
generation of Bellini's pupils, led by Giorgione, who
feel and see and paint in a way essentially if not ob-
viously as different from Giovanni Bellini as his was
from that of his father, Jacopo. With this generation
we are not concerned here. The first two hold to-
gether and will be treated together in this chapter.

At this point a word may be in place regarding the
terms "pupil" and "follower." By the first is not meant
a relation as between a child and the person who taught
him reading, writing, and arithmetic, or who first at-
tempted to teach him designing and painting. When
we speak of one noted man being the pupil of another,
we mean something more than that humble pedagogic
relation. Thus it occurs to no educated person to as-
sume, when he hears that Plato was a pupil of Socrates,
that the latter taught the former his rudiments. But
people tend to treat painting as a thing apart. It is
too often supposed by people whose interest in art is
more abstract than concrete, by people who in their
secret minds prefer reading about the work of art to
exposing themselves to its direct action, that a pupil
of a painter was necessarily taught his puerile begin-
nings by that master, as if a Bellini, a Leonardo or a
Raphael had the leisure to give such care to small boys.
The boy who found admittance as apprentice to the
great man's studio learnt his rudiments not from the
master himself but from the latter's assistants, and be-
came the pupil of the great master not in the narrow,
literal, but in the wider more spiritual sense. I should
never use the term "pupil" here or elsewhere to imply

215

an infant school relation between a painter and his
teacher. Such a relation, in fact, has small if any in-
terest for students like ourselves of the more conscious,
more individualized phases of human activity, and is
indeed scarcely to be discovered by us art critics whose
business it is to derive all the information we can from
the analysis and synthesis of the artist's works. It will
be brought to light, if at all, by the historian whose in-
formation is necessarily derived from verbal docu-
ments. A painter is the "pupil" of the master who
gave him the method, the manner and the style which
predominate in his earlier works, and remain at the
basis of his later progress. In this connection it is al-
most amusing to remark that most of the small fry who
boast when signing their modest achievements that they
were pupils of Giovanni Bellini, were not in even this
sense his pupils, but only his followers. It is too patent
in these panels that their authors had already acquired
habits of visualizing, designing and painting before
coming in direct contact with Bellini. By "follower,"
then, we mean a painter with a manner already more
or less formed who attempts to acquire that of another.
His authentic works seldom fail to show whence he
came and whither he would go. A striking instance
of a "follower" as distinct from a "pupil" is Sebastiano
del Piombo in his relation to Michelangelo.

Perhaps in no other chapter of this series shall we
feel more justified and rewarded for our labours upon
the chronology of Giovanni Bellini. Thanks to this
chronology we shall be able to specify with greater
accuracy than was possible hitherto what kind of rela-

216

tions prevailed between him and the younger painters,
and at what point these had contact with him. For
hitherto our knowledge has been somewhat vague, the
result of guessing rather than of serious research.
With few dates established by irrefutable documents
or inscriptions, and with no method of procedure ex-
cept divination it scarcely could be otherwise.

The painters of the first of the two generations that
will be examined presently always reflect the phase
through which the master was passing while they were
subject to his inspiration, and it is possible to perceive
even in their latest works that they had been his pupils
at such and such a moment of his career. The second
generation, on the other hand, requires more cautious
handling, not that they were more independent but for
the following reasons. In the first place, for all their
eagerness to acquire a manner that would establish their
claim to have been the disciples of Giovanni Bellini,
many of them confuse the result by virtue of hav-
ing brought from elsewhere to his studio ways and
habits too marked and too strong not to resist his teach-
ing.

In the second place, it was natural that the public
should insist on being supplied with imitations of many
of his more popular types and compositions for many
years after they first appeared. This demand was sat-
isfied by the less original painters, who, possessing little
creative power of their own, were willing to turn back
and repeat a popular theme. In them, therefore, the
relation between the original and the copy or imitation
is uncertain and does not help so much to settle ques-

217

tions of chronology as in the case of the older artists
we have hitherto been studying. With those of the
next generation with whom we are now to deal, the
problem gets more complicated.

RONDINELLI

Rondinelli was perhaps the most prominent of Bel-
lini's pupils of the first of these two generations, and
it is easy to control what has just been said about them
with a glance at his works. There is scarcely one that
does not hark back to some pattern, figure or trait of
the master's during the decade or so that followed upon
1489. Paintings of Rondinelli's last years, like the
Ravenna "Madonna with the Baptist, Thomas
Aquinas, the Magdalen and Catherine" retain the
papery folds, and the rather sharp silhouetting toward
which Bellini had a slight tendency during those years,
as well as his types and expressions of the same period.
The presence in certain panels, which must have left
Bellini's studio at that time, of distinct exaggerations
of these characteristics and features combined with a
certain prettiness, a more burnished colouring and an
instability of tone, leads one, on the other hand, to con-
clude that it was Rondinelli who executed them. Thus
it is probable that although Bellini designed it was
Rondinelli who painted such works as the Berlin "Ma-
donna with the starred curtain" (No. 11), the "Ma-
donna with the Baptist and Elizabeth" at Frankfort,
the "Madonna with four Saints and a Donor" in the

218

Schlichting Bequest of the Louvre, the Barberini "Ma-
donna" (ascribed to him), and even the impressive
"Madonna with SS. Peter and Sebastian" in the Louvre
again.

There are two of his indisputable works in American
collections. I shall not dwell on the first, which be-
longs to Mr. R. C. Johnson of Washington, D. C, be-
cause having no reproduction to offer, comments could
not be followed by the reader. It represents the Ma-
donna with the Infant John and a rose-crowned music-
making angel, and was probably painted fairly soon
after its author's return to Ravenna. It was there, by
the way, in his provincial home, that he pursued his
career, exerting no slight influence on the feeble local
talents of the region, Palmezzano, Marchesi, Carrari
and the Zaganelli, and declined more and more to their
level, doubtless falling in turn under their influence.
The second of his works belongs to Mr. Henry Walters
of Baltimore, and represents in three panels the "Ma-
donna between Peter and Michael." (Fig. 88). Prob-
ably it formed part of a polyptych, for the Child holds
out a rose as if offering it to bystanders looking up to-
ward Him.

These panels are from Rondinelli's later years, but
there is very little in their design that is not derived
from Bellini, and the Madonna is but a variant upon the
Barberini one mentioned a few lines back. What little
is not of this origin reminds one somewhat impalpably
of Cima, as indeed does the work of most of the painters
we shall study in this chapter. Only in the arabesques
and masks on the architecture, and in the metallic colour-

219

ing and burnished tone do local Romagnol traits ap-
pear. The sharp features, the slit of the eyes, and the
salmon flesh tints approach these figures to Baldassare
Carrari. There is a moment when the latter imitates
Rondinelli so closely, while in turn influencing him in a
measure, that one should be on guard not to confuse
them.

Besides the three panels just discussed, which are be-
yond question by Rondinelli, there are in Mr. Walters*
Collection four others (Fig. 89), parts of a polyptych
no doubt, which one hesitates to ascribe to him, al-
though they are perhaps closer to him than to any other
known painter. They represent four Saints standing
under arches against a dark blue sky, — Peter, Roch,
James, and the Baptist. The figures are neither inele-
gant nor unattractive, the colour and tone have some of
the sparkle of good stained glass, but the drawing is
a bit limp, and the extremities are lifeless. There is
little in them that could not pass for Rondinelli, while
the pretty head of the Baptist and the papery folds of
Peter almost claim him as their painter, and indeed
figures singularly like them may be seen in both of his
altarpieces at the Brera embroidered on copes worn by
bishops. The Peter, by the way, is taken over from the
one in Bellini's "Allegory" at the Uffizi, which may be
dated toward 1488. It could be assumed without too
great rashness that these panels were early independent
works of Rondinelli, designed about 1490.

Yet I hesitate, chiefly because they remind me as
well of the paintings for the organ shutters of the Mira-
coli (Fig. 90), now in the Venice Academy. Except-

220

Rondinelli (?) : St. Peter and the Baptist.

Collection of Mr. Henry Walters, Baltimore.

Fig. 90. Rondinelli (?): The Annunciation.

Academy (from S. Maria Miracoli), Venice.

ing the edge of St. Peter's draperies, there is no one
detail in these figures that resembles ours more than
Rondinelli's do, yet they have something not easily defin-
able which brings them closer to the Miracoli paint-
ings. But are these "Annunciation" and "St. Peter"
not Rondinelli's too? The "Annunciation," at all
events, might easily be his. The Blessed Virgin, the
landscape, the Angel might well have been done by
him while following closely upon what Bellini was
doing toward 1490. The panelling is the same as in
the lost "Christ at Emmaus" of that precise year, and
the same paving occurs in the Uffizi "Allegory." The
colouring, at once sombre and burnished, would seem
to confirm the attribution to Rondinelli.

Since Boschini, however, the Miracoli paintings
have been ascribed to Pier Maria Pennacchi. This
was a Trevisan artist who has left three signed pictures
but to whom tradition attributes — correctly, it would
seem — some ceiling panels as well. The signed works
are a "Madonna and Saints" of towards 1500, a "Dead
Christ sustained by Angels" of somewhat later date,
and a "Dormition of the Virgin," which must have
been executed in the last year of the artist's life, 15 14.
The first two of these pictures are in Berlin,1 and the
last in Venice. I find it difficult to discover much in
common between these signed panels and the Miracoli
paintings. Neither in the "Madonna and Saints," his
earliest, nor in the "Dormition," his latest work, is
there anything specifically Bellinesque, and the "Dead
Christ" is Bellinesque only as was every treatment of

1 See Dr. v. Hadeln in "Monatshefte fiir Kunstvjissenschajt" IV, 276.

221

that subject in Venice after 1470.1 The "Annuncia-
tion," on the contrary, is so Bellinesque, that one can
venture to say that its author must have been intimate
with Bellini toward 1490. And in fact the date of
1490 would suit the "Annunciation," not only on
grounds of style but also because that was the time when
S. Maria dei Miracoli was being completed, and (one
would think) its organ shutters painted. All these
considerations would make it seem as if the "Annun-
ciation" was by Rondinelli.

Boschini's attribution to Pennacchi need not be con-
sidered binding, for it is not backed up, so far as we
know, by anything more than the fact that the ceiling
in the same church was decorated by that artist. If,
nevertheless, I hesitate to discard Boschini's idea, it is
for the two following reasons : in the first place, there
may be something in the contention of Signor Gino
Fogolari who in publishing these organ shutters (Bol-
letino d'Arte, 1908, p. 133) maintains that the "St.
Peter" on the back of one of them has a XVIth Century
air about him. The stronger reason is that in the "An-
nunciation," although the folds are as papery as in
Rondinelli, they are squarer and more angular. Con-
ceivably the kerchief of Pennacchi's Berlin "Madonna"
might be imagined to have a tendency toward a similar
system of folds.

Those grounds of hesitation are perhaps over-scrupu-
lous, and in any event we derive from them slight con-
firmation of the attribution to Pennacchi. Signor

1 Cavalcaselle attributes to Pennacchi a "Madonna" in S. Maria della
Salute which has no relation to him and must have come out of Giovanni
Bellini's workshop toward 1485.

