"Why," said his friend, "it is not worth a scudo." "I will wager
what you please," said Salvator, "that it shall be worth a thousand
before you see it again." A bet was made, and Rosa immediately painted a
landscape with figures on the lid, which was not only sold for a
thousand scudi, but was esteemed a capital performance. On one end of
the harpsichord he also painted a skull and music-books. Both these
pictures were exhibited in the year 1823 at the British Institution.

RARE PORTRAIT BY SALVATOR ROSA.

While Salvator Rosa was on a visit to Florence, and refused all
applications for his pictures he was accidentally taken in to paint what
he so rarely condescended to do a portrait.

There lived in Florence a good old dame of the name of Anna Gaetano, of
some celebrity for keeping a notable inn, over the door of which was
inscribed in large letters, "Al buon vino non bisogna fruscia" (good
wine needs no bush). But it was not the good wines alone of Madonna Anna
that drew to her house some of the most distinguished men of Florence,
and made it particularly the resort of the Cavaliere Oltramontani--her
humor was as racy as her wine; and many of the men of wit and pleasure
about town were in the habit of lounging in the Sala Commune of Dame
Gaetano, merely for the pleasure of drawing her out. Among these were
Lorenzo Lippi and Salvator Rosa; and, although this Tuscan Dame Quickly
was in her seventieth year, hideously ugly, and grotesquely dressed, yet
she was so far from esteeming her age an "antidote to the tender
passion," that she distinguished Salvator Rosa by a preference, which
deemed itself not altogether hopeless of return. Emboldened by his
familiarity and condescension, she had the vanity to solicit him to
paint her portrait, "that she might," she said, "reach posterity by the
hand of the greatest master of the age."

Salvator at first received her proposition as a joke; but perpetually
teased by her reiterated importunities, and provoked by her pertinacity,
he at last exclaimed, "Well, Madonna, I have resolved to comply with
your desire; but with this agreement, that, not to distract my mind
during my work, I desire you will not move from your seat until I have
finished the picture." Madonna, willing to submit to any penalty in
order to obtain an honor which was to immortalize her charms, joyfully
agreed to the proposition; and Salvator, sending for an easel and
painting materials, drew her as she sat befo