intention has been not so much to emphasise the tragic
character of the motive as to exhibit to the highest advantage the
voluptuous charm, the languid indifference of a Venetian beauty posing
for Herod's baleful consort. Repetitions of this _Herodias_ exist in the
Northbrook Collection and in that of Mr. R.H. Benson. The latter, which
is presumably from the workshop of the master, and shows variations in
one or two unimportant particulars from the Doria picture, is here,
failing the original, reproduced with the kind permission of the owner.
A conception traceable back to Giorgione would appear to underlie, not
only this Doria picture, but that _Herodias_ which at Dorchester House
is, for not obvious reasons, attributed to Pordenone, and another
similar one by Palma Vecchio, of which a late copy exists in the
collection of the Earl of Chichester. Especially is this community of
origin noticeable in the head of St. John on the charger, as it appears
in each of these works. All of them again show a family resemblance in
this particular respect to the interesting full-length _Judith_ at the
Hermitage, now ascribed to Giorgione, to the over-painted half-length
_Judith_ in the Querini-Stampalia Collection at Venice, and to Hollar's
print after a picture supposed by the engraver to give the portrait of
Giorgione himself in the character of David, the slayer of Goliath.[26]
The sumptuous but much-injured _Vanitas_, which is No. 1110 in the Alte
Pinakothek of Munich--a beautiful woman of the same opulent type as the
_Herodias_, holding a mirror which reflects jewels and other symbols of
earthly vanity--may be classed with the last-named work. Again we owe it
to Morelli[27] that this painting, ascribed by Crowe and
Cavalcaselle--as the _Herodias_ was ascribed--to Pordenone, has been
with general acceptance classed among the early works of Titian. The
popular _Flora_ of the Uffizi, a beautiful thing still, though all the
bloom of its beauty has been effaced, must be placed rather later in
this section of Titian's life-work, displaying as it does a technique
more facile and accomplished, and a conception of a somewhat higher
individuality. The model is surely the same as that which has served for
the Venus of the _Sacred and Profane Love_, though the picture comes
some years after that piece. Later still comes the so-called _Alfonso
d'Este and Laura Dianti_, as to which something will be said farther on.
Another puzzle is provided