After a time spent in looking at and talking about the picture, during which Bettina told the story of the blossomed rod which Joseph bears over his shoulder, and the rod without blossoms which the disappointed suitor is breaking over his knee, Mr. Sumner gave them the other photograph.
"This," he resumed, "you will readily recognize, as you have so often looked at the picture in the Pitti Gallery in Florence—the Madonna del Gran Duca. This is the only Madonna that belongs to this period of Raphael's painting, and the last important picture in the style. It was painted during the early part of his visit to Florence."
"I never see this, uncle," said Margery, as she passed the photograph on to the others, "without thinking how the Grand Duke carried it about in its rich casket wherever he went, and said his prayers before it night and morning. I am glad the people named it after him. Don't you think it very beautiful, uncle?"
"Yes; and it is one of the purest Madonnas ever painted—so impersonal is the face," replied Mr. Sumner.
"I wish," he continued, "I could go on like this through a list of Raphael's works with you, but it is utterly impossible, so many are there. When he went to Florence, where you know he spent some years, he fell under the influence of the Florentine artists, and his work gradually lost its resemblance to Perugino's. It gained more freedom, action, grace, and strength of color. Some examples of this second style of his painting are the Madonna del Cardellino, or Madonna of the Goldfinch, which you will remember in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, and La Belle Jardinière in the Louvre, Paris. But I have brought photographs of these pictures so that you may see the striking difference between them and those previously painted."
Murmured exclamations attested the interest with which the comparison was made. After all seemed satisfied, Mr. Sumner continued:—
"After Raphael came to Rome, summoned by the same Pope Julius II. who sent for Michael Angelo, and was thus brought under the influence of that great painter, his method again changed. It grew firmer and stronger. Then he painted his best pictures,—and so many of them! So, you can see, it is somewhat difficult to characterize Raphael's work as a whole, for into it came so many influences. One thing, however, is true. From all those whom he followed, he gathered only the best qualities. His work deservedly holds its prominent place in the world's estimation;—so high and sweet and pure are its motifs, while their rendering is in the very best manner of the High Renaissance. No other artist ever painted so many noble pictures in so few years of time."
"Did not his pupils assist him in many works, uncle?" asked Malcom, as his uncle paused for a moment.
"Yes," replied Mr. Sumner, rising, "especially in the frescoes that we shall see by and by. It would have been utterly impossible for him to have executed all these with his own hand. Let us now go out into this next gallery through which we entered, and look at the Transfiguration."
So they went into the small room which is dedicated wholly to three large pictures:—the Transfiguration and Madonna di Foligno by Raphael, and the Communion of St. Jerome by Domenichino.