222

Fogolari, who supports it, would date the Miracoli
organ painting about 1510. But Pennacchi scarcely
outlived the year 15 14, and it may well be asked
whether it is possible that an artist forty-six years old,
who in 1 5 10 painted the "Annunciation" and the "St.
Peter," could in what little remained of his middle-
aged life have changed into the author of the "Dormi-
tion." To get over this difficulty Signor Fogolari
throws out the interesting suggestion that the "Annun-
ciation" must have been inspired by one of Bellini's.
We can however affirm that if such an original by Bel-
lini did exist it must have been painted before 1490.
But if the four figures in Mr. Walters' Collection are
by the same hand as this Miracoli "Annunciation" and
necessarily of the same date, how are we to ex-
plain that they, too, hark back to the Bellini of toward
1490? For, except the "Peter" they do not point back
to any originals by that master the existence of which is
known or to be inferred. It would follow rather as the
upshot of this discussion that in the career of Pier
Maria Pennacchi as hitherto ascertained, there is no
room for the "Annunciation" or the four saints here
discussed. On the whole, the evidence tends to the
conclusion that they were painted not long after 1490,
and probably by the artist with all of whose works they
show close affinities, namely Rondinelli. Very likely
they are the earliest independent works of his that have
come down to us.

223

Three other panels (Fig. 91), of the Walters Collec-
tion claim our attention at this point, for they belong to
a but slightly later phase of Venetian painting in the
last decade of the XVth Century. In each of them we
see a Franciscan saint under an opening of massive rec-
tangular architecture against the landscape and sky.
The central figure represents the Seraphic Father and
he doubtless had to his right Louis of Toulouse, and
to his left St. John of Capistrano.1 The feeling is
simple and unforced, as happily is nearly always the
case in Venetian painting before Tintoretto; the con-
struction is tolerable, the handling adequate to the
author's modest ambition, and the whole, thanks,
largely to the pearly, cool colouring and glimpses of
naive landscape, gently agreeable.

As the architecture is inspired by Bellini's Frari
Triptych of 1488, these figures could not well have
been designed before that date. It is not so easy to tell
how much later they may have been, but their air is
not yet of the XVIth Century, and the creased and
slightly billowed curtain behind St. Francis leads one
to suspect that they may not be later than 1495 and that
they may even be a year or two earlier.

Now there is a picture at Naples of which this head
of Capistrano always reminds me. Yet the associa-
tion may be merely a fortuitous one, due to the crude
fact that the Capistrano and the principal figure in the
Naples panel are both smooth-faced friars of the same

1 1386-1456 the great revivalist, who ended his life rousing Germans and
Hungarians against the Turks.

224

period, wearing the same habit, which necessarily falls
into similar folds.

The Naples painting (Fig. 92), which represents, it
is supposed, Fra Luca Pacioli and a young nobleman,
has been the subject of much controversy.1 It is in-
scribed Jaco. Bar. Vigenius p. 14QS, and it was easy
to jump to the conclusion that it was the signature of
Jacopo di Barbari. Barbari, however, died a very old
man in 15 14, and whoever this Jacopo Bar. was, he
proudly added that he was only twenty years old—
vigenius — in 1495, which obviously excludes the Ja-
copo di Barbari hitherto known to us. May he not
be a homonym of Jacopo's? For Barbari was not nec-
essarily a rare name seeing we know a Nicolo of nearly
the same period and a Joseph who flourished in the
middle of the XVIth Century.

On the other hand, Bar. is not an abbreviation for
Barbari alone: and may stand for any name beginning
with that syllable. We shall therefore do well, until
further knowledge enlightens us, to speak of the author
of the Naples portraits as "Jacopo Bar." Once it
became clear that he was not the Master of the Ca-
duceus, guessing began as to what school he belonged to.
For myself, it is certain that he was a Venetian and a fol-
lower of Giovanni Bellini. Returning now to Mr.
Walters' Triptych, and assuming that the resemblance
I perceive between it and the Naples picture is more
than a subjective impression, what I should like to
know is whether it is possible that the author who at

1 Resumed in the admirable catalogue of the Naples picture gallery.

225

twenty in 1495 painted the latter, might not have
painted the former two years earlier? He was pre-
cocious, as advertised by his boast of being only twenty,
and might easily have advanced from the one to the
other in an interval so long as twenty-four months are
to a young man of eighteen. If the possibility be ad-
mitted, it may be asked what became of him. Young
painters unhappily are as exposed to death through
disaster and disease as other young people, and at that
time, when pestilence reaped its harvest almost an-
nually, many a promise of talent or even genius was
blighted in its beginning. Our "Jaco. Bar." may have
died directly after painting the Naples portraits.

In Mr. Walters' Collection there is still another pic-
ture (Fig. 93), of this period, somewhat earlier than
tjie Triptych just discussed, as early perhaps as 1490.
In the open air on a sculptured throne decorated with
conventionalized foliage and trophies, and surrounded
by candelabra connected by large beads of red coral,
sits the Blessed Virgin with her earnest, thoughtful,
almost anxious face holding an apple snatched at by
the Child in her lap. It is not a great work, (no more
than are the other paintings discussed hitherto in this
chapter,) but it has qualities of deep feeling, of strong
although rather hard modelling, and of enamel-like
colour which invite one to find for it a name that would
make it a readier object of discourse than an anonymous
painting, not of the first rank, is likely to become.

226

Fig. 93. Follower of the Bellini: Maeonna.

Collection of Mr. Henry Walters, Baltimore.

Thus far I have had no success in my search for its
author. All one can say is that he must have been a
follower of the Bellini toward 1490. There is perhaps
something of Gentile in the oval and features of the
Virgin, but on the whole she reminds us of the one in
the Louvre "Madonna with Peter and the Baptist"
of this period; while the throne resembles an enigmatic
painting from Giovanni Bellini's studio representing
the Madonna seen in full length worshipping the
Child asleep in her lap.1 As the motive is usually
found in the Vivarini and in the young Bellini, this
picture, too, is generally ascribed to the last named
master's youth. The hands, however, the draperies,
and the ornamentation of the throne convince me that
it was designed just after the Frari Triptych, and the
Uffizi and Venice Academy "Allegories." The Child
in turn suggests yet another work of the same moment
from Bellini's studio, the Doria "Madonna with the
Baptist."

GIOVANNI MARTINI AND LATTANZIO DA RIMINI

I am acquainted with only two other works in
America that may be safely assigned to painters of the
generation that we are now studying. Both these are
also in Mr. Walters' Collection. One of them is most
probably by Giovanni Martini and the other possibly,
but only possibly, by Lattanzio da Rimini.

The first of these (Fig. 94), represents the Dead
Saviour supported by four little boy angels. Bellini's

1 Reproduced in Venturi's Storia VII, 4, fig. 143.

227

own "Pieths" apart, — for they are unattainable, — no
other Venetian treatment of the subject shows a nobler
head of the Protagonist or a quieter pathos. The spirit
and the pattern are Bellini's inspired by some such
masterpiece as the Pesaro "Pieta" ; x but everything
else here is so close to Cima that one is surprised not
to find its exact forerunner among his works. In-
deed, but for something rather heavy in the
children's faces, one might have been tempted to assign
this design to Cima himself. But these children's
faces and the colour and the handling are so much in
the character of Giovanni Martini's "Glory of St.
Ursula," (painted for Udine and now in the Brera,)
that we scarcely can doubt but that Mr. Walters*
"Pieta" is by the same hand. Only in ours the author
is even closer to Cima. The Brera panel is dated 1507,
and I suspect that the "Pieta" may be a trifle earlier,
done when its painter was fresh from Venice, before
provinciality reclaimed him. And now just a word to
explain who he was.

Giovanni Martini of Udine, in his earliest work
known to me, the "Madonna with Joseph and Simeon"
in the Correr Museum at Venice, signed and dated
1498, copies his Virgin and Child from a "Madonna
with Jerome and the Baptist" by Alvise Vivarini,
which is now in the collection of Baron Herzog of
Budapest (Cicerone, IV, p. 419). After Alvise's last

1 One is tempted to infer that it existed in Treviso because a "Pieta" by
Girolamo da Treviso now in the Brera, although painted perhaps thirty years
earlier than ours, is like an abbreviated version of it; and ours, as we shall
see in a minute, is most likely due to a painter from Udine who on his way
through to Venice could easily have studied Bellini's original, if it had been
in Treviso.

228

illness and death, Giovanni Martini must have drawn
his inspiration from Cima, rising thereby to such re-
spectable achievements as the Brera "St. Ursula," and
Mr. Walters' more than respectable "Pieta" The
rest of his works, at least in so far as known to me, are
of no interest except for two or three portraits which
would seem to be by him. The earliest of them (Ber-
gamo, Photo. 241 of the Arti Grafiche, Bergamo) is
the head of a youngish man with large sharp features
and a look at once dreamy and determined. From a
period some years later, comes the bust of a lymphatic
square-headed man in the Padua Gallery. He holds
in his left hand a letter upon which occur the forged
monogram of Durer and the date 1521. Finally, the
portrait at Bassano (photo. Alinari 20501) of a coarse
and bad tempered looking woman may be by him.
She is seen behind a ledge upon which she holds in
leash a dejected animal with the head of a man.
Clearly this fish-wife in Sunday clothes saw herself as
a Circe.

The picture that I would ascribe to Lattanzio da
Rimini (Fig. 95) was at one time a charming one, but
the restorer's hand has not dealt gently with it. In
the foreground of a delightful landscape such as one
may find near the foot-hills of the Venetian Alps, we
see a sumptuous marble platform and tabernacle. In
the tabernacle sits the Blessed Virgin who holds out
a protecting hand over the donatrix, while the Child
looks the other way and blesses the donor. To right
and left are columnar figures of Jerome and the Bap-
tist. Besides the pious inscription on the step we read

229

the date 1507. The shield bears the arms of the
Pisonni on our left and of the Basegio on our right.
The initials are enigmatical. One might suppose they
stood for C. and B. Pisonni, and not as in the picture.
I am acquainted with four works by Lattanzio da
Rimini signed or attested by documents. They are
the "Madonna with Jerome and the Baptist" of the
Liechtenstein Gallery at Vienna, founded on the
Schlichting "Santa Conversazione" from Bellini's
studio and probably painted toward 1495; his master-
piece, the polyptych at Piazza Brembana, ordered in
1500; the "Baptist with Peter and another Apostle" of
1505 at Mezzoldo near Bergamo; and a ruined Ma-
donna of somewhat later date, recently acquired by
the Venice Academy. A careful study of these four
works permits me to venture upon attributing to him
this one of Mr. Walters' as well, the more so, as its
date, 1507, fits in after the Mezzoldo and Venice Acad-
emy pictures. Originally our painting must have been
even superior in colour and execution to the one at
Piazza Brembana. We should observe that although
in the Mezzoldo panel Lattanzio boasts of being Bel-
lini's pupil, here he owes much of the landscape as
well as that division of interest between the Virgin and
Child, to Cima, by whom this motive was introduced
into Venetian painting. This is not surprising for we
know that they worked together at the Gesuati, for
which the great man painted his "Healing of Ana-
nias" now at Berlin, and the little one in 1499 the
"Preaching of St. Mark" which has disappeared. I
suspect, however, that a pen drawing of the latter

230

subject at Chatsworth (photo. Braun, 170, Burlington
Mag. VI, opp. p. 74) may be the first sketch for Lat-
tanzio's picture and give an idea of its composition. It
is good enough as design for Rembrandt to have copied
faithfully in a drawing now belonging to Mr. J. P.
Morgan — faithfully but with how much more life! *

III

BASAITI

In the remainder of this chapter we shall study the
generation which, though contemporary in years with
Giorgione, Titian and Palma, and tinged more or less
with the colour of the New Age, still retained a pre-
dominantly Quattrocento style. The chief figures in
this generation were Catena, Basaiti, Bartolommeo
Veneto and Bissolo. The most gifted of them was
Catena. In his maturity he attempted to paint with
his own precise and dainty methods the world as re-
vealed to Giorgione, and the result has its own peculiar
charm.

