Royal Galleries_, p. 201.)]

6. I will give one more instance. There is in our National Gallery
a Venetian picture which is striking from its peculiar and
characteristic treatment. On one side, the Virgin with her Infant is
seated on a throne; a cavalier, wearing armour and a turban, who looks
as if he had just returned from the eastern wars, prostrates himself
before her: in the background, a page (said to be the portrait of the
painter) holds the horse of the votary. The figures are life-size,
or nearly so, as well as I can remember, and the sentimental dramatic
treatment is quite Venetian. It is supposed to represent a certain
Duccio Constanzo of Treviso, and was once attributed to Giorgione: it
is certainly of the school of Bellini. (Nat. Gal. Catalogue, 234.)

* * * * *

As these enthroned and votive Virgins multiplied, as it became more
and more a fashion to dedicate them as offerings in churches, want
of space, and perhaps, also, regard to expense, suggested the idea of
representing the figures half-length. The Venetians, from early time
the best face painters in the world, appear to have been the first
to cut off the lower part of the figure, leaving the arrangement
otherwise much the same. The Virgin is still a queenly and majestic
creature, sitting there to be adored. A curtain or part of a carved
chair represents her throne. The attendant saints are placed to the
right and to the left; or sometimes the throne occupies one side of
the picture, and the saints are ranged on the other. From the shape
and diminished size of these votive pictures the personages, seen
half-length, are necessarily placed very near to each other, and the
heads nearly on a level with that of the Virgin, who is generally
seen to the knees, while the Child is always full-length. In such
compositions we miss the grandeur of the entire forms, and the
consequent diversity of character and attitude; but sometimes
the beauty and individuality of the heads atone for all other
deficiencies.

* * * * *

In the earlier Venetian examples, those of Gian Bellini particularly,
there is a solemn quiet elevation which renders them little inferior,
in religious sentiment, to the most majestic of the enthroned and
enskied Madonnas.

* * * * *

There is a sacred group by Bellini, in the possession of Sir Charles
Eastlake, which has always appeared to me