Two young men are seated on the grass; the one, wearing a green tunic with red sleeves, a red cap and parti-coloured hose, is playing on the lute; his companion bends over to listen to him. Before them a nude woman, her back turned to the spectator, is seated holding a flute. To the left another nude woman, with a drapery across her left hip, is drawing water at a fountain. In the background to the right is seen a shepherd with his flock. In the centre background are some houses.
Painted in oil on canvas.
3 ft. 7½ in. × 4 ft. 6½ in. (1·10 × 1·38.)
The same influences which formed the art of Giorgione inspired the pictures of Palma Vecchio (1480–1528), whose Adoration of the Shepherds with a Female Donor (No. 1399, [Plate XI.]) is brilliant in colour. The signature in the right foreground of this canvas, tician, is false. Palma left a large number of pictures unfinished at his death.
The Visitation (No. 1352) is an admirable example of the art of Sebastiano del Piombo (1485–1547), and is signed
SEBASTIANVS VENETVS FACIEBAT
ROMAE MDXXI.
It was purchased in the year indicated in the inscription by François i., who added it to his collection at Fontainebleau, whence it was removed by Louis xiv. to Versailles. The canvas, which has been a good deal injured, has at some time been cut into three pieces. The name by which this artist is generally known was derived from the office which he held late in life at the Papal Court. There he forsook the traditions of his native school and gradually came under the influence of Michelangelo. In Rome he also met Raphael, who was much impressed by his colour schemes: the St. John the Baptist in the Desert (No. 1500), here catalogued under the name of Raphael, and a few pictures similarly attributed in other galleries, were painted by Sebastiano in his Roman manner.
A prominent place among the less important artists generally included in this school must be accorded to Cariani (1480?–1547?). A large proportion of the pictures of this Bergamask painter usually pass under more imposing names, and it is a remarkable fact that we do not find any work attributed to him in the official Catalogue. He, however, painted a Holy Family (No. 1135), here assigned to Giorgione, as well as the Madonna and Child and St. Sebastian (No. 1159) given to Giovanni Bellini. The Portrait of Two Men (No. 1156), which for no very apparent reason was once regarded as the portraits of Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, must be by Cariani, although still placed to the credit of Gentile.
Another of the less efficient pupils of Giovanni Bellini was Niccolò Rondinelli (fl. 1480–1500), whose Madonna and Child, St. Peter, and St. Sebastian (No. 1158) masquerades as a work by Giovanni Bellini, whose full name, ioannes bellinvs, is inscribed in capitals (not, however, placed in a cartellino) on the parapet which runs across the front of the panel.