The most faithful to the traditions that he found
as a beginner was Basaiti. Only the costumes of his
figures, and certain properties that could no longer be
kept out of a studio betray his epoch. Bartolommeo
Veneto, too, was a laggard, and like that Franco-Flem-
ish artist whom German critics with that aptness and

1 In Mr. D. F. Piatt's collection at Englewood, N. J., there is a Madonna
standing in the open air between a creased curtain of watered silk and the
edge of a parapet, upon which she rests the Child who embraces her. I be-
lieve it to have been painted soon after 1510, and conceivably, rather than
probably, by Lattanzio.

231

felicity which are peculiarly theirs, have called the
"Master of the Half Lengths," he has no interest ex-
cept as a painter of heads. To these he gave a look,
a pose, a dress which at times are no less than fasci-
nating. Bissolo was nearly on a level with Basaiti,
but now that we no longer commit the absurdity of
crediting him with Bellini's great last achievement,
the Vienna "Nude with a Mirror," he has become a
decidedly less interesting figure; nor does he really
concern us here as I am not aware that a work of his
exists in our collections. On the other hand three or
four other less important painters will claim our at-
tention, not for any merit of their own, but because
through them we may some day acquire a better under-
standing of their superiors.

To us, in our capacity as archaeologists and historians,
Basaiti is the most troublesome painter of this gen-
eration because his chronology is the most difficult to
set straight. I fear I cannot arrange all his unques-
tionable works in a series wherein each finds its inevita-
ble place. I venture to believe, nevertheless, that I can
order them well enough to hazard the conclusion that
his career as known to us began later than has been sup-
posed; that he never could have acted as assistant to
Giovanni Bellini, as has been believed; and that many
paintings which, in consequence of this belief, have
hitherto been ascribed to him cannot possibly be his.
These last two points I cannot discuss here, as it would
lead us too far from the present purpose, so I must
simply state that there is no way of fitting into the
artistic personality of Marco Basaiti works like the

232

"Madonna in the Meadow" of the National Gallery.
Mr. Robert Benson's "Santa Conversazione," the
Murano "Assumption of the Virgin," or the Berlin
"Triptych with Lunette," all of which are products of
Bellini's studio. Still less reason can be found for
crediting Basaiti with Bellini's own unfinished crea-
tion, the Alnwick "Bacchanal," * which Titian did not
disdain to complete. But Basaiti's chronology, owing
to the number of his works in America, does concern
us somewhat, and to that extent must be dealt with
here.

His career is supposed to begin with the altarpiece
of "St. Ambrose" for the Frari, which his master Al-
vise Vivarini had commenced but did not live to finish.
It is doubtful, however, whether Basaiti put hand to
this task before 1507 at earliest, and for the following
reasons: in the first place, he would not have been
called upon till after Alvise's death, and that took
place toward the end of 1505. Then comes this im-
portant fact. The figures he completed comprise all
except the Ambrose, the first three on this Saint's left and
the first one on the right with the head only of the next
figure, the Baptist, and all of these are so close in type,
treatment, folds, forms, and handling to Basaiti's two
famous masterpieces of 15 10, the "Agony in the Gar-
den" and the "Calling of the Children of Zebedee,"

1 1 alone was guilty of this act of folly, but in the others I had Calvacaselle
with me. It is curious that I should have made just these mistakes, con-
sidering that when I made them I was unaware that others had anticipated
me. Errors seem as endemic at certain moments as diseases, and are not
the less foolish for having been entertained by the most studious. Every
scholar and every man of science knows what glittering mistletoe-like para-
sites spring from the fairest branches of their studies.

233

that it is inadmissible to assume that many years could
have elapsed between them. Even a Basaiti does not
remain stationary, and the utmost interval one may in-
terpose between the last named works and his share of
the Frari altarpiece would be about three years. For
myself, I should abbreviate it to two or less.

It is probable, however, that some of the pictures
known to us, as, for instance the Munich "Madonna
with Sebastian, Jerome and Donor," as well as the
Crespi "Madonna with Sebastian and Ursula," and the
Venice Academy "St. James" and "St. Anthony Ab-
bott," were painted a couple of years before Basaiti,
as the best of Alvise's close followers, was asked to
finish the Frari altarpiece. These various panels are
the most timid, as well as the most Alvisesque of his
works, and are almost certainly the earliest that have
come down to us. Their date may be regarded as set-
tled by the fact that the Sebastian in both the Crespi
and Munich panels is in essentials almost identical with
one in a small picture by Previtali in the Bergamo
Gallery dated 1506. The Basaiti Sebastian, by the
way, almost certainly betrays acquaintance with the one
in Barbari's engraving of the beautiful knee-length
ephebe, and the head of the Ursula in the Munich
panel recalls the same enigmatic painter and engraver.
But although the Munich, Crespi and kindred paint-
ings are undoubtedly among his earliest, and of no
later date than 1506, they show that their author was
already a finished and independent master. The be-
ginning of his career may therefore be put back a few
years, as far back as 1500, let us say. We have no war-

234

rant whatever for putting it still farther back, although
Dr. Paoletti di Osvaldo would make Basaiti, who could
scarcely have been born before 1480, the pupil of An-
tonello da Messina who died in 1479. * After the pic-
tures just named, and before taking in hand the Frari
altarpiece, Basaiti probably painted the earliest of his
works in our possession, the "Pieta," Fig. 96, which
passed from the Paar Collection, where it was called
a Cima, into the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. It
has something simple almost to the point of rusticity
in the feeling, types and action; but the grouping, on
the contrary, is carefully thought out and impressive,
and the landscape has the characteristic charm of Basaiti
at all times. The disturbing element is the stiff hori-
zontal leg of the Dead Saviour although its ugliness is
somewhat masked by the heads of the three women
bending over it. I can not help suspecting that this
fault is due to what recent French writers in connec-
tions more perilous to our own times have called "Sep-
tentrionalism" — a snobbish admiration of everything
Northern. That a Flemish picture with this motive
was then being admired in Venice may be inferred from
the occurrence of the same stiff leg not only twice again
in Basaiti, namely in the somewhat later Munich "De-
position," and in a very late one in the Brera, but also in
Mansueti's "Pieta' at Bergamo, and G. Santa Croce's
at Capo d' Istria. Indeed, in the Brera picture, we find
kneeling to the left, a woman wearing the puffy volu-

1 The same writer we remember, is responsible for the exaltation of Laz-
zaro Sebastiani. His, too, is the invention of the Pseudo-Basaiti, who is not
really an artistic personality at all, but a waste-basket into which to throw
all the pictures wrongly ascribed to Basaiti.

235

minous head-dress that we expect to find in Rogier de
la Pasture or in the Maitre de Flemalle. Basaiti is the
less to be forgiven, as he seems to have been acquainted
with a most beautifully composed and massed "Pieta"
of not much before this time by Giovanni Bellini of
which there remains a studio version in the Palazzo
Dona delle Rose.

Assuming the Boston picture to have been painted
toward 15.06, we have to skip five years at least before
we get to the next Basaiti in an American collection.
It is the signed panel (Fig. 97), belonging to Mr. J. G.
Johnson of Philadelphia, which, although already de-
scribed and reproduced in the catalogue of his collec-
tion, is reproduced here again because it shows its
author at his best. The outlines of the Virgin and
Child are too edgy and their features still too pinched,
while the landscape is too stringy, but the agreeable
young nobleman who lets himself be portrayed as St.
Liberale is not only attractive, as if lit up with a faint
flush of Giorgione's glamour, but is modelled more
largely and painted more freely than any previous work
by the same hand. Basaiti got smoother, sleeker, or
glassier later on, but never less mannered or more him-
self than in this panel dating from toward 15 12. For
students of Eastern art the binding of Liberale's book
has interest, for it is covered with a Persian pattern, of
which the most important feature is a falcon riding a
swift and slender quadruped. It was no doubt copied
from a piece of stuff fresh from the Orient where it had
been woven not many decades previously.

Excepting portraits, the only other composition by

236

Basaiti known to me in America is a late work repre-
senting "St. Jerome" (Fig. 98), in Mr. Henry Walters'
Collection at Baltimore. How late I shall not attempt
to conjecture, but as late perhaps as 1530 when, as we
happen to know, its author was still alive. The almost
naked old hermit sits on the ground peering over a huge
folio. He looks, as people painted to look intellectual
frequently do, as if he had a cerebral cramp. The
action, the way the head is supported, the way the hand
rests on the knee, the position of the legs, and the mass-
ing of the pink drapery as well as its folds, seem almost
too good for Basaiti and betray acquaintance with some
Giorgionesque original. Nor is it hard to say by whom
this original may have been, for were my acquaintance
with this picture confined to a photograph I might be
tempted to ascribe it to Catena. Indeed, nearly every-
thing here, hands, folds, and landscape, recall Catena
in his last Giorgionesque phase, but more than any de-
tails, do the flat modelling, the relative avoidance of
chiaro-scuro, and the simple breadth of the surface sug-
gest this most engaging of the retardataires. It is in-
teresting to note that when a backward creature like
Basaiti woke up to the existence of the New Vision he
could not see it directly through its creator, but only
through compromises like Catena. Catena, by the
way, seems to have been one of his guides from the be-
ginning of his career. In his earliest effort known to
me, the Crespi picture, the St. Ursula has a hand
imitated from Catena.

The subject of St. Jerome seems to have been a
favourite one at Venice, and Basaiti painted it fre-

237

quently. Hitherto many students, myself included,
have ascribed to him a little panel (Fig. 99), in Mr. R.
H. Benson's Collection in London. If by him, it would
not only be the best figure he ever painted, but also his
earliest dated work, for it is inscribed 1505. The
Roman numerals however are preceded by the name of
Giovanni Bellini. As our notion of Basaiti's career
depends to some extent on the attribution and dating of
this panel, and as I may never get a better opportunity
for discussing it, I trust I shall be pardoned for bring-
ing it in here. If the inscription, which is certainly
old, were to be taken as a signature rather than as a
label, we should be hard put to it to account for the
authorship of this attractive little painting. If we tried
to ascribe it to Bellini, we should be confronted with the
probability, amounting almost to a certainty, that the
delicious reedy pool, the rocks, and the landscape were
painted by Basaiti. If, on the other hand, we said,
"Very well then, it is by Basaiti," we should be stopped
by the almost equal certainty that he never could have
designed the noble and wholly Bellinesque figure of
the Saint. The facile explanation we used to give was
that Basaiti executed this painting in the greater artist's
studio, the latter designing the figure, furnishing the
signature and letting it pass for his own, although
Basaiti supplied everything else. Unfortunately for
this view, Basaiti is not the least likely to have been able
to paint these rocks, this landscape, these details in 1505.
It was only some ten or fifteen years later, in, for in-
stance, Count Papafava's "St. Jerome" that we find him
in this phase, or in the "Madonna" copied from the

238

PUBLIC
Fig. 99. Giovanni Bellini and Makco Basaiti : St. Jerome.

Collection of Mr. R. H. Benson, London.

Pourtales-Morgan Bellinesque "Santa Conversazione"
that used to belong to the late M. Schloss of Paris. We
conclude, therefore, that Bellini must have left this
small panel with only the figure designed by himself
but executed by an assistant, and that then it was given
to Basaiti to complete. As for the inscription, which,
by the way, is cursive, as only in Bellini's quite latest
studio pictures, it may be genuine after all, if we assume
not impossibly that an X was omitted before the V.
If not, we should have to declare it apocryphal. In
any event, we can not be called upon to take this little
panel as a proof that Basaiti assisted Bellini in 1505 or
at any later time, and no other work that can be justly
ascribed to him comes as near as this to giving such a
proof. The idea of any such connection between the
two artists can therefore be entertained no longer.

