[Illustration: Hanfstaengl photo. Vienna Gallery
PORTRAIT OF A MAN]
Last on the list of portraits which I am claiming as Giorgione’s, and probably latest in date of execution, comes the splendid so-called “Physician Parma,” in the Vienna Gallery. Crowe and Cavalcaselle thus describe it: “This masterly portrait is one of the noblest creations of its kind, finished with a delicacy quite surprising, and modelled with the finest insight into the modulations of the human flesh.... Notwithstanding, the touch and the treatment are utterly unlike Titian’s, having none of his well-known freedom and none of his technical peculiarities. Yet if asked to name the artist capable of painting such a likeness, one is still at a loss. It is considered to be identical with the portrait mentioned by Ridolfi as that of ‘Parma’ in the collection of B. della Nave (Merav., i. 220); but this is not proved, nor is there any direct testimony to show that it is by Titian at all."[110]
Herr Wickhoff[111] goes a step further. He says: “Un autre portrait qui porte le nom de Titien est egalement l’une des oeuvres les plus remarquables du Musee. On pretend qu’il represente le ’Medecin du Titien, Parma’; mais c’est la une pure invention, imaginee par un ancien directeur du Musee, M. Rosa, et admise de confiance par ses successeurs. M. Rosa avait ete amene a la concevoir par la lecture d’un passage de Ridolfi. Le costume suffirait a lui seul, pourtant, pour la dementir: c’est le costume officiel d’un senateur venitien, et qui par suite ne saurait avoir ete porte par un medecin. Le tableau est incontestablement de la meme main que les deux ‘Concerts’ du Palais Pitti et du Louvre, qui portent tous deux le nom de Giorgione. Si l’on attribue ces deux tableaux au Giorgione, c’est a lui aussi qu’il faut attribuer le portrait de Vienne; si, comme feu Morelli, on attribue le tableau du Palais Pitti au Titien, il faut approuver l’attribution actuelle de notre portrait au meme maitre.” I am glad that Herr Wickhoff recognises the same hand in all three works. I am sorry that in his opinion this should be Domenico Campagnola’s. I have already referred to this opinion when discussing the Louvre “Concert,” and must again emphatically dissent from this view. Campagnola, as I know him in his pictures and frescoes at Padua,—the only authenticated examples by which to judge him,[112]—was utterly inadequate to such tasks. The grandeur and dignity of the Vienna portrait is worthy of Titian, whose virility Giorgione more nearly approaches here than anywhere else. But I agree with the verdict of Crowe and Cavalcaselle that his is not the hand that painted it, and believe that the author of the Temple Newsam “Man” also produced this portrait, probably a few years later, at the close of his career.