maintain it to be a real Giorgione.  Consistently enough, those who believe in Cariani’s authorship in the one case, assert it in the other,[33] and as consistently I hold that both are by Giorgione.  It is conceivable that Cariani may have copied Giorgione’s types and attitudes, but it is inconceivable to me that he can have so entirely assimilated Giorgione’s temperament to which this “Judgment of Solomon” so eloquently witnesses.  Moreover, let no one say that Cariani executed what Giorgione designed, for, in spite of its imperfect condition, the technique reveals a painter groping his way as he works, altering contours, and making corrections with his brush; in fact, it has all the spontaneity which characterises an original creation.

The date of its execution may well have been 1507-8, perhaps even earlier; at any rate, we must not argue from its unfinished state that the painter’s death prevented completion, for the style is not that of Giorgione’s last works.  Rather must we conclude that, like the “Aeneas and Evander,” and several other pictures yet to be mentioned, Giorgione stopped short at his work, unwilling to labour at an uncongenial task (as, perhaps, in the present case), or from some feeling of dissatisfaction at the result, nay, even despair of ever realising his poetical conceptions.

To this important trait in Giorgione’s character further reference will be made when all the available material has been examined; suffice it for the moment that this “Judgment of Solomon” is to me a most typical example of the great artist’s work, a revelation alike of his weaknesses as of his powers.

Following our method of investigation we will next consider the pictures which Morelli accredits to Giorgione over and above the seven already discussed, wherein he concurs with Crowe and Cavalcaselle.  These are twelve in number, and include some of the master’s finest works, some of them unknown to the older authorities, or, at any rate, unrecorded by them.  Here, therefore, the opinions of Crowe and Cavalcaselle are not of so much weight, so it will be necessary to see how far Morelli’s views have been confirmed by later writers during the last twenty years.

Three portraits figure in Morelli’s list—­one at Berlin, one at Buda-Pesth, and one in the Borghese Gallery at Rome.

[Illustration:  Hanfstaengl photo.  Berlin Gallery

PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN]

First, as to the Berlin “Portrait of a Young Man,” which, when Morelli wrote, belonged to Dr. Richter, and was afterwards acquired for the Berlin Gallery.  “In it we have one of those rare portraits such as only Giorgione, and occasionally Titian, were capable of producing, highly suggestive, and exercising over the spectator an irresistible fascination."[34] Such are the great critic’s enthusiastic words, and no one surely to-day would be found to gainsay them.  We may note the characteristic treatment of the hair, the thoughtful look in the eyes,