Basaiti must have been a fairly popular painter of
portraits as we may infer from the number that have
come down. They have qualities of presentation which
are at least adequate for the impression they produce
to-day — the impression of beings out of an age when
this much fretted humanity of ours was having one of
its too rare spring-times. Several are in our collec-
tions.

Portraits are even more difficult to attribute and date
than other pictures, for more often than not they offer
fewer clues to put the student on the road to the goal,
and furnish rarer sign-posts to recall him when he is
off the road. Frequently they are heads only, display-
ing no ears, and showing no hands, and we are at times
left with a feeling of baffled effort or with a conviction

239

of which we can not hope to furnish proof. Yet hard
as it may be to discover the author of a portrait head, it
is much harder still to say just when it was painted.
Costume helps us only to fix the earliest possible date of
a picture, but not the latest, for once introduced, it is
far from easy to say when, within a decade, it ceased to
be worn. Then the question of costume has been
scarcely ever studied minutely enough for our pur-
poses, and at present one has to work it out for oneself,
and on information that is more than likely to be quite
inadequate. We ought to know what fashions were
current in each important centre; for Venice fashions,
for instance, were different from those of Milan, and
had relatively little in common with those of Florence.
And in so far as fashions had a more general prevalence,
we ought to know when they reached the different great
towns. Work of this nature on costume would have to
be pursued by highly trained students for years before
they arrived at results that were entirely satisfactory.
Even then, these conclusions would require delicate
usage, like complicated and fragile tools. They could
for instance scarcely be put into the hands of the writers
of theses for a Ph.D. degree. Nevertheless, costume
is the nearest approach to a time measure that most
portrait heads afford. Of course I have in mind the
work of artists who, like Basaiti, have no highly indi-
vidualized, self-determining personalities. The prob-
lem changes altogether when we have to do with a
Titian, a Velasquez or a Rembrandt.

With this warning, we may now approach Basaiti's
heads in our various collections. Having studied them

240

a great deal, I venture to think that there can be no
doubt regarding the authorship of any except the first
that we shall examine; nor that, while I cannot pretend
to have determined their exact date, a reasonable at-
tempt may not be made to determine the period of the
painter's career to which each of them belongs.

The portrait about which I am in doubt belongs to
Mr. J. G. Johnson, of Philadelphia (reproduced in the
catalogue), and represents a Venetian gentleman of
about thirty, wearing bushy, wig-like hair crowned by
a soft hat that comes down over the forehead. He is
seen behind a parapet against a light blue-grey sky over
a brownish landscape of fields which stretch away on
the right towards a town straggling within its walls on
a hill, and on the left towards romantic crags and rocks.
He looks out with calm, rather watery eyes, and an air
of quiet self possession.

It is a typical Venetian presentation of the static
qualities of a person and is so well placed on the panel,
so harmonized with the background, so distinguished
and so dignified that one is tempted to think it must
be due to a greater man than Basaiti. During the many
years that I regarded Alvise Vivarini as such a man I
gliby accounted for this portrait as due to his direct in-
spiration. I no longer see much of Alvise here, but on
the other hand, despite the forged signature, it does
not seem closely Bellinesque either. And the execu-
tion, which is rather uncertain and feeble, precludes
the attribution to Bellini. If we knew when it was
painted we should be helped to a correct attribution
but there is nothing in the costume or landscape that

241

might not easily range between 1500 and 15 10, or even
more on either side. If one were sure that the date was
much earlier than 15 10, Basaiti would be excluded, for
he was not painting at all like this before, say, 1507.
On the other hand, there is something in the handling of
this portrait that tends to confirm my old prejudice in
favour of assigning it to Basaiti until a better attribu-
tion is proposed.

The three remaining portrait busts need not detain
us long, for their authorship can scarcely be questioned
and their date is not capable at present of being fixed
with minute precision. The latest of them is one of a
man in early middle life, proud, shy, provincially sensi-
tive and suspicious. His huge hat cuts like a bat's
wing against a large circular window which opens on a
romantic sunset view. As it is reproduced in the cata-
logue of the collection to which it belongs, Mr. J. G.
Johnson's of Philadelphia, the student can look it up
there. Nor shall I reproduce the half length of a
slightly melancholy but attractive youth belonging to
Mr. Henry Walters for it will certainly appear in the
illustrated catalogue of his collection that is being pre-
pared. This youth with his wavy hair falling thickly
down to the ermine lining of his mantle may have been
painted as late as 1520. Somewhat earlier is the most
imposing of Basaiti's portraits in America, one belong-
ing to Mrs. Rutherford Stuyvesant of New York. As
it is not in an all but public collection, and is not likely
to get known otherwise, I reproduce it here (Fig. 100).
As will be seen it is the head of a cheerful, pleasant-
featured young man, but at the same time, of one born

242

Fig. ioo. Marco Basaiti : Male Portrait.

Mrs. Rutherford SUtyvesant, New York.

to command and ready to assert his will. Regarded as
a mass seen against the gentle landscape and the sky,
it is imposing and vitally stimulating; and as we look
at it, we fall under the heroic illusion of man's superior-
ity to nature. Our art of to-day is too apt to paint us
when not as mere problems in technique, as bits of still
life, and when it attempts to render personality it gen-
erally ends with turning us into vulgar or ludicrous
actors of our own parts. We sigh for a time and a
tradition when even a Basaiti, who probably had far less
talent than many of our painters to-day, could create
and hand down a personality like this.1

Another picture calling for mention here is a Ma-
donna belonging to Mr. D. F. Piatt of Englewood, N.
J. It is curious as a centrifugal composition, for the
Child reaches out towards a book on a desk, and al-
though it has a certain attractiveness, it is a feeble work.
Its author may have been a follower of Basaiti's toward
1515.

CATENA

The six works by Catena in our collections by no
means adequately represent him, although each
shows the artist in a different phase. The truth is that
despite the fact that he never completely identified him-

1 1 had almost forgotten — Freud would say because I did not wish to remem-
ber it owing to its deplorable condition — a head that belonged to the late Dr.
Reuling of Baltimore. It is of a smooth-faced youth with a quizzical look,
pug nose, full lips, flowing hair, naked shoulders and fancy hat. It may
have been a good thing when it left the painter's hand, at nearly the same
time as the Budapest "St. Catherine."

243

self with the new style, he was not a stationary person.
On the contrary, his career was one of continuous
change, and it is hard to find more than two or three
paintings belonging to any one given phase of his art.
One may suspect that the struggle between the old and
the new would not let him settle down whole-heartedly,
as Palma and Titian did, to enjoying and fostering
Giorgione's innovations. It is also conceivable that,
like trimmers in politics, Catena did more thinking
than ultra-radicals or even ultra-conservatives. Indeed
his work would seem to betray one of those rare and
exquisite minds over whom the old and the new exercise
the same fascination, and this doubtless drew to him the
friendship and admiration of like-minded men, such as
the humanists Bembo and Marcantonio Michiel.

If we must be content for the moment with an inade-
quate representation of Catena's evolution, we can yet,
as art lovers, be satisfied with the quality of those of his
pictures that we possess. But even as historical students
we shall find their interest not inconsiderable, seeing
that there is among them a painting distinctly earlier
than any other so far known. It is a "Madonna with
Four Saints" (Fig. 101), belonging to Mr. Henry Wal-
ters of Baltimore.

Our Lady, heavily draped and turbaned, sits a little
sideways behind a parapet, with the four Saints grouped
around, two behind and two in front of the parapet.
This arrangement instantly recalls the picture from Bel-
lini's studio of the Schlichting Bequest in the Louvre.
Both have two figures behind the Virgin and two in
front of the parapet, and the Saints in both are probably

244

o ~

3 to

identical. The Baptist is taken over with singular
faithfulness to the silhouette. Other details hark back
to still earlier influences as, for instance, the St. Peter,
whose drapery is even more Byzantine than in the Bel-
linesque prototype. The Blessed Virgin's turban and
pleated tunic recall a still earlier picture of Bellini's
studio, the Doria "Madonna with the Baptist," and her
action, the attitude of the Child and the motive of the
Mother's hand resting on a book, suggest acquaintance
with some such other Madonna of the same studio and
the same period as the one a version of which we have
already noted in the Fogg Museum at Cambridge.

But Bellini's is not the only influence traceable in this
work. The pose of the warrior Saint does not recall
him, and seems to have been inspired by the one in
Cima's Dragan altarpiece. The heads, on the other
hand, are so individualized and so free from any at-
tempt at prettiness that one is inclined to regard them as
likenesses, possibly the portraits of the family that
ordered the painting. On any other ground it would
be hard to account for the unmotivated earnestness of
the soldier, the sauciness of the girl, the wooden inten-
sity of Peter, and the self-enjoying eloquence of the
Baptist. The dryness of the treatment, the precision
and timidity of the drawing, the dulness of the colour,
mannerisms like the tightly wound curls of the Child,
and the tormented folds over the Madonna's knee are
Catena's own, for which he seems indebted to no one.
But Peter's right hand with its sausage-like fingers gives
a clue to the painter's origin which is worth following
up.

245

It is obvious to any student of Catena's beginnings
how much these were inspired by Bellini. And yet one
could not in conscience regard the one as the pupil of
the other. Catena's earliest works have a hardness, a
thinness and sharpness, an effect at the best as of ivory
rather than flesh and blood, which betrays habits formed
anywhere rather than in Bellini's studio. I thought of
connecting him with Alvise, and probably he was con-
siderably influenced by that artist and possibly even by
his closest and dullest follower, Jacopo di Valenza.
But Peter's right hand is of a shape occurring frequently
in Benedetto Diana, and leads me to suspect that this
painter was the first of Catena's teachers to leave a mark
upon him.

Mr. Walters' panel is the earliest of his works because
manifestly the crudest, dryest, and most timid; and
furthermore, because in any chronological series it fits
in nowhere but in the beginning. Being his earliest,
it is all the more interesting to know when it may have
been painted, for that would enable us to get an idea
about a point of considerable interest regarding which
we hitherto have been in the dark, namely the date of
its author's birth.

Our analysis of the picture has furnished materials
for the purpose. As we remember, Catena here follows
the scheme of the Schlichting Bellini, and that panel
can scarcely have been designed before 1495. We re-
member, too, that the military Saint recalled the one in
Cima's Dragan altarpiece, a work which may have
been begun as early as 1496, although more probably
not till 1498. We therefore cannot safely assume that

246

Catena painted the Walters panel before 1499. That
date is rendered plausible by the two works that come
next in the chronological series. They are a portrait
head of a girl which I understand Mme. Edouard Andre
left to Count Lanckoronski of Vienna, and the well
known "Madonna with Two Saints and Two Donors"
in the Mond Collection in London.1 The girl wears
the garland-like head-dress which occurs frequently in
Venetian painting between 1490 and 1500, and with this
identical arrangement in Gentile Bellini's "Miracle of
the True Cross" of the last named year, but is perhaps
never found after that date. The Mond panel, despite
its marked advance over ours, is too close to it to have
been done, considering it was painted by a youth and
in a period of such rapid progress, more than two or at
the utmost three years later. The Madonna in this
panel however, is taken over from the "Santa Conver-
sazione" of Bellini's studio now in Mr. J. P. Morgan's
Library, a work which, as will be recalled, we discussed
at length in Chapter IV, concluding that it must have
been painted not later than 1501. In view of this date
we may take it for granted that the Mond picture was
not painted before 1502; and considered in relation to
Catena's chronology as a whole, it is not likely to have
been painted later. Assuming that three years elapsed
between it and Mr. Walters', we get back again to 1499
as the probable date of the last named work. With all
its faults, it is far from being a first effort. It implies
years of training and activity, and unless Catena was

1 Most of the paintings referred to in this section are reproduced in Ven-
turis Storia VII, part IV, 564-580.

247

one of those miracles of precociousness as rare in the
Renaissance as at all other times, he could scarcely have
been less than eighteen or nineteen years old while
painting it. His birth therefore may be put back to
about 1480.

