Italian art could possibly be. In the extravagance of its mannerism it comes much nearer to the late style of Pordenone or to that of his imitators.
18
Jahrbuch der Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, Heft I. 1895.
19
See also as to these paintings by Giorgione, the Notizia d’ Opere di Disegno, pubblicata da D. Jacopo Morelli, Edizione Frizzoni, 1884.
20
M. Thausing, Wiener Kunstbriefe, 1884.
21
Le Meraviglie dell’ Arte.
22
One of the many inaccuracies of Vasari in his biography of Titian is to speak of the Saint Mark as “una piccola tavoletta, un S. Marco a sedere in mezzo a certi santi.”
23
In connection with this group of works, all of them belonging to the early sixteenth century, there should also be mentioned an extraordinarily interesting and as yet little known Herodias with the Head of Saint John the Baptist by Sebastiano Del Piombo, bearing the date 1510. 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 altarpiece by Sebastiano at San Giovanni Crisostomo in Venice, with Sir Francis Cook’s injured but still lovely Venetian Lady as the Magdalene (the same ruddy blonde model), and with the four Giorgionesque Saints in the Church of San Bartolommeo al Rialto.
24
Die Galerien zu München und Dresden, p. 74.
25
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 Tribute Money. 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 sensitive and intensely significant landscape is one of Titian’s loveliest.
26
An ingenious suggestion was made 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 National Gallery 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 Baffo inscription being admittedly of later date. Thus that the The Tribute Money bears the “Ticianus F.” on the collar of the Pharisee’s shirt is an additional argument in favour of maintaining its date as originally given by Vasari (1514), instead of putting it back to 1508 or thereabouts. Among a good many other paintings with this last signature may be mentioned the Man with a Glove and Virgin with the Rabbit of the Louvre; the Madonna with Saint Anthony Abbot of the Uffizi; the Bacchus and Ariadne, the Assunta, the Saint Sebastian of Brescia (dated 1522). The Virgin and Child with Saint Catherine of the National Gallery, and the Christ with the Pilgrims at Emmaus of the Louvre – neither of them early works – are signed “Tician”. The usual signature of the later time is “Titianus F.”, among the first works to show it being the Ancona altarpiece and the great Madonna di San Niccolò now in the Pinacoteca of the Vatican. It has been incorrectly stated that the late Saint Jerome of the Brera bears the earlier signature, “Ticianus F.”. This is not the case. The signature is most distinctly “Titianus”, though in a somewhat unusual character.
27
Crowe and Cavalcaselle describe it as a “picture which has not its equal in any period of Giorgione’s practice.” (History of Painting in North Italy, vol. ii.)
Italian art could possibly be. In the extravagance of its mannerism it comes much nearer to the late style of Pordenone or to that of his imitators.
