tion
of Mr. George Salting. It shows the painter admirably in his purely
Giorgionesque phase, the authentic date bearing witness that it was
painted during the lifetime of the Castelfranco master. It groups
therefore with the great altar-piece by Sebastiano at S. Giovanni
Crisostomo in Venice, with Sir Francis Cook's injured but still lovely
_Venetian Lady as the Magdalen_ (the same ruddy blond model), and with
the four Giorgionesque _Saints_ in the Church of S. Bartolommeo al
Rialto.

[27] _Die Galerien zu Muenchen und Dresden_, p. 74.

[28] The _Christ_ of the Pitti Gallery--a bust-figure of the Saviour,
relieved against a level far-stretching landscape of the most solemn
beauty--must date a good many years after the _Cristo della Moneta_. In
both works the beauty of the hand is especially remarkable. The head of
the Pitti _Christ_ in its present state might not conclusively proclaim
its origin; but the pathetic and intensely significant landscape is one
of Titian's loveliest.

[29] Last seen in public at the Old Masters' Exhibition of the Royal
Academy in 1895.

[30] An ingenious suggestion was made, when the _Ariosto_ was last
publicly exhibited, that it might be that _Portrait of a Gentleman of
the House of Barbarigo_ which, according to Vasari, Titian painted with
wonderful skill at the age of eighteen. The broad, masterly technique of
the Cobham Hall picture in no way accords, however, with Vasari's
description, and marks a degree of accomplishment such as no boy of
eighteen, not even Titian, could have attained. And then Vasari's
"giubbone di raso inargentato" is not the superbly luminous steel-grey
sleeve of this _Ariosto_, but surely a vest of satin embroidered with
silver. The late form of signature, "Titianus F.," on the stone
balustrade, which is one of the most Giorgionesque elements of the
portrait, is disquieting, and most probably a later addition. It seems
likely that the balustrade bore originally only the "V" repeated, which
curiously enough occurs also on the similar balustrade of the beautiful
_Portrait of a young Venetian_, by Giorgione, first cited as such by
Morelli, and now in the Berlin Gallery, into which it passed from the
collection of its discoverer, Dr. J.P. Richter. The signature "Ticianus"
occurs, as a rule, on pictures belonging to the latter half of the first
period. The works in the earlier half of this first period do not appear
to have been signed, the "Titiano F." of the _Baf