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excuse need be offered for its publication in THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE, inasmuch as it bears directly on one of the lesser problems in our National Gallery, where, in the Venetian Room, has hung for some years a similar painting ascribed to Savoldo. That this ascription is erroneous is admitted in the large illustrated edition of the catalogue, published a year or two ago by Sir Edward Poynter, the director, and it seems a pity to keep the old label with Savoldo's name still attached to the frame. The National Gallery is a place of public resort, and the public believes in the labels it reads; for what does the public know of Savoldo? Those, however, who have studied his work at Venice, Milan, Verona, and elsewhere know that our National Gallery picture is only in a remote degree akin to him in style, and anyone who will take the trouble to make a comparison with the Magdalen in the same room (which is a genuine example), and also with the two pictures by him at Hampton Court, will be able to convince himself that Sir Edward Poynter is right in removing the Brescian master's name from the catalogue, and more wisely substituting Venetian School.' Now comes the Leuchtenberg picture, a comparison with which proves that such likenesses exist as to exclude all theory of chance resemblance, yet such differences also exist as to dispel any suspicion that the one may be a copy of the other. In such cases a common original can usually be inferred, a deduction which modern archaeologists habitually make in similar circumstances; and rightly, for a common idea, or conception, underlies the outward divergencies of detail, so that when the highest common factor can be found we can reconstruct in idea what such an original must have been like. Now it is curious that Giorgione's name is attached to the Leuchtenberg picture, for anyone at all familiar with Venetian painting must see at a glance that the style proclaims a period at least a decade after his death in 1510. It

is more than probable that both this picture Two Alleged and that in the National Gallery date from 'Giorgiones' about 1530 or so. Giorgione cannot possibly have produced either the one or the other: but is it altogether beyond possibility that some idea of his may have served as basis for later artists to work up? Strictly speaking, neither picture is Giorgionesque, except by reflection, for the dazzling personality of the young Castelfrancan shed lustre even on the succeeding generation in Venice. In neither does the painting show much trace of that mysterious glamour which the master, above all Venetian painters, knew how to impart. Yet in the romantic rendering of the subject, and in the picturesque treatment of landscape, we may trace an ultimate connexion with the art of Giorgione. In neither is the handling so unmistakably individual as to warrant a positive opinion as to authorship. It is true that several competent judges profess to recognize the hand of Calisto da Lodi in the National Gallery picture,' but further research is needed before certainty of judgement is reached; and as to the Leuchtenberg example-well, it matters little whether Beccaruzzi or some other imitator of better things be the author. Two separate painters have taken a common theme, they have treated the group of St. Joseph and the two Shepherds practically alike, and have laid down the outlines of landscape and architecture in the same way. Each has shown his independence in the treatment of the Madonna and Child and in the minor accessories. One of these details in the Leuchtenberg picture shows the sort of man the painter was, for he has calmly appropriated the idea of the boy angel playing at the trough, a motive which Titian first introduced in the world-famous Sacred and Profane Love. He seems also prone to introduce non-significant detail, such as the dog (very wooden, by the way) and the elaborate accessories of the ruined stable, the architecture of which baffles analysis.

1 Cf. Jacobsen. Rep. für Kunstwiss. xxiv, 5. p. 368.

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HE two bas-reliefs reproduced were not only known but also celebrated before they came to the Louvre. The first, a bust and profile, represents a juvenile figure, almost feminine, clothed in shining armour, wearing a helmet decorated with a surprising dash and fantasy, round which may be read this unexpected and rather unusual inscription: 'P. Scipioni.' It is not known under what circumstances this was acquired by M. Paul Rattier, an amateur of Paris. On his death he bequeathed it to the Louvre with reserve of usufruct on behalf of his brother. The latter has just died, and the museum thus enters into absolute possession of the legacy. In the various exhibitions where this bas-relief has been displayed it has not failed, as may be imagined, to attract the attention and excite the curiosity of students and critics. As it recalls by the expression of the face a great number of Leonardo's figures and, in the decoration of the armour and the helmet, motives frequent in the work of the master, notably the celebrated warrior in the Malcolm collection, we think firstly and very naturally of Leonardo da Vinci. We know, too, that he was

a sculptor as well as a painter; he himself says expressly in his treatise on painting that, having practised the two arts with equal care, he has a good foundation for pronouncing on the difficulties of both. But we know of no authentic sculpture from his hand which could serve as a starting-point or as a means of comparison for the purpose of making a decisive attribution. Is the St. John the Baptist in the South Kensington Museum, which came from the Gigli Campana collection, really from his hand? No one can prove it. And of the busts of children and women which, according to Vasari, he executed in clay (Facendo nella sua giovanezza di terra alcune teste di femine che ridono, che vanno formate per l'arte di gesso, e parimente teste di putti che parevano usciti di mano d'un maestro'), none have come down to us. Bode, who was the first to pronounce the name of Leonardo in connexion with the Scipio of the Rattier collection, proposed, afterwards, that of his master Verrochio. The reasons which prompted him are as follows: Vasari has told us that Verrochio had made 'due teste di metallo; una d'Alessandro Magno in profilo; l'altro d' un Dario, a suo capriccio, pur di mezzo rilievo, e ciascuno da per se, variando l'un dall' altro ne cimieri, nell armadura od in ogni cosa; le quali amendue furono mandate dal magnifico Lorenzo vecchio de' Medici al re Mattia Corvino in Ungharia, con molte altre cose. . . .' Why should not the Scipio belong to the same series? The ornamentation of the helmet, the design of the streamers which decorate it, especially the modelling of the mouth, do they not recall other works of Verrochio, and notably the execution of the mouth of his David? These arguments, no matter on what authority we have them, are not decisive. Courajod, Muntz, Muller-Walde, and the latest historian of Verrochio, M. Mackowsky, incline rather towards maintaining the name of Leonardo da Vinci or of his school. All that can be said with

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