Carlo Crivelli (Venetian: painted 1468-1493). See 602.
The figure of St. Mary Magdalene, with the vase of precious ointment, is characteristic of the painter's more affected style; notice especially the fingers elongated to the point of grotesqueness.
908. THE NATIVITY OF CHRIST.[193]
Piero della Francesca (Umbrian: 1416-1492). See 665.
"This painting is said to be unfinished. But even minute details, such as the pearls on the robes of the angels and on the head-dress of the Virgin, have been worked out with an accuracy which excites astonishment. One of the two shepherds, standing on the right side and seen in front, appears to have no pupils to his eyes, and this strange fact might account for the theory of the unfinished state of the picture. On the other hand it seems to me to have suffered very much from repainting in all the flesh parts.... The restorer has, I believe, forgotten to paint in the pupils of the shepherd's eyes after having destroyed them by the cleaning of the original painting" (Richter's Italian Art in the National Gallery, pp. 16, 17). The beauty of the picture is in the choir of angels with their mouths in different attitudes of singing, making such music sweet
As never was by mortal finger strook—
Divinely-warbled voice
Answering the stringèd noise,
As all their souls in blissful rapture took.
Milton: Hymn on Christ's Nativity.
"The picture is a masterpiece" says Mr. Hipkins, "in musical delineation. It is the perfectly expressed singing of these characteristic angels that arrests attention first; but the archæologist in musical instruments values the two large lutes held by the outside angels of the group, who are accompanying the singers. The splendid lines and fine dimensions of these instruments suggest their sonorous tone. When this picture came from the Barker Collection, each lute had eleven strings, and the number of pegs in one of them seems to have this number; but in cleaning the picture the strings have disappeared. As the picture was not finished by the painter, it is supposed that the strings were a later addition. However, the number was right, according to the practice with large lutes at that time, to give six open notes; the highest, or melody, string being open"[194] (The Hobby Horse, No. 1, 1893). "The figures of the Virgin and Child are of the gentlest and fairest type, and show undoubted signs of the Flemish influence, which made itself felt in Florence and throughout Central Italy after Hugo van der Goes set up his great altar-piece in the Ospedale of Santa Maria Novella" (W. G. Waters: Piero della Francesca p. 64).
This picture was formerly in the possession of the Marini-Franceschi family, of Borgo San Sepolcro, descendants of the painter. The wings and the predella once belonging to it are in the cathedral of that city.