the picture. It has the same short but firmly modelled nose, the same straight lips, the same somewhat square chin.1

We may now briefly mention the studies for the Infant Jesus.

The Louvre owns three, in silver-point heightened with Chinese white, on that greenish paper Leonardo seems to have specially affected during his first Florentine period. They are all of the Child's head, and show it in profile; he looks before him, while, in the

picture, he turns to look at his mother. Note, however, that whereas in the first the face is in sharp profile, in the other two the artist tries the effect of a " profil perdu" (i.e., less than a full profile). Dr. Richter (vol. i., p. 345) questions the authenticity of the principal drawing (no 383 in M. Reiset's catalogue), which he holds to be a copy of later date. point.

But I am unable to share his views on this. Herr Müller-Walde, on the other hand, describes the drawing as "herrlich" (superb).

A smaller, but more complete study of the same head, with the shoulders and part of the breast added, is in the Royal Library at Windsor (Richter, pl. xliv.). It is a very realistic drawing, the expression of the face curiously old and prescient. It is noticeable that it is in red chalk, a medium never used by Leonardo's predecessors, and infrequently by himself till a comparatively late period of his career. Nothing short of Richter's authority, therefore, would induce me to accept the authenticity of this study, the earliest in date. of Leonardo's drawings in red chalk.

Another study for the Child, seated, and leaning on one hand, an angel's head beside him, was published by Gerli (pl. xix.).

Finally, a pencil drawing of a child's head, touched with Chinese white, in the Chatsworth collection, is also supposed to be a study for the picture.2

We may now pass on to the studies for the little S. John. A sketch for the head, three quarters to the front, is to be found in the Vallardi collection, in the Louvre (Braun, no. 170). It is drawn in silver-point, on greenish paper: (Richter, vol. i., 342). This head

1 I only know the grisaille sketch for the head of the Virgin in the Holford collection by Rio's mention of it in L'Art Chrétien (vol. iii., p. 81).

2 Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain, vol. iii., p. 353.

served Raphael as his type for a whole series of Infant Saviours. The same head re-appears in a drawing in the Duke of Devonshire's collection, also on green paper, side by side with a head of the Virgin. (See our pl. vi.)

Two drawings in the Mancel gallery, in the Hôtel de Ville at Caen, to which my attention was drawn by M. Léopold Mabilleau, and for photographs of which I am indebted to the learned keeper of the gallery, M. Decauville-Lachenée, are studies for the little S. John and the Infant Jesus. A long interval, however, perhaps several years, seems to have divided these studies from the finished work. As his habit was, the artist, before sitting down to his easel, submitted his various figures to a laborious process of adaptation. Thus, he made the profile head considerably younger in the picture; from a boy, the child became an infant. He also reduced the masses of hair to normal proportions, and softened the expression of the little S. John.

German critics, from Passavant and Waagen to Herr Müller-Walde, have contested the authenticity of the Virgin of the Rocks from time to time.1

Setting all patriotic considerations aside, I cannot but maintain the Louvre picture to be one of those in which the master's genius manifests itself most gloriously. Allowances must, of course, be made for the unhappily numerous repaints, and the blackening of the shadows, a defect aggravated by the thick yellow varnish that overlies the surface. Granted that the composition has not achieved the breadth and grandeur of the Last Supper, or the suavity of the S. Anne, yet it shows us Leonardo as his own precursor.

A replica of the Virgin of the Rocks was bought in 1880, at the considerable price of £9,000, for the English National Gallery, which claims in this example to have acquired the true original by Leonardo. The replica, which came from the Suffolk collection, was bought in

1 Quite recently, M. Strzygowski pronounced the Virgin of the Rocks, in the Louvre, a bad copy! (Jahrbuch der kgl. Kunstsammlungen, 1895, p. 165.) See also Sir E. Poynter's article in the Art Journal, 1894, p. 229-232. But cf. Signor Frizzoni (Gazette des Beaux Arts, 1884, vol. i., p. 235), Herr Koopmann (Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft, 1891, P. 353-360), Dr. Richter (Art Journal, 1894, pp. 166–170, 300-301), and various other foreign critics, who all uphold the Louvre picture.

It is

Italy in 1796 by the collector, Gavin Hamilton, for 30 ducats. declared to be the picture described by Lomazzo as in the church of San Francesco at Milan at the end of the sixteenth century.1 The two side pictures, single figures of angels, passed into the collection of the Duca Melzi. They have now (July, 1898) been acquired by the National Gallery, and have lately been placed on either side of the altar - piece, as works

by Leonardo's fellowlabourer, Ambrogio de Predis.

An absolutely decisive argument in favour of the authenticity of the Louvre picture is furnished by the fact that there are studies by Leonardo in the École des Beaux Arts and at Windsor (see pp. 165, 167), showing the angel's hand outstretched towards the Infant Jesus. As is well known, this gesture is modified in the London example, which must therefore be of later date than ours.

In the first of these drawings, which has escaped the investigations of all my predecessors, the standing figure certainly seems to have been re-touched, perhaps even re-drawn in parts; but the two fragments of the arms and hands proclaim Leonardo's authorship with unmistakable precision. The handling is not yet devoid of archaism. Note that the angel's arm resembles that of S. Peter in the Last Supper at Milan; there is the same gesture, the same bending back of the hand. 1 Trattato della Pittura, Look ii., chap. xvii.

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The London picture is, in my opinion, a replica, painted under Leonardo's supervision by one of his pupils.1

The Louvre picture, I freely admit, is hard of aspect, and harsh in tonality. Time has fastened his cruel teeth into it. The painting has lost its bloom, and the groundwork seems to lie bare before Nevertheless, it speaks to the eyes and the soul with supreme

us.

authority.

We must further remember that the Louvre picture has a venerable history. It has been on the spot for hundreds of years. In the first part of the sixteenth century, it was already in the collection of Francis I., a sovereign, who, it must be admitted, was very favourably circumstanced as regards the acquisition of works by Leonardo.2

One word more. The differences between the London and Paris examples are of precisely the same nature as those of the two examples of Holbein's Madonna, that in the Dresden Gallery, and that in the Darmstadt Museum. The first, which is the original, is more archaic, heavier perhaps, but more deeply felt; the second, the copy, is freer and more elegant.

If, as I suppose, the National Gallery picture was painted in Leonardo's studio and under his supervision, it is easy to see why certain harshnesses apparent in the Louvre example, have disappeared in that of the National Gallery. The master was seeking, hesitating; the pupil had only to copy and to soften.

It is time to study the composition of the Virgin of the Rocks.

It is a group of four figures, three kneeling, the fourth seated at

1 I entirely endorse M. Anatole Gruyer's judgment on this head: "The London picture is fresh in colour, well preserved, fascinating, graceful, full of charm; but it is a superficial charm. The faces are slightly insipid in their beauty; there is something heavy and woolly in their contours; they lack the intensity of expression so characteristic of Leonardo. The angel is not wanting in grace, but the grace has little elevation. This figure differs to some extent from that in the Louvre picture. Supporting the Infant Jesus with both hands, he looks at the little S. John, unheeding of the spectator. The Virgin and the two "bambini" are distinctly feebler. In short, it is a pretty, rather than a beautiful work, and one in which we do not feel the real presence of the master. (Voyage autour du Salon carré, p. 31.)

2 Testimony of Cassiano del Pozzo, published in the Mémoires de la Société de l'Histoire de Paris, 1886.-Père Dan, in his Trésor des Merveilles de la Maison royale de Fontainebleau, p. 135, mentions "Our Lady, with an Infant Jesus supported by an angel, in a very graceful landscape."