THE MADONNA WITH THE DIADEM. RAPHAEL (ITALIAN: BORN 1483; DIED 1520).
MOTHER AND CHILD. RUBENS (FLEMISH: BORN 1577; DIED 1640).
VIRGIN, INFANT JESUS, AND ST. JOHN. BOTTICELLI (ITALIAN: BORN 1447; DIED 1515).
THE REPOSE OF THE HOLY FAMILY. CANTARINI (ITALIAN: BORN 1612; DIED 1648).
The next of these northern painters who can claim the first rank is he who is in some respects the greatest of all from a painter's standpoint, Rembrandt van Ryn. There is little of the primitive Italian here, little of the painter who worships his Madonna through the medium of his craft as some great lady, "empress of heaven and of earth." Rembrandt's picture, lacking this mysticism, gains, however, in humanity; and however far even from our modern point of view it may be as a creation embodying the divine Motherhood, it throbs with tenderness. The homely interior, the good mother, the almost pathetic abandon of the sleeping child—surely no painter ever wrought better, nor, we may be sure, more devoutly!