Aldobrandini Madonna and his Madonna della Sedia. She gazes tenderly at the Babe, offering him her right breast. The Child looks towards the spectator; he lays one hand on his mother's breast, and grasps a goldfinch in the other. The conception is singularly sincere and touching. Criticism has wavered considerably in its ascriptions of the Madonna Litta. It has been very generally accepted as a copy of an original by Leonardo. Clement de Ris attributed it to Luini,1 whereas Signor Morelli claimed it for the in evitable Bernardino dei Conti,2 and Herr Harck for the no less inevitable Ambrogio de Predis (Repertorium, 1896, p. 422). I will only say that it approaches very closely to the master himself. 1 Gazette des Beaux Arts, 1879, vol. i., p. 343. 2 This attribution was demolished by M. Somoff in the last edition (1891) of the Catalogue of Pictures in the Hermitage. CHILD PLAYING WITH A CAT. (Windsor Library.) |