If I have laboured this point, it is not out of bad
habit or to exercise my functions as a pedant (although
without the aid of both I might have lacked the
patience), but to establish the fact, seldom sufficiently
considered when studying Catena and his fellow re-
tardataires, that they were not older but if anything
somewhat younger than Giorgione and Palma and
Lotto and perhaps even Titian. If they lagged behind,
it was due to temperament or to invincible ignorance,
not because the New Light dawned after their day.

After the Mond picture Catena passed through a
phase characterized by a deliberate attempt at larger
modelling and by a milky tone which comprises not
only the skies and the draperies but the flesh parts as
well. This phase is represented by the "Madonna with
the Baptist and Jerome" acquired a few years ago by the
Venice Academy; by the "Madonna with Francis,
Catherine and a Donor" at Budapest; by the "Bust of
a Youth" in the National Gallery; by a "Holy Family
with a female Saint" at Budapest again, and finally by
a "Madonna with a male and a female Saint" (Fig.
102), belonging to Mr. William Salomon of New
York. It is probable that these works were painted

248

in the order in which I have just given them, and be-
yond reasonable doubt after the Mond panel and before
the altarpiece with Doge Loredan as Donor in the
Doge's Palace. This altarpiece is not dated but we
are certain that it was not painted before 1505. The
reason is decisive, because the design is manifestly only
a variant upon an altarpiece from Bellini's studio for-
merly in the Ashburnham Collection and now belonging
to Mr. Vernon Watney of Charlbury Park, Cornbury,
Oxon., which is dated 1505. Nor is the panel of the
Doge's Palace likely to have been painted much later
because, among other reasons, it remains in many re-
spects so singularly archaic, and because the age given
Loredan demands a year as close as possible to 1505.
And yet archaic as this altarpiece is, it points to a
marked change in its author's scheme of colour. The
brocade hung over the throne behind the Virgin shows,
for the first time, signs of that soft but saturated and
sumptuous colour which was to make Catena's works
increasingly delightful. But of all this there is no trace
as yet in the group of pictures leading up to and in-
cluding Mr. Salomon's picture. It may be wise there-
fore to allow at least a year between it and the Loredan
altarpiece, and to date it about 1505.

The entire pattern, including the attitude and action
of the Madonna and Child, is taken over from such a
design of Bellini's as the studio picture in the Doria
Gallery already referred to, representing the "Ma-
donna with the Baptist." In fact, the Virgin and Child
are all but copies of the corresponding parts of that pic-
ture even to the draperies, while the female Saint in

249

attitude follows closely upon the Baptist. On the other
hand, taken together, these three figures have, as
pattern and arrangement, a largeness, a fulness, a
rhythm which are unmistakably of the New Era.
Indeed, there is in this work a feeling for scale so ad-
vanced, so monumental that it makes one overlook the
archaisms and timidities, although one enjoys them
when reminded of them.

As we have observed, the Loredan Altarpiece,
painted no earlier than 1505, is the first of Catena's
works to show signs of his later colouring. In the
work I would place next, the Glasgow "Madonna with
the Magdalen and another female Saint," this colouring
flares up with some crudeness, only to subside into a
singular purity and gem-like quality in such a painting
as the "St. Jerome in a landscape" belonging to Mr.
Grenville Winthrop of New York. I remember that
on first seeing this small picture, the figure of the Saint
reminded me so much of Benedetto Diana that for a
moment I wondered whether the panel might not be
his. The clear, soft colour, so entirely free from the
muddiness of Diana, soon led me to the conclusion that
it was Catena's, and the conclusion turned to conviction
when I recalled that the figure and action of the Saint
were the same as in the Venice Academy "Madonna
with the Baptist and Jerome" already mentioned as the
earliest of the last group. Only in Mr. Winthrop's

250

Fig. 103. Catena : Bust cf a Venetian.

Collection of the late Mr. Theodore M. Davis, Newport, R. I.

everything is softened and relaxed as one may expect of
a work executed several years later.1

Directly afterwards, toward 1508 perhaps, Catena
may have designed the well known "Madonna with
Zachariah, the infant Baptist and a female Saint" at
Posen. The female Saint, by the way, repeats with
slight variations the type we found at Budapest as well
as in Mr. Salomon's panel, and leads up ultimately to
the Judith of the Querini Stampalia Gallery, one of
Catena's ripest and most Giorgionesque works. After
the Posen picture, followed a phase represented by the
Berlin "Santa Conversazione" and by the Petrograd
"Madonna with the Baptist and Peter," in which the
types still retain a touch of archaism, although the
colouring lacks only fusion to be of Catena's most ad-
vanced style. That fusion, which helps to render
Catena one of the most enchanting artists of his time,
first appears in the Arcadian idyll representing a
"Nativity" belonging to Lord Brownlow. The kneel-
ing shepherd there is one of the most refined and at-
tractive portraits in Venetian art, as indeed is also
(although not to the same degree) the Baptist in the
Petrograd picture just mentioned.2 Soon after these,
but perhaps as late as 15 17, our author may have de-
signed one of his grandest portraits, the "Bust of a
Venetian" (Fig. 103), in the collection of the late Mr.
Theodore M. Davis of Newport, Rhode Island.

1 If by Catena, as I am inclined to believe, it is at this point of his career
that he must have painted a small bust of a man in an ermine lined mantle
and open tunic seen against a landscape, acquired some years ago by the
Venice Academy. (Photo. Alinari Pe. 2a No. 18324).

2 If the younger man in the "Double Portrait" at Dublin is by Catena, as
I suspect, that work must have been painted directly after Lord Brownlow's.

251

It is the presentation of a vigorous personality, power-
ful both physically and morally, direct and energetic —
as a nature and as a character. If Catena could por-
tray in this fashion — and it is certain that he could —
we understand better than ever why his contemporaries
admired him, appreciating, no doubt, effects of design
so bold and large obtained by means so simple and with
the least possible abuse of chiaroscuro.

A problem is raised by the question as to the identity
of the person represented. For many years I have taken
it for granted that he was Andrea Gritti, and I still can
not help thinking that it must be he. The difficulty is
that in 1 5 1 7, which is about the date I would assign to the
portrait on internal evidence, Gritti, not yet Doge, was
in his sixty-second year. We should scarcely give that
age to the head before us. On the other hand we must
bear in mind that Gritti lived to be eighty-four and may
have been unusually well preserved. It is hard to be-
lieve, however, that he could have been as well pre-
served as this, and one of two conclusions follows.
Either the portrait is not of Gritti, which I should find
it disagreeable to admit, or it was done after a likeness

representing him at an earlier age.

* *
*

After the Davis portrait, Catena may have painted, in
the order in which I shall name them, the Carpi "An-
nunciation" the "Portrait of a Fugger" at Berlin, the
Madrid "Christ giving the Keys to Peter," the National
Gallery "St. Jerome," the Brera "Noli me Tangere,"

252

the "Martyrdom of St. Christina" of S. Maria Mater
Domini, and the Boston version of the Madrid picture.
It would be superfluous to point out the many resem-
blances and connections between these pictures, or to
justify placing them at this point. It is more interest-
ing to dwell on the fact that tradition assigns the date
of 1520 to the "Martyrdom of St. Christina," and that,
as internal evidence rather bears out than contradicts
it, we may safely accept it. As it is the penultimate
work of this group, we may assume that the whole series
was painted between 1517 and 1521.

Our interest just here centres about Mrs. J. L. Gard-
ner's version of the "Christ giving the Keys to Peter"
(Fig. 104). It is for the eye one of the suavest, most
caressing, and most simple of works of art, and the mind
is entertained by the idea of the courteous Saviour
handing the Keys of Heaven to an elderly suppliant in
the presence of three beautiful and fashionable young
women. One of them, the loveliest, goes so far as
to push the Saint forward. Very likely the pretext
for their presence was allegorical. They may have
stood for the Three Virtues. They are certainly por-
traits.

The reproduction of the two versions dispenses us
from writing in great detail upon their resemblances
and differences. Essentially the patterns are the same,
but the Madrid one is much drier and lighter in draw-
ing and modelling, and the colouring, which naturally
the reproductions fail to reveal, is at once less sumptuous
and less soft. There is even a certain advance of scale
in the Boston version, which, however, may be largely

253

due to its being taken out of doors and set against the
sky. As will be remembered, I placed the Madrid
version (Fig. 105) early in this group, and would date
it soon after 15 17, and the Boston variant at the end,
toward 1521. I believe a careful examination of the
two will show that three years may easily have elapsed
between the drier and the suaver editions of this beauti-
ful design.

It would be idle to speculate why the design was re-
peated at all, and if repeated, why at such an interval.
The portraits of the three fair women no doubt account
for it all, and these suggest a question that we may ven-
ture to put even if we cannot give it a decisive answer.
That the lady in the middle anticipates to a singular
degree Paris Bordone's type of woman is obvious, but
there would be nothing extraordinary if the younger
artist had discovered himself while contemplating this
blonde, somewhat ox-eyed face. It would be more in-
teresting to know the relation between this triad of
pretty women and such a work as Palma's "Three Sis-
ters." Ours dating from about 15 17 is surely the
earlier, but even thus it would be rash to assume — what,
however, is possible enough — that Palma was indebted
to Catena. Perhaps both had for model or inspiration
some work by Giorgione now lost to us, to which Catena
adhered faithfully, while Palma made it the starting
point for a much more developed and elaborated ar-
rangement.

*
254

Only one other painting by Catena is known to me in
American collections. It is a "Portrait of a Musician,"
dating from the artist's last years, which the student will
find reproduced and discussed in the catalogue of Mr.
J. G. Johnson's Collection. Having, however, already
turned this section into a discourse upon Catena's
chronology, I beg permission, in view of the fact that I
may not find another opportunity, to continue. I shall
be almost as brief as the Biblical tables of genealogy.

The last group is followed by one in which the mas-
ter shows a further shedding of Quattrocento notions,
and comprises pictures like Mr. J. P. Heseltine's "Holy
Family"; its replica at Messina, without the Joseph
but with the two other Saints; and two "Ma-
donnas with the Infant John," the one in a landscape,
the other in a Venetian piazza, the first belonging to
Mr. R. H. Benson of London * and the second to Mr.
E. P. Warren of Lewes, both by the hand convention-
ally supposed to be Marco Belli's, and both versions of
lost originals by Catena. Next comes his masterpiece,
the National Gallery "Warrior kneeling before the
Madonna," which was soon followed by the Raphael-
esque "Holy Family with Elizabeth" at Dresden, and
perhaps by the "Portrait of a Canon" at Vienna. After
these, if by Catena at all, would come the Louvre
"Reception of an Ambassador at Cairo." I am, how-
ever, no longer as certain as I should like to be that it is
by him, for it seems to me a little too feeble. It yet seems
more probably his than Belliniano's, to whom Dr. von

1 Of this there is more than one replica with slight variants the most ac-
cessible being in the Venice Academy (photo. Anderson 11572).

