usy intriguing
Gerbier afterwards bought, only to part with it to Cardenas the Spanish
ambassador.[10] Other famous originals by Titian were among the choicest
gifts made by Philip IV. to Prince Charles at the time of his runaway
expedition to Madrid with the Duke of Buckingham, and this was no doubt
among them. Confirmation is supplied by the fact that the references to
the existence of this picture in the royal palaces of Madrid are for the
reigns of Philip II., Charles II., and Charles III., thus leaving a
large gap unaccounted for. Dimmed as the great portrait is, robbed of
its glow and its chastened splendour in a variety of ways, it is still a
rare example of the master's unequalled power in rendering race, the
unaffected consciousness of exalted rank, natural as distinguished from
assumed dignity. There is here no demonstrative assertion of _grandeza_,
no menacing display of truculent authority, but an absolutely serene and
simple attitude such as can only be the outcome of a consciousness of
supreme rank and responsibility which it can never have occurred to any
one to call into question. To see and perpetuate these subtle qualities,
which go so far to redeem the physical drawbacks of the House of
Hapsburg, the painter must have had a peculiar instinct for what is
aristocratic in the higher sense of the word--that is, both outwardly
and inwardly distinguished. This was indeed one of the leading
characteristics of Titian's great art, more especially in portraiture.
Giorgione went deeper, knowing the secret of the soul's refinement, the
aristocracy of poetry and passion; Lotto sympathetically laid bare the
heart's secrets and showed the pathetic helplessness of humanity.
Tintoretto communicated his own savage grandeur, his own unrest, to
those whom he depicted; Paolo Veronese charmed without _arriere-pensee_
by the intensity of vitality which with perfect simplicity he preserved
in his sitters. Yet to Titian must be conceded absolute supremacy in the
rendering not only of the outward but of the essential dignity, the
refinement of type and bearing, which without doubt come unconsciously
to those who can boast a noble and illustrious ancestry.

Again the writer hesitates to agree with Crowe and Cavalcaselle when
they place at this period, that is to say about 1533, the superb
_Allegory_ of the Louvre (No. 1589), which is very generally believed to
represent the famous commander Alfonso d'Avalos, Marques del Vasto,