a new and illustrious
patron in the person of Federigo Gonzaga II., Marquess of Mantua, son of
that most indefatigable of collectors, the Marchioness Isabella d'Este
Gonzaga, and nephew of Alfonso of Ferrara. The _Entombment_ being a
"Mantua piece,"[47] Crowe and Cavalcaselle have not unnaturally assumed
that it was done expressly for the Mantuan ruler, in which case, as some
correspondence published by them goes to show, it must have been painted
at, or subsequently to, the latter end of 1523. Judging entirely by the
style and technical execution of the canvas itself, the writer feels
strongly inclined to place it earlier by some two years or
thereabouts--that is to say, to put it back to a period pretty closely
following upon that in which the _Worship of Venus_ and the _Bacchanal_
were painted. Mature as Titian's art here is, it reveals, not for the
last time, the influence of Giorgione with which its beginnings were
saturated. The beautiful head of St. John shows the Giorgionesque type
and the Giorgionesque feeling at its highest. The Joseph of Arimathea
has the robustness and the passion of the Apostles in the _Assunta_,
the crimson coat of Nicodemus, with its high yellowish lights, is such
as we meet with in the _Bacchanal_. The Magdalen, with her features
distorted by grief, resembles--allowing for the necessary differences
imposed by the situation--the women making offering to the love-goddess
in the _Worship of Venus_. The figure of the Virgin, on the other hand,
enveloped from head to foot in her mantle of cold blue, creates a type
which would appear to have much influenced Paolo Veronese and his
school. To define the beauty, the supreme concentration of the
_Entombment_, without by dissection killing it, is a task of difficulty.
What gives to it that singular power of enchanting the eye and
enthralling the spirit, the one in perfect agreement with the other, is
perhaps above all its unity, not only of design, but of tone, of
informing sentiment. Perfectly satisfying balance and interconnection of
the two main groups just stops short of too obvious academic grace--the
well-ordered movement, the sweeping rhythm so well serving to accentuate
the mournful harmony which envelops the sacred personages, bound
together by the bond of the same great sorrow, and from them
communicates itself, as it were, to the beholder. In the colouring,
while nothing jars or impairs the concert of the tints taken as a whole,
each one