255

Hadeln would ascribe it, or to any other painter known
to me. Then would come the splendid "Judith" of the
Querini-Stampalia Collection, Catena's most Giorgion-
esque work; and with this may be grouped two panels
more obviously, but not more really, Giorgionesque.
The first is the small "Adoration of the Magi" in the
National Gallery, wherein the hand of Catena is re-
vealed in everything, even, in the figures he manifestly
has cribbed from Giorgione. The second is Mr. R. H.
Benson's "Holy Family," a most exquisite thing.1
Finally, follow Mr. J. G. Johnson's portrait, the Ber-
gamo "Christ at Emmaus" (the attribution of which to
Catena I can see no more reason for doubting now than
I did more than twenty years ago when I first published
it) , and the "Christ at the Well" in the late Mr. Charles
Butler's Collection. But in the last named work only
the Christ and the Samaritan women are Catena's.
The rest was laid in at least by Palma. Doubtless it
was only after the latter's death, that is to say, after
1528, that Catena undertook to finish it, as Titian at the
same time undertook to complete Palma's grand "Santa
Conversazione" acquired some years ago by the Venice
Academy.

BARTOLOMMEO VENETO

At the beginning of this chapter we spoke of Barto-
lommeo Veneto's career as a portrait painter as a par-
allel to that of the Franco-Flemish artist so exquisitely

1 Lord Allendale's "Adoration of the Shepherds" is of quite another inten-
tion and by another artist.

256

characterized by German art critics as the "Master of
the Half Lengths." Bartolommeo, however, did paint
several Madonnas, but rather perfunctorily, it would
seem, since all of them excepting the one at Mr. R. H.
Benson's which I identified more than twenty years
ago, are copies or variants of the same type. Of this
type Mr. J. G. Johnson has an example, which, how-
ever, is not by Bartolommeo.1 It remains a problem
why this type of Madonna, which, by the way, first
occurs in the panel signed and dated 1502 by Barto-
lommeo Veneto, in the Dona delle Rose Palace at
Venice, should have been so popular. Repeated by
this painter more than once, by Bissolo, and by several
anonymous little masters, it must go back to an original
by an artist of great fame. Had I been sure that it
went back to Giovanni Bellini, I should have discussed
it under his studio works. But I am not at all sure that
this design had such an origin. It is not impossible
that it may be due to Gentile rather than to Giovanni
Bellini. Reversed and better composed, it occurs a
number of times more, best of all at S. Trovaso in
Venice.

It is, however, as a painter of portrait heads, or what
amounts to that, even when a wheel or some other label
of apotheosis is attached, that Bartolommeo Veneto is
of interest to us. If we may draw inferences from the
dress and the character of his sitters, he must have
worked chiefly in Lombardy, and to some degree under
Lombard influence. Thus, his masterpiece, a work at
once grave and distinguished in interpretation and both

1 Reproduced and discussed in the catalogue, p. 365.

257

serious and sumptuous in execution, the "Portrait of a
Gentleman" in the former Crespi Collection, was on
its first appearance, declared by the ablest connoisseurs
to be Solario's. Such was their unanimity and decision
that I was for a long time shamed out of my impression
that it must be Bartolommeo's. What again can be
more Milanese, more Leonardesque than that "Head of
a Young Woman," for many years thought worthy of
a place in the Salon Carre of the Louvre, in which
Morelli rightly recognised the mind and the hand of
this hitherto all but unknown painter? Now, thanks
to the interest lent him by Morelli and his willing and
unwilling followers, this artist has become so fashion-
able that we may soon expect to find him adorning the
halls of the great beyond the Alleghenies. For the
present we must be satisfied with the four or five in the
usual beat of the art lover, the region between Boston
and Washington.

It must have been before Bartolommeo's name got
known and fashionable that the late Mr. Theodore M.
Davis of Newport, acquired the "Portrait of a Young
Man" (Fig. 106), which in his collection passed for
Solario's. The face with its downy beard, framed in
by soft, long hair and crowned with a jaunty cap, is
attractive, and the costume is charming and romantic.
The garden background, too, with its bouquets of trees
is agreeable. All in all, a delightful picture. But the
modelling is far too flat and edgy for Solario, and it
has a certain touch of swagger, of affectation, of stylish-
ness, combined with a certain something easy to feel but
hard to define, which make one recognise it, as one

258

Fig. io5. Bartolommeo Veneto : Portrait of a Young Man.
Collection of the late Mr, Theodore M. Davis, Newport, R, 1,

Fig. 107. Bartolommeo Veneto : Bust cf a Youth.
Collection of Mr. James Pctrmelee, Washington, D, C,

recognises an acquaintance, for a creation of Barto-
lommeo's. Undoubtedly it was done before Solario's
influence had faded, and not too many years after the
latter's death in 15 14.

Bartolommeo was much given to painting fancy
heads to which, by means simple enough, generally by
the arrangement of the hair and the costume, or by some
look, he gives, when the effect is successful, an air of
fascination. The successes are rare, the best of them
being the enchanting "Bust of a Courtesan" at Frank-
fort. The failures are more frequent, and two of them
may be seen in Boston. One a "Saint Catherine"
crowded with flowers, an ogling, simpering creature,
a variant of a picture at Glasgow,1 belongs to Mrs. W.
Scott Fitz. The other belongs to Mrs. J. L. Gardner,
and shows the same model but with an action and an
arrangement that account better for the pose and ex-
pression.2 Here she is seen behind a parapet upon
which she rests the mandolin that she is playing, as well
as the partition of music. Signed and dated 1520, it
is probable that Bartolommeo, after painting this young
woman as a portrait, made for her friends or for him-
self the version representing her, perhaps in accordance
with her name, as St. Catherine.

Not long after this, and after the Holford head of
the same year, Bartolommeo must have painted the
somewhat somberly fascinating "Bust of a Youth"
(Fig. 107), belonging to Mr. James Parmelee of Wash-
ington. He wears in his cap the medallion with a

1 Reproduced in Venturi's Storia, VII, part IV, figure 442.

2 A studio version in the collection of Contessa Cesare del Mayno of Milan
is reproduced in L'Arte II, p. 456.

259

device which then was so fashionable in Lombardy and
in France. For colour, it is one of our artist's best
achievements, and indeed, except in portraits like the
Crespi one, Bartolommeo has seldom surpassed this
strikingly alluring likeness.

Later he portrayed more serious, more sober people,
although still of Lombard, even Milanese cast. Per-
haps his final achievement in this phase is the "Bust of
a middle-aged Woman" (Fig. 108), in the collection
of Mr. Augustus Healy of Brooklyn. A small vase
indicates that her name is Magdalena, but there is noth-
ing else of that saint about her. She is a large-eyed,
earnest Lombard lady of Luinesque type who may have
been beautiful in her better days. For a work of Bar-
tolommeo's there is unwonted modelling here, almost
as solid as in the Crespi head, and the arrangement and
the colour are not below his average.

THE WIDENER HEAD. THE PAINTERS OF SANTA CROCE

As I have said before, there is in America to my
knowledge, no work by Bissolo, one of the chief com-
panions of Catena and Basaiti. Nor do I know what
has become of the early work by Previtali that used to be
in the Yerkes Collection. The few paintings that still
demand attention before we complete this chapter are,
with one exception, by craftsmen of small importance,
to whom it were a sin to give the name of artist.

The exception referred to is a head (Fig. 109), in the
Widener Collection. It is of a youth with high cheek

260

Fig. 1 08. Bartolommeo Veneto : Bust of a Middle-Aged Woman.

Collection of Mr. Augustus Healy, Brooklyn, N. Y.

Fig. 109.

Venetian Early Sixteenth Century: Bust of a Youth.

Collection of Mr. Joscpli Widener, Philadelphia.

bones and pointed chin, with that intent look which
characterizes some of the most arresting and impressive
portraits of the first quarter of the XVIth Century.
We are accustomed to connect this look with Giorgione,
but there is no other sign of that magician's influence
here. On the contrary, apart from the exquisite
handling which is thoroughly Bellinesque, the lighting
and the modelling rather betray the student of Anton-
ello. Who this student was baffles my conjecture.
The costume and much else tell that he worked between
1505 and 1 5 10. The only other works by painters of
as fine a quality and of the same moment whom we have
not yet succeeded in identifying are the "Two Heads"
in the Louvre ascribed to Gentile Bellini, the "Two
Heads" by the same hand at Berlin (No. 12), and the
"Head of a Man" by still the same hand at Gatshina.
Ours is harder in modelling and more edgy, with a line
more crumbling, and yet its author may have been in-
spired by them. I am tempted to believe that the
Louvre Heads and their companions may have been
painted by Giovanni Bellini at the time that he was
completing the "Preaching of St. Mark" (which Gen-
tile left unfinished) and assimilating his style as much
as he could to his brother's. In that case, the Widener
portrait would scarcely be earlier than 1508.

It only remains to speak of several paintings that can
be dismissed briefly. The most interesting is a "Double
Portrait," a young man seen nearly full face and a

261

young woman in profile signed by a certain Giovanni
Paolo de Agostini. (Fig. no.) There exists one
other work signed by this pretty artist. It is a "Pieta"
at S. Maria di Porto at Milan. He was probably a
provincial Venetian who worked between 1510 and
1520.1

In Boston there is an elaborate and rather pretentious
work dated 15 13 and signed by Gaspar Negri, hitherto
known only from Maniago (Belle Arti Friulane,
302-3) who cites documents that speak of him as a
Venetian living at Udine in 15 16 and 1538. It repre-
sents in the apse of a Venetian basilica the Blessed Vir-
gin posed on a pedestal with the Dead Saviour in her
lap and several Saints to right and left. It is a stiff
stupid work but betrays acquaintance with Giorgione
and perhaps Titian. For this reason it is worth hav-
ing in mind, and besides it may enable us to identify
other paintings by the same hand. The Scuole del
Santo and del Carmine and other places in Padua con-
tain rubbishy paintings in abundance worthy of Negri
although scarcely by him.

A "Madonna with the Magdalen and Baptist," with
the busts of a male and female donor, in the Jarves Col-
lection at New Haven (No. 79) , has, I suspect, affinities
with Petrus de Inganatis. It has no kind of impor-
tance. Finally we must mention several works by the
Santa Croces, a brood of painters from a Bergamesque
mountain village, who were dull and prolific, almost
never of value and seldom of interest except for what
they cribbed from their betters. The first of them,

1 Discussed in Rassegna d'Arte, April, 1916.

262

■ • ^

H '5

Francesco, happened to be followed in his trade by
another Francesco, and, but for documents telling us
when the first died, and that the patronymic of the one
was different from that of the other, we might, as they
scarcely invited serious study, have gone on thinking
they were the same artistic personality.

By the younger Francesco, Francesco Rizzo, we have
in the Fogg Museum a tolerable "Madonna with the
Child blessing the Infant John," a pleasant enough pic-
ture inspired, as his pictures were apt to be, by Man-
tegna's late "Epiphany" of which there is a good copy
in Mr. J. G. Johnson's Collection. The Baptist, how-
ever, is Catenesque. In Mr. Walters' Collection there
are two works, one representing the "Holy Family with
the Infant Baptist and Zachariah," based on Mr. J. P.
Morgan's Bellinesque "Santa Conversazione" with
Catenesque additions, and the other a "Madonna be-
tween Catherine and Jerome" traced after Bellini's
"Madonna with Paul and George" of the Venice
Academy.

