ects painted by
him. We have here the three figures only, as large as life, filling
the region of glory, without angels, witnesses, or accessories of any
kind, except the small cherubim beneath; and the symmetrical treatment
gives to the whole a sort of sublime effect. But the heads have the
air of portraits: Christ has a dark, earnest, altogether Spanish
physiognomy; the Virgin has dark hair; and the _Padre Eterno_, with
a long beard, has a bald head,--a gross fault in taste and propriety;
because, though the loose beard and flowing white hair may serve to
typify the "Ancient of Days," baldness expresses not merely age, but
the infirmity of age.

Rubens, also, painted a "Coronation" with all his own lavish
magnificence of style for the Jesuits at Brussels. After the time
of Velasquez and Rubens, the "Immaculate Conception" superseded the
"Coronation."

* * * * *

To enter further into the endless variations of this charming and
complex subject would lead us through all the schools of art from
Giotto to Guido. I have said enough to render it intelligible
and interesting, and must content myself with one or two closing
_memoranda_.

1. The dress of the Virgin in a "Coronation" is generally splendid,
too like the coronation robes of an earthly queen,--it is a "raiment
of needlework,"--"a vesture of gold wrought about with divers
colours"--generally blue, crimson, and white, adorned with gold, gems,
and even ermine. In the "Coronation" by Filippo Lippi, at Spoleto, she
wears a white robe embroidered with golden suns. In a beautiful little
"Coronation" in the Wallerstein collection (Kensington Pal.) she wears
a white robe embroidered with suns and moons, the former red with
golden rays, the latter blue with coloured rays,--perhaps in allusion
to the text so often applied in reference to her, "a woman clothed
with the _sun_," &c. (Rev. xii. 1, or Cant. vi. 10.)

2. In the set of cartoons for the tapestries of the Sistine Chapel
(Kugler's Handbook, ii. 394), as originally prepared by Raphael,
we have the foundation, the heaven-bestowed powers, the trials and
sufferings of the early Church, exhibited in the calling of St. Peter,
the conversion of St. Paul, the acts and miracles of the apostles, the
martyrdom of St. Stephen; and the series closed with the Coronation
of the Virgin, placed over the altar, as typical of the final triumph
of the Church, the completion and fulfilment of all the