*460. Leonardo. “La Vierge aux Rochers.” A replica of the picture in the National Gallery in London. Much faded, but probably genuine. Examine closely the rocks, the Madonna, and the Angel.
395. Solario. Good portrait of Charles d’Amboise, a member of the great French family who will frequently crop up in connection with the Renaissance.
461. Attributed to Leonardo, more probably Bernardino de’ Conti. Portrait of a Lady. Compare with the Mona Lisa, as exhibiting well the real advance in portraiture made by Leonardo.
463. Attributed to Leonardo, but probably spurious; Bacchus, a fine youthful figure, begun as a St. John Baptist, and afterwards altered. Compare with the other St. John Baptist near it.
*Beltraffio. The Madonna of the Casio family. A characteristic Leonardesque virgin, attended by St. John Baptist and the bleeding St. Sebastian. (A votive picture.) By her side kneel two members of the Casio family, one the poet of that name, crowned with laurel. Intermediate Renaissance treatment of the Madonna and donors.
78 and 79. Good Franciscan saints, by Moretto.
Between them, 298. Charming Girolamo dai Libri.
We now come upon a magnificent series of works by Titian, in whom the Venetian School, ill-represented in its origin in the Salle des Primitifs, finds its culminating point.
**440. Titian. The Madonna with the Rabbit. This is one of a group of Titian’s Madonnas (several examples here) in which he endeavours to transform Bellini’s type (see the specimen in the Salle des Primitifs) into an ideal of the 16th century. The Madonna is here attended by St. Catherine of Alexandria, marked as a princess by her coronet and pearls. The child, bursting from her arms, plays with the rabbit. Once more a notion far-removed from primitive piety. Notice the background of Titian’s own country. Landscape is now beginning to struggle for recognition. Earlier art was all figures, first sacred, then also mythological.
445. Titian. The Crown of Thorns. A powerful but very painful painting. The artist is chiefly occupied with anatomy and the presentation of writhing emotion. The spiritual is lost in muscular action.