Girolamo Santa Croce is distressingly tedious, al-
though he, too, like even the meanest artists of that
golden time, has his almost agreeable moments. Hap-
pily he does not infest our collections. Two belonging
to Mr. J. G. Johnson are studied in his catalogue, one
of them having importance as a reflex of a Bellinesque
work otherwise unknown. In the Jarves Collection
there is a full length St. Peter, (No. 75), ascribed to
Bellini, and no doubt imitated after some figure by that
mighty artist, sed quantum mutatus ab Mo.

THE END
263

GENERAL INDEX

PAGE

Alemanno, Pietro 24

Antonello Da Messina

28-38, 165-168

Chronology 35

Followers 38-53, 261

Influence on Bellini 178, 190

on Bonsignori 170

on Carpaccio v 165

on Cima 190, 192, 194

on Cristoforo Caselli 50

on Mazzola 50, 51, 201

on Montagna 175-176, 182

on South Italian Art 43

on Venetian Art

28, 49, 140, 146, 165-168
on Alvise Vivarini

49, 50, 166, 169, 170
Peculiarities of his

style 167-168

Antonello, Jacopo D' 37, 39
Relation to Mazzola 40, 43, 50
Antonio Maria da Carpi 199
Antonio de Saliba 38-43

Relation to Giovanni Bel-
lini 94
Relation to Mazzola 50
Antonio da Serravalle 53

Baldassare Carrari 220

page
Bartolommeo Veneto

127 note, 214, 231-

232, 256-260
Basaiti, Marco 102-104,
126-132, 142, 214,

231-243
Imitated by Pietro Carpac-
cio 164
Takes motive from "Pour-
tales Bellini" 130
Works compared with

Frick Bellini 103

Bellano

Influence on Montagna 181
Bellini, Gentile

2, 62, 143-144
Master of Carpaccio

150-152, 156
Master of Lazzaro Bas-

tiani 151

Bellini, Giovanni 60-105

Chronology 35, 47, 80-

81, 188, 216-217, 232, 248
Contemporaries of 143-205
Copies of his "Christ at

Emmaus" 1 19-123

New theory of his Devel-
opment 60-63

267

PAGE

Bellini, Giovanni — continued
Indebtedness to Mantegna
60, 62, 65, 66,
67, 68, 72, 74.

82, 83, 84, 93
Influence on

Antonio Solario 42, 47

Basaiti 232, 238-239

Bonsignori 1 70

Catena 245, 246, 249

Cima 190, 192-194,

195-196, 205
Crivelli 23

Diana, Benedetto 155

Lattanzio da Rimini 230
Mazzola 51

Montagna 175, 177,

178, 179, 193
Rondinelli 216-223

The Santacroce 138, 262
Venetian Art 60

Vivarini,Bartolommeo 17, 70
Pupils and Followers 213-263
Replicas of his works 79

His Studio 106-109,217-218
Studio Works and contem-
porary Copies 106-142
Bellini, Jacopo 2, 25-27, 62, 63
Influence on

Bartolommeo Vivarini 16
Bissolo, Francesco 126, 232
Bonsignori, Francesco

170-173
Relations with Mantagna 181

Carpaccio, Benedetto 162

Carpaccio, Pietro 164-165

Carpaccio, Victor 156-162

Following 162-165

page
Carpaccio, Victor — continued
Not Lazzaro Bastiani's
pupil, but Gentile
Bellini's 150-152

Not Montagna's Master 181
Catalan Art

Influence on South Italian

Art 36

Catena

120, 127, 214, 237, 243-256
Imitates "Pourtales Bellini"

129-130, 132, 133
Influence on Basaiti 130, 237
Caterino 2

Cima da Conegliano

133. 163, 186-205

Followers 206-212

Influence on Catena 245

on Giovanni Martino

da Udine 229

on Lattanzio da Rimini 230

Not Master of Sebastiano

del Piombo 209-210

Costa, Lorenzo

Influence on Bonsignori 173

Crivelli Carlo 18-25

and Bartolommeo Vivarini 13

Crivelli, Vittorio 24-25

Cristoforo Caselli da

Parma ("Temperel-

li") 52-53

Diana, Benedetto

120, 155-156, 250

and Catena 246

Durandi, Jacques 35

Emilian School 51

Fogolino, Marcello i 76 note

268

PAGE

Gaspar Negri 262

"Generation," Meaning of
word in art history

213-214
Gentile da Fabriano

Influence in Venice 1-2

GlAMBONO, MlCHELE 5

Giorgione

Influence on Cima

192, 202, 203
Influence on Sebastiano

del Piombo 105

Giotto

No direct influence on Venice 1
Giovanni Martino da Udine
227-229
Giovanni Paolo de Agostini

262
Gritti, Doge Andrea

Portraits of 139-140, 252

Hands, Treatment of

in Donatello 67

in Giovanni Bellini

67, 77, 90, 91
in Jacopo Bellini 67

in Mantegna 67

Jacobello del Fiore 5

"'Jacopo Bar" 224-226

Jacopo di Barbari 21 1-2 12
Jacopo da Valenza

and Catena 246

Landscape

in Antonello 33

in Giovanni Bellini

63, 96-104, 116
in Cima 186

PAGE

Landscape — continued

in Neapolitan Art 44

Lattanzio da Rimini 229-231
Lazzaro Bastiani

107, H9-I55
The Lombardi 122

Influence on Cima 194

Lorenzo Lotto 6, 130, 134

Mansueti 147-148

Mantegna, Andrea 54-60

Influence on Giovanni
Bellini 60, 62, 65,
66, 67, 68, 72, 74,
82, 83, 84, 93
on Bellini's Followers

^ 145, 146, 147
on Bonsignori 170

on Cima 199

Marco Veneto 129

Mazzola, Filippo 49-52

Imitates "Pourtales Bel-
lini" 132
Imitates Cima 206-207
Mediocrity, why popular 152
Michele da Verona

Influence on Antonio Solario 48

MONTAGNA, BARTOLOMMEO

173-185

Relation to Cima 190-194
Influence on Mazzola 51

MORELLIANISM

Value and dangers of the

method 108- 109

The Morones of Verona

Influence on Mazzola 51

Murano, Giovanni and

Antonio da 6-9

269

PAGE

Neri DI Bicci

Popularity of, compared
to Lazzaro Bastiani's

152-153
Nicola di Maestro An-
tonio da Ancona 25

Palma and Catena 254, 256
Pasqualino 210-21 1

Pennacchi, Pier Maria

221-223
Petrus de Inganatis 262

plombo, sebastiano del

209-210

PlSANELLO

Influence in Venice 2

Portraits,

difficulties of attribu-
ting and dating 239-240
with Saintly attributes 184
"Pourtales Bellini" (Mr.

J. P. Morgan) 123-127
Copies and Imitations of

126-127, 128, 129-133
Previtali, Andrea 129

Progress of the Artist

20, 85-86, 135
Provenqal Master 31-35

"Pseudo-Basaiti" 142, 235 note
"Pseudo-Boccaccino" 44

"Pupil" and "Follower"

defined 215-216

Replicas from Bellini's Stu-
dio 79
Rocco Marconi 138

RONDINELLJ, NlCCOLO

116-117 note, 118,

126, 214, 218-223

RONZEN, ANTOINE

PAGE

Santacroce, the 262-263

Santacroce, Francesco

Rizzo da 129, 131, 263
Santacroce, Francesco

di Simone da 1 30-1 3 1
Santacroce, Girolamo da

138, 263
Perhaps finished Frick

Bellini 105

Semitecolo 4

Solario, Andrea 45-46, 47-48
Influence on Antonio Solario

47-48
Solario, Antonio 45-49

Sporanza 185-186

Studio of Giovanni Bel-
lini 79, 106-109

Tacconi, Francesco

114-115, 192

VlVARINI, THE 5-9

Influence on Antonio da

Serravalle 53

on Bonsignori 173

Studio of Antonio Vivarini

9-13
Vivarini, Alvise 2, 50, 64,

165-166, 168-170, 241
and Basaiti 233-234

and Catena 246

and Cima 194-196

and Giovanni Martini da

Udine 228

and Montagna 181

Vivarini, Bartolommeo

6-7, 13-18, 70

270

INDEX OF PLACES

Alnwick. Duke of Northumberland

Bellini Giovanni, (not Basaiti)
Antwerp. Antonello
Avignon. Provengal Follower of Antonello

Baltimore. Collection of Mr. Henry Walters
Antonello, Sicilian Follower of (Fig. 18)
Antonio da S err avail? (Fig. 26)
Basaiti (Fig. 98)

Bellini, Giovanni — Follower of (Fig. 93)

Studio of (Fig. 55)

Copy of (Fig. 52)
Bonsignori, Francesco (Fig. 70)

(Fig. 72)
Carpaccio, Pietro (Fig. 67)
Carpaccio, Victor and Cima

Follower of (Fig. 66)
Catena (Fig. 101)
Caterino (Fig. 1)
Cima (Fig. 79)

Studio of (Fig. 83)

Follower of
Cristoforo Caselli da Parma ("Temperelli") (Fig.
Crivelli, Carlo (Fig. 11)
Crivelli, Vittorio

Giovanni Martino da Udine (Fig. 94)
"Jacopo Bar" (Fig. 91)
Lattanzio da Rimini (?) (Fig. 95)
Mazzola, Filippo (Fig. 24)
Montagna, Bartolommeo

273

PAGE
233

33
35

36-38

53-54

237:

242

226-227

139-142

121-123

1 71-172

172-173
164-165

162-163
244-248
2
194-197
202
206-207

52-53
21

24-25
227-229
224-226
229-231

5i
179-180, 190

25)

PAGE

Baltimore — continued

Niccold di Maestro Antonio da Ancona

Rondinelli, Niccold (Fig. 88)

219-220

(Fig. 89)

220-223

Santacroce, Francesco Rizzo da

263

Solario, Antonio (Fig. 23)

46-47

Speranza (Fig. 77)

185-186

Venetian, Early (Fig. 2)

Vivarini, Alvise (Fig. 68)

108-109

Vivarini, Antonio

7-8

Follower of (Figs. 4, 5, 6)

9-13

Baltimore. Collection of Mrs. Henry Barton Jacobs

Giovanni and Antonio da Murano

(Fig. 3)

Baltimore. Collection of the late Dr.

