The date suggested—­1500—­is also consistent with our own deductions as to Giorgione’s rapid development, and the distinguished character of his sitter—­if it be Prospero Colonna—­is quite in keeping with the vogue the artist was then enjoying, for it was in this very year, it will be remembered, that he painted the Doge Agostino Barberigo.

I therefore consider that Mr. Dickes’ brilliant conjectures have much to support them, and, so far as the authorship is concerned, I unhesitatingly accept the view, which he was the first to express, that Giorgione, and no other, is the painter.  Our National Collection therefore boasts, in my opinion, a masterpiece of his portraiture.

If it were not that Morelli, Mr. Berenson and others have recognised in the “Portrait of a Gentleman,” in the Querini-Stampalia Gallery in Venice, the same hand as in the National Gallery picture, one might well hesitate to claim it for Giorgione, so repainted is its present condition.  I make bold, however, to include it in my list, and the more readily as Signor Venturi definitely assigns it to Giorgione himself, whose name, moreover, it has always borne.  This unfinished portrait is, despite its repaint, extraordinarily attractive, the rich browns and reds forming a colour-scheme of great beauty.  It cannot compare, however, in quality with our National Gallery highly-finished example, to which it is also inferior in beauty of conception.  These two portraits illustrate the variableness of the painter; both were probably done about the same time—­the one seemingly con amore, the other left unfinished, as though the artist or his sitter were dissatisfied.  Certainly the cause could not have been Giorgione’s death, for the style is obviously early, probably prior to 1500.

The view expressed by Morelli[109] that this may be a portrait of one of the Querini family, who were Palma’s patrons, has nothing tangible to support it, once Palma’s authorship is contested.  But the unimaginative Palma was surely incapable of such things as this and the National Gallery portrait!

[Illustration:  Collection of the Honourable Mrs. Meynell-Ingram, Temple Newsam, Leeds

PORTRAIT OF A MAN]

England boasts, I believe, yet another magnificent original Giorgione portrait, and one that is probably totally unfamiliar to connoisseurs.  This is the “Portrait of an Unknown Man,” in the possession of the Hon. Mrs Meynell-Ingram at Temple Newsam in Yorkshire.  A small and ill-executed print of it was published in the Magazine of Art, April 1893, where it was attributed to Titian.  Its Giorgionesque character is apparent at first glance, and I venture to hope that all those who may be fortunate enough to study the original, as I have done, will recognise the touch of the great master himself.  Its intense expression, its pathos, the distant look tinged with melancholy, remind us at once of the Buda-Pesth, the Borghese, and the (late) Casa Loschi pictures; its