[188] Signed Joannes Bellini, but by some critics ascribed to Gentile Bellini. See Frizzoni's Arte Italiana del Rinascimento, p. 314.
[189] To the same effect, Sir Edward Poynter: "The painting of the green forest is the most perfectly beautiful piece of workmanship that ever was put into a picture" (Lectures on Art, p. 128).
[190] But see note on No. 53.
[191] "Unfortunately, Hobbema has allowed some one, apparently Wyntrank, to put a few ducks into the foreground. They are not wanted, and the manipulation required to fit them in has caused the lower part of the picture to darken disagreeably" (Armstrong: Notes on the National Gallery, p. 38).
[192] Ruskin speaks of him as an artist "first-rate in an inferior line" (On the Old Road, i. 558).
[193] Some of Mr. Gladstone's purchases for the National Gallery are noticed in the introduction to Appendix II. The "Ansidei Madonna" was also purchased by a special vote when he was in power. The Gallery owes the present picture to Mr. Disraeli's taste. "I happened," says Sir William Fraser in his Disraeli and his Day, "to be at the saleroom in King Street: the crowd was considerable. A picture was on the easel for sale; I did not know the name of the painter: the subject, 'The Nativity,' of the pre-Raphaelite school. I was so charmed with it that I bid up to two thousand pounds. I then felt that I could not trust my judgment further: that I might be mistaken: and that the picture might be 'run up' for trade purposes. It was bought for £2415. A few days afterwards I met Mr. C. Having noticed him in the crowd, I said, 'Do you happen to know who bought that "Francesca"?' 'I did. Disraeli told me to buy it for the National Gallery.'"
[194] The fondness of the Old Masters for the brute creation is illustrated in this picture, as in so many others. The ox is evidently fascinated by the music; the ass is disturbed and brays fiercely. Note also the goldfinch upon the roof.
[195] "The painter must, for the present, remain as an unknown Umbrian, almost equally influenced by Pinturicchio and Signorelli, and with peculiar qualities of simple grace and romance, which give his work an extremely individual character" (Cruttwell's Signorelli, p. 117).
[196] English readers will find some account, with occasional translations, of Poliziano's poem in Symonds's Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, ii. 334, and Renaissance, iv. 350. Symonds, had already remarked that much of the poem is like a picture of Botticelli. The same painter's "Birth of Venus" may have been suggested by stanza 99 of Poliziano, though the peculiar sentiment of that famous picture is the painter's own. See also under 916.
[197] "We venture to ask," says Dr. Richter, "is this really an Italian picture?" (Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 87).