[161] Now ascribed by many critics to Bouts (see 783).
[162] Or more correctly, Piero dei' Franceschi, after the family name of his mother. Her Christian name was Romana, and Piero's father, it has now been ascertained, continued living during many years of his son's career. The year of Piero's birth is unknown.
[163] This is a more charitable judgment than contemporary documents would suggest. In 1450 Fra Filippo was thrown into prison for a debt which he denied, and under torture confessed that he had forged the receipt. He was deprived of his rectory, and appealed to the Pope, who, however, confirmed the sentence, in a brief in which the painter is accused of "numerous and abominable wickednesses."
[164] It is interesting to note the cartellino, or little card at the foot of the picture, on which Antonello inscribes his name and the date. This cartellino was taken as a model by Giovanni Bellini and subsequent Venetian artists (see e.g. 189 and 280).
[165] Comparing him with Italian painters, his period of activity is seen to be coincident with the earlier work of Carpaccio and Perugino; he died while Raphael was still a boy. Crowe and Cavalcaselle have shown that Memlinc's work was well known and appreciated among Italian connoisseurs of the time.
[166] I venture to retain this title, though the Official Catalogue assures us that it is but "a pleasing illusion," as "the features and the general form of head have little or no resemblance to the quite authentic portraits of Andrea" at Florence, "or to that engraved by Vasari, who was personally acquainted with the painter. If (adds the catalogue) the object in the hands represents, as it well may, a piece of modelling-clay, the subject of the portrait was probably a Florentine sculptor." In that case we may perhaps save our "pleasing illusion" by supposing that Andrea interpreted the expression of a fellow-artist by his own experience. But the case is by no means clear. The earlier portrait in the Uffizi is not very unlike ours. In the later some resemblance remains, though the face has coarsened. But this is a matter on which every one must see resemblances or otherwise for himself. (Reproductions will be found in the monograph on the painter in the "Great Masters" series. The author, H. Guinness, considers the authenticity of our portrait to be "beyond question," p. 23).
[167] Lucrezia's character has, however, been whitewashed of late years: see Gazette des Beaux Arts, December 1876 and three following months.
[168] This delightful picture, which has hitherto been ascribed to Bellini himself, is now (1898) attributed in the official catalogue to Catena (see 234).
[169] "The pet portrait of the lecturer was Moroni's 'Tailor.' Luckily the original painting was in the National Gallery, and all interested could judge for themselves whether, for simplicity, expression, drawing, colour, and above all, soul, the portrait had a rival" (Report of a lecture on "Portraiture" by Mr. Harry Furniss).
[170] In a red-figured vase in the British Museum (E 477 in the Third Vase Room) there is a picture of this same subject. "The drawing," says Miss Harrison, "is somewhat coarse, and the painter seems to be struggling with a subject that is expressively too much for him. Procris sinks in death in an odd, ill-drawn attitude; her soul escapes in the form of a bird, Kephalos smites his head in despair, the dog Lailaps watches concerned. Erechtheus, the old king-father, is at hand to sympathise; the curt archaic symbolism of attitude, the utterance of mere gesture, is at fault here. The story was pregnant with modern suggestion. It had to wait, so to speak, for the delicate imagination of the Renaissance painter, Piero di Cosimo, to make us feel the contrast between the dead woman, over-sentient, passion-slain, and the shaggy faun, kindly perplexed, and the dumb, faithful dog; between the soft slack peace of the woodland and the terrible tension of humanity" (Magazine of Art, 1894, p. 61).