Reuling

Basaiti

243 note

Barrytown-on-Hudson. Mrs. John Jay Chapman

The Bellini, Follower of (Figs. 57,

58)

144-148

Bergamo

Bellini, Giovanni (Fig. 39)

73, 88

Mantegna (Fig. 36)

Marco Veneto

129

Santacroce, Francesco di Simone do

130-131

Berlin

Antonio de Saliba (Fig. 44)

42, 94

Bellini, Giovanni

87,

100, 261

Copy of

120-123

Cima

133

Crivelli, Carlo

Mazzola, Filippo

132

Previtali

129

Bonn

Bellini, Giovanni — Replica of

91-92

Boston. Museum of Fine Arts

Basaiti (Fig. 96)

235-236

Crivelli, Carlo

Gaspar Negri

262

Vivarini, Bartolommeo — Studio of

Boston. Collection of Mrs. John Lowell Gardner

Bartolommeo Veneto

259

274

PAGE

Boston — continued

Catena (Fig. 104) 253-254

Cima 202

Crivelli, Carlo (Fig. 12) 22

Giambono, Michele 5

Mantegna (Fig. 27) 54~58

Boston. Mr. Horace Morison

Marches, School of 5-6 note

Boston. Collection of the late Mr. Quincy Shaw

Cima 202

Vivarini, Bartolommeo 16

Boston. Mr. Hervey Wetzel

Bellini, Giovanni — Studio of (Fig. 54) 137-138

Lazzaro Bastiani (Fig. 59) I53-I54

Brooklyn, New York. Mr. F. L. Babbott

Crivelli, Carlo - 22

Brooklyn, New York. Mr. Augustus Healy

Bartolommeo Veneto (Fig. 108) 260

Bellini, Jacopo (Fig. 14) 25-27

Brussels

Crivelli, Carlo 20

Budapest

Catena 133

Budapest. Former Nemes Collection

Bellini, Studio of 113-114

Cambridge, Massachusetts. Fogg Museum

Bellini, Giovanni — Studio of (Fig. 49) 115-119

Santacroce, Francesco Rizzo da 263

Vivarini, Bartolommeo 17-18

Detroit, Michigan. Museum of Art

Cima (Fig. 78) 189-194, 197

Giovanni Paolo de Agostini (Fig. 110) 261-262

Englewood, New Jersey. Collection of Mr. Dan Fellowes Piatt

Antonello, Follower of 50

Basaiti, Follower of 243

Bellini, Giovanni (Fig. 33) 7 4-78

Lattanzio da Rimini (?) 231 note

275

PAGE

Englewood, New Jersey — continued

Montagna (Fig. 75) 182-183
South Italian, Follower of Carpaccio and Antonello

(Fig. 22) 43-44, 45 note

Semitecolo, Manner of 4

Vivarini, Antonio 8-9

Vivarini, Bartolommeo (Fig. 7) 14, 17

Ferrara. Frescoes at Schifanoia 12
Fiesole. Mr. Henry White Cannon

Andrea da Murano 64
Florence. Uffizi

Bellini, Giovanni ICO, 101

Mantegna (Fig. 30) 68-69
Florence. Count Serristori

Carpaccio (Fig. 64) 158
Frankfort, O/M. Herr Fritz von Ganz

Antonio Solario 45—46

Gatshina

Bellini, Giovanni 261

Kalamazoo, Michigan. Mrs. Frederic S. van Urk

Diana, Benedetto (Fig. 61) 155-156

Kloster Neuburg

Lazzaro Bastiani 154

London. National Gallery

Antonello 33

Sicilian Follower of (Fig. 19) 37-38

Bellini, Giovanni (Fig. 48) 112-113, 115

Studio of (Fig. 50) 116:

136

Crivelli, Carlo 20, 23

Solario, Antonio 45-46, 48-49 note

Tacconi, Francesco 114-115, 192

London. Mr. Robert Benson

Antonello 37

Bellini, Giovanni, and Basaiti (Fig. 99) 238-239

Bellini, Giovanni, Studio of 126, 135

Crivelli, Carlo 20

276

PAGE

London. Mond Collection

Bellini, Gentile 62, 143

Bellini, Giovanni 88

Catena 127, 1 29-1 30, 134

London. Collection of Lord Northbrook

Crivelli, Carlo 20-2I

London, Duke of Portland

Diana, Benedetto 156

Macerata

Crivelli, Carlo

Madrid. Prado

Catena (Fig. 105)

253-254

Milan. Ambrosiana

Solario, Antonio

47-48

Milan. Brera

Bellini, Giovanni

62, 63-64, 65, 77

Cima

195

Crivelli, Carlo

20, 21

Mantegna

Milan. Castello

Antonello

Milan. Palazzo Bagatti-Valsecchi

Bellini, Giovanni

64-65

Milan. Cav. Gustavo Frizzoni

Bellini, Giovanni

69, 76, 77

Milan. Prince Trivulzio

Bellini, Giovanni

66,67

Milan. S. Maria di Porto

Giovanni Paolo de Agostini

262

Monopoli

Bellini, Giovanni

101

Naples

Bellini, Giovanni — The "Transfiguration"

73, 78, 99, 100, 101, 102
"Jacopo Bar" (Fig. 92) 224-226

Lotto 130

277

PAGE

New Haven, Connecticut. Jarves Collection

Petrus de Inganaiis (?) 262

Santacroce, Girolamo da 263

Newport, Rhode Island. Collection of the late Theodore
M. Davis

Antonio de Saliba (Fig. 21) 41, 42

Bartolommeo Veneto (Fig. 106) 258-259
Bellini, Giovanni (Frontispiece) 61, 63-64, 66, 98

Catena (Fig. 103) 251-252

Cima, Copy of 198

Vivarini, Bartolommeo (Fig. 9) 16-17

New York. Metropolitan Museum

Antonello (Fig. 16) 30

Bellini, Giovanni (Fig. 37) 86-89

Studio of (Fig. 46) IIO-II2

Carpaccio (Fig. 63) 15 8-1 60

Cima 204-205

Cr'welli, Carlo (Fig. 13) 21-22, 23

Crivelli, Vittorio 25

Mantegna (Fig. 28) 58-60

Marches, School of 5-6 note
Montagna, Bartolommeo (Fig. 74) 179, 180, 190

(Fig. 76) 183-184

New York. Historical Society

Venetian, Early 4-5

New York. Mr. Francis L. Bacon

Vivarini, Antonio 9

New York. George and Florence Blumenthal

Cima, (Fig. 82) 20O-2OI, 204

New York. Collection of Mr. George Ereck

Emilian School 51

New York. Collection of Mrs. Felton

Pasqualino (Fig. 87) 210-21 1

New York. Mr. Henry Clay Frick

Bellini, Giovanni (Fig. 45) 91-105

Provencal Master (Fig. 17) 31-35

Santacroce, Girolamo da 105

New York. Mrs. H. E. Huntington

Bellini, Giovanni (Fig. 35) 81-84, 87

278

New York. Mr. Philip Lehman

Bellini, Giovanni (Fig. 32)

Crivelli, Carlo (Fig. 10)

Vivarini, Bartolommeo
New York. Mr. Robert S. Minturn

Bellini, School of

Carpaccio (?) (Fig. 65)
New York. Mr. J. P. Morgan

Bellini, Giovanni — Studio of (?) ("Pourtales")

53)

Cima (Fig. 85)

Vivarini, Bartolommeo (Fig. 8)
New York. Mr. William Salomon

Bellini, Giovanni (Fig. 41)

Catena (Fig. 102)
New York. Mrs. Rutherford Stuyvesant

Basaiti (Fig. 100)
New York. Mr. Grenville L. Winthrop

Antonio de Saliba (Fig. 20)

Bellini, Giovanni (Fig. 34)

Catena

Cima, Follower of (Fig. 86)
Nivaagaard (Denmark)

Santacroce, Francesco Rizzo da

Oldenburg

Bellini, Replica of (Fig. 42)
Olera (near Bergamo)

Cima

Padua

Giambono

Lazzaro Bastiani

Mazzola, Filippo
Paris. Musee Andre

Mantegna
Paris. Louvre

Bellini, Giovanni ( ?)
Copy of drawing

Vivarini, Bartolommeo

279

PAGE

66, 67, 71-74

I9-20

18 note

42-43
160-162

(Fig.

123-136

205

15, 16

8, 89-92
248-250

242-243

38-41

78-81

250-251

208-209

129

18, 90-91
196-197

6 note

154
114

73-74

261

120-123

PAGE

Paris. Collection of the late M. Schloss

Basaiti
Paris. Collection of Mr. Edward Tuck

Cima (Fig. 81)
Paris. MM. Steinmeyer

Imitation of "Pourtales Bellini"
Pesaro.

Bellini, Giovanni — The "Coronation" 75, 76, 77, 80, 99, 175
Philadelphia. Memorial Hall, Wilstach Collection

Bellini, Copy of (Fig. 51)

Crivelli, Vittorio
Philadelphia. Collection of Mr. John G. Johnson

Antonello (Fig. 15)

Antonio de Saliba (or Jacobo d'Antonello)

Barbari, Jacopo di

Bartolommeo Veneto, School of

Basaiti (Fig. 97)

I20-I27, 130

163, 198-199, 200

132

120-123
24

Bellini, Gentile — Follower of

Bellini, Giovanni (Fig. 29)

Bonsignori

Carpaccio, Victor (Fig. 62)

Catena

Cima (Fig. 80)

(Fig. 84)

Follower of
Crivelli, Carlo

Lazzaro Bastiani (?) (Fig. 60)
Mantegna, Copy of
Montagna

Santacroce, Francesco Rizzo da
Santacroce, Girolamo da
Sicilian

Vivarini, Alvise (Fig. 69)
Vivarini, Antonio
Vivarini, Bartolommeo
Philadelphia. Collection of Mr. Joseph Widener
Bellini, School of (Fig. 109)

280

29-30

211-212

257

236:

241, 242

144

61, 66-71

170-173

157

255-256

197-198

203-204

207-208

22-23

154-155

59 note, 263

178, 180-181

183, 184-185

263

138-139, 263

38 note

170

16, 17

260-261

PAGE

Philadelphia — continued

Bonsignori (Fig. 71) 1 72-1 73

Posen. Raczynski Collection

Catena 132

Richmond, (Surrey). Cook Collection

Variant of Giovanni Bellini (Fig. 40)

Crivelli, Carlo

Rome. Colonna Gallery

Studio of B. Vivarini

Rome. Doria Gallery

Solario, Antonio

48,49

Rome. Vatican Gallery

Crivelli, Carlo

23, 77

Serravalle, (Friuli). >

Antonio da Serravalle

SlGMARINGEN.

Variant of Giovanni Bellini

Stuttgart.

Imitation of "Pourtales Bellini"

131-132

Toledo, Ohio. Collection of Mr. John N. Willys

Bellini, Giovanni (Fig. 43)

92-95

Tresto, (Veneto).

Follower of Mantegna and The Bellini

74, 93

Troyes.

Cima

195, 196

Turin.

The Bellini, Follower of (Fig. 56)

145-146

Ucle, (Belgium). Collection of M. Van Gelder

Imitation of "Pourtales Bellini"

132

Venice. Academy

Antonio de Saliba

40, 41

Bellini, Gentile

143

Bellini, Giovanni (Fig. 38)

88:

100, 101-102

Studio of (Fig. 31)

70:

109-112

Quirizio da Murano

281

Venice. Museo Correr

Antonello

Bellinij Studio of

Lazzaro Bastiani
Venice. Querini-Stampaglia Gallery

Bellini's version of Mantegna
Venice. Miracoli

Rondinelli (?) (Fig. 90)
Venice. Redentore

Andrea da Murano
Venice. Salute

Studio of Bellini
Venice. Scalzi

Bellini, Copy of
Venice. St. Mark's

Bellini, Gentile
Verona.

Bellini, Giovanni

VlCENZA

Bellini, Giovanni, Copy of

Cima
Vienna

Antonello

Antonio de Saliba

Bellini, Giovanni
Vienna. Baron Tucher

Copy of Lehman Bellini

PAGE

33, 4i
1 09-1 12

154

220-223

89
114

143

69, 79

94
196

232

71 note

Washington, D. C. Collection of Mr. R. C. Johnson

Rondinelli 219

Washington, D. C. Collection of Mr. James Parmelee

Bartolommeo Veneto (Fig. 107) 259-260

Westbury, Long Island. Collection of Mr. Beekman Winthrop

Cima, Studio of 197-198

Worcester., Massachusetts. Art Museum

Bellini, Giovanni — Studio of (Fig. 47) 11 2-1 15

Montagna (Fig. 73) 1 77-179

THE END

282

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