GERMANY

A Work from the "Bottega" of Ghirlandaio. No. 88 in the Berlin Gallery is a Virgin and Child in glory surrounded by five cherubim, with John the Evangelist and John the Baptist standing beneath, and in front of them, kneeling, St. Francis and St. Jerome. The Virgin is attributed to Ghirlandaio, the kneeling figures to Granacci; and the two Johns to pupils. Since Granacci was only seventeen when Ghirlandaio died (1494), it seems unlikely that he could have painted the St. Jerome (which is undeniably his work) and the St. Francis in collaboration with the older master. ÉMIL JACOBSEN, therefore (Jb. Preuss. Kunsts. XXV, iii, pp. 185–195), argues that the picture was painted by his pupils after Ghirlandaio's death, partly at least from his own designs. The Madonna he attributes to Mainardi, the kneeling saints to Granacci, and the two Johns to Sogliani. Granacci's sketch for St. Jerome's head was some time ago recognized by Jacobsen among the drawings of the Uffizi (Rep. f. K. 1902). The figure, however, is painted after two drawings by Ghirlandaio in the same collection. The attribution of the two Johns to Sogliani is based on the correspondence between the head of the Evangelist and a head by Sogliani among the Uffizi drawings, and the resemblance of the Baptist's head to that of the saint holding a scroll upon Sogliani's Conception in the Uffizi. Sogliani was only twenty years old when Mainardi died. If these two artists be accepted as collaborators in this picture, an earlier date than the year of Mainardi's death (1513) could hardly be given it. Jacobsen enumerates other Uffizi drawings which are related to pictures in the Berlin Gallery, and describes an interesting portrait head among the Uffizi drawings which he regards as a portrait of Verrocchio by himself.

A large

Porcelain Flowers in the Royal Collection at Dresden. bouquet of porcelain flowers is one of the most remarkable pieces in the Royal Collection at Dresden. The flowers are gathered in a white porcelain vase, flanked by two groups of figures also in white porcelain, each consisting of a woman accompanied by a child, the whole supported by an elaborated pedestal of gilded bronze. E. ZIMMERMANN in Gaz. B.-A. XXXI, 1904, pp. 238-244, cites passages from the Mémoires of the Duc de Luynes to show that the piece was in all probability made at Vincennes and sent by the Dauphiness Marie-Josèphe of Saxony in 1749, to Dresden, as a gift to her father Augustus III of Poland. While the Vincennes porcelain never equalled its rival of Meissen in other respects, in its flower-pieces it was unsurpassed.

AUSTRIA

The Prodigal Son in the Collection of Dr. Albert Figdor. This unique picture in which the artist has seized the most powerful moment in the story, the disillusionment of the Prodigal and his preparations to return to his father's house, is assigned on internal evidence by GUSTAV GLUCK to Hieronymus Bosch in Jb. Preuss. Kunsts. XXV, iii, pp. 174–184. The article is prefaced by an account of the use of the parable among the Netherland painters. Glück reclaims for Bosch a series of pictures beginning with a triptych painting of the Last Judgment in the Akademie der bildenden Künste at Vienna, which Dollmayr has assigned to an unknown "Monogrammatist M." The Vienna Last Judgment Glück regards as a copy after

the original ordered from Bosch by Philip the Fair. The Prodigal Son is a transitional picture showing how Bosch gradually passed from the painting of Biblical pictures to "Sittenbilder.”

GREAT BRITAIN

Titian's Ariosto. - ROGER E. FRY in Burl. Mag. 1904, pp. 136-138, discusses the evidence by which the portrait recently acquired for the National Gallery may lay claim to the above title. Herbert Cook on the basis of a passage from Vasari ascribes the portrait to Giorgione, and regards it as the likeness of a member of the Barbarigo family. Fry thinks that the portrait cannot be the one meant by Vasari, but on internal evidence is inclined to agree with Cook's view that the picture was left unfinished by Giorgione and completed by Titian, who added his signature, although he believes that Titian's share in the work is larger than Cook admits. After comparing the portrait with a woodcut and some medals which show portraits of Ariosto, Fry rejects the possibility that the poet could have been the sitter for the National Gallery picture.

