years after Raphael, and fourteen after Titian. The date of his birth rests, as a matter of fact, upon the testimony of Vasari, not always a very solid foundation; but such evidence as there is to be gleaned indirectly from other sources rather confirms than discredits what has become the received tradition. For a long time a thick mist of obscurity hung over the outset of the painter's career. By some he was represented as of lowly origin, born into a state of indigence and misery, from which the efforts even of his genius were powerless to extricate him. Others, as is only natural, in the zeal of partisanship, or in the desire to give voice in the altera pars, could not refrain from contending that in addition to the high prerogative of natural endowment, Correggio enjoyed the artificial privilege of noble birth.

IV. Drawing by Correggio, in pen and bistre, touched with red chalk and opaque white (Plate XIX).'

An elaborate study for the picture of the Nativity (La Notte) at Dresden. The child lies, encircled by the arms of the kneeling Virgin, in a manger roughly contrived in the ruins of a palace, or it may be a temple, in the classical style. In front of the Virgin two angels stand as ministers or spectators. The shepherds enter from the right. The most conspicuous of them is accompanied by his dog, and, leaning against a pillar, contemplates the scene with reverent interest, while above his head the floating angels that, "fallen in a shower from heaven " (Vasari) reappear so prominently in the finished work, are faintly indicated as if by an afterthought. Behind the manger appear the traditional ox and ass, and the head and shoulders of St. Joseph, while further still, through a lofty circular archway, the lines of a mountainous stretch of country are visible.

1

"Reproductions of Drawings by the Old Masters in the Collection of the Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery at Wilton House," London, 1900 (Plate 2). On this exquisite drawing see Corrado Ricci in “Rassegna dell' Arte,” January, 1901, page 8 f. [The above fragments IV-VIII have been selected almost at random, as further examples of Strong's descriptive powers. To reprint the text of this volume, without the accompanying illustrations, would have been manifestly unfair. The drawings at Wilton, which had long been mislaid, were rediscovered by Mr. Herbert Cook, shortly before their publication was undertaken by Mr. Strong.-ED.]

This drawing, and the earlier sketch at the British Museum, combine to show the care which the painter took to comprehend and realize to the full the possibilities of his theme. The tone of our drawing is more formal and classical, while the treatment at the British Museum is more familiar and rustic. In the present case the painter is more concerned with the combination and the balance of lines; in the other he is dealing mainly with that problem of illumination of which La Notte was to give the cardinal and unapproachable solution.

In the picture there is less of empty space than in our sketch; the components of the group are drawn in more closely to the radiant point or focus; but, on the whole, the painter has kept to the general scheme as we have it here.

V. Sketch by Correggio.

First thought hastily noted in red chalk for one of the famous groups of children at play, which Correggio painted about 1518, in the Convent of St. Paul at Parma.

Though the design is not one of those that were finally chosen and employed by the master, it bears all the traces of his hand. It is the work of a painter who uses line simply for its convenience, and provisionally, but whose real language is colour.

VI. Drawing for the fresco of the Annunciation, which Correggio painted about 1524 for the Church of the Fathers of the Annunciation in Parma (Plate XX).1

Of the fresco itself nothing now remains but the ruined fragment in the Parma Gallery; but with the help of old engravings we can see that the painter must have adhered to this plan. The group is contrived so as at once to fill the space and tell the story with something of the masterly comprehension that we admire in a Greek

1 66 Reproductions of Drawings by the Old Masters in the Collection of the Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery at Wilton House," London, 1900 (Plate 24). 2 Ibid, Plate 25.

gem, while there is an unearthly sublimity about the angel borne forward in the midst of a cloud that "the painter of the Graces" rarely achieved.

VII. Drawing, by Federigo Baroccio, in black and red chalk, of a nymph reclining asleep on cushions under a tree. A dog couches at her feet.

In this charming drawing Baroccio displays the closeness of his dependence upon Correggio. The head large in proportion to the body; the pose and shape of the right arm; and the handling which suggests surface better than structure, are all constant features of the style of Correggio. But while he looks back to Correggio, Baroccio also looks forward to Cipriani and Bartolozzi, with whom this style may be said to have evaporated at last in a flush of rosepink.

VIII. Drawing of the Last Supper, by Federigo Baroccio."

Baroccio here discards the tradition to which Leonardo gave its classical and culminating form, and tells the story in a way that would have astonished any one of the Evangelists. He has striven hard to make the scene impressive; but with simplicity and fidelity all the dramatic elements have disappeared-melted away in the pervading atmosphere of sentimental pietism.

This is the art of the seventeenth century, of which the main chance lies through an appeal to the emotions when reason has gone over to the opposite camp.

IX. The Portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire by Sir Joshua

Reynolds.

"Portrait of the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire and her child by Sir Joshua Reynolds" Ich nenne dich und alles ist gesagt! The single phrase is the key to a whole world.

Born in 1757, her career embraced the period between Johnson,

1 66 Reproductions of Drawings by the Old Masters in the Collection of the Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery at Wilton House," London, 1900 (Plate 8). 2 Ibid., Plate 50. a Unpublished fragment.

3