This picture, formerly in recently bought for the It is a portrait of Dürer's

The New Dürer in the National Gallery. the collection of the late Lady Ashburton, was National Gallery for the sum, it is said, of £10,000. father, and passes as the original picture presented to Charles I by the city of Nuremberg along with a portrait of Dürer himself, now in the Prado. C. J. HOLMES, in Burl. Mag. August, 1904, pp. 431-434 (2 pls.), sums up the external evidence in support of its authenticity. The original is described in Van der Doort's inventory of 1637, and his description fits the National Gallery portrait sufficiently well. The signature reads: 1497, Albrecht Thurer Der Elter | Und Alt 70 Jor. There is some warrant for the spelling Thurer, but the lettering is Roman, which was only used once by Dürer, on the portrait of Oswalt Krel at Munich, and the lettering on the latter is slightly different. It has been argued that the signature on the original is represented by that on the portrait of Dürer's father in Munich, which corresponds in style with that upon the companion picture in the Prado. Holmes replies that the copies of the picture at Lyon House and Frankfort have the same rather unconvincing signature as the National Gallery portrait, and shows that certain mistakes in the signatures on the Lyon House and Frankfort pictures are only to be explained on the assumption that they were copies of the picture in the National Gallery. The painting is too rapidly and forcibly done to be a copy, and although Dürer has left us nothing else exactly like it, there is much resemblance to a drawing by Dürer in the British Museum and the variations in Dürer's style are well known. Holmes's conclusions are that the portrait was painted by Dürer in 1497, was copied carefully by the author of the Frankfort version, and less skilfully by the Munich copyist, who altered the signature after the manner of the portrait of Dürer in the Prado. It was presented along with the Prado picture to Charles I, after which the Lyon House copy was made (supposedly by Greenbury), and was catalogued by Van der Doort.

LIONEL CUST, in Burl. Mag. 1901, November, pp. 104-105 (Notes on Pictures in the Royal Collections, Art. IV, Two German Portraits'), suggests, on the basis of a comparison of the portrait of Dürer's father with a portrait of a young man which he considers the work of Hans Baldung, that

the former might have been produced by the same artist working in Dürer's studio. Ibid. September, pp. 570-572, the opinions on the authenticity of the picture held by CAMPBELL DODGSON, S. MONTAGU PEARTREE, R. E. FRY, and WALTER ARMSTRONG are recorded. Campbell Dodgson, in the face of the points made by Holmes, abandons his assumption that the inscription on the original must have been the same as that on the Munich copy, but refuses to regard the picture as anything more than the oldest and best of the copies of the original. Peartree thinks the portrait a genuine Dürer, giving two interesting reasons. (1) The painting shows an artist who was using the methods of a tempera painter while working in oils, and “Dürer was at this period first and foremost a tempera painter, and only experimented in oil when his productions were intended to remain within the family circle." A copyist could hardly have so successfully counterfeited this peculiar result. (2) The inscription was plainly added long after the completion of the picture. Why should a copyist allow a considerable length of time to elapse before putting in the signature? On the other hand, it is conceivable that the signature was added later as an inventorymark and possibly by his brother Andreas, on the supposition that the picture formed part of the artistic property appropriated after Dürer's death by Andreas, whose connection with the inscription is indicated by the spelling Thürer, the form which documentary evidence shows that he used. R. E. Fry regards the painting as a good early copy. Armstrong believes the balance of the evidence to be in favor of its authenticity, but is disturbed by the absence of convincing details. These comments are to be continued.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

OF

ARCHAEOLOGICAL BOOKS

1904

HAROLD N. FOWLER, Editor-in-charge

Books, pamphlets, and other matter for the Bibliography should be addressed to Professor FOWLER, Western Reserve University, Cleveland, O.

GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS

242