examples.  There is even a purer ring about this lovely little “Holy Family,” a child-like sincerity and a simplicity which is very touching, while for sheer beauty of colour it is more enjoyable than either of the others.  It may not have the depth of tone and mastery of chiaroscuro which make the Beaumont “Adoration” so subtly attractive, but in tenderness of feeling and daintiness of treatment it is not surpassed by any other of Giorgione’s works.  In its obvious defects, too, it is as thoroughly characteristic; it is needless to repeat here what I said when discussing the Beaumont and Vienna “Adoration”; the reader who compares the reproductions will readily see the same features in both works.  Mr. Benson’s little picture has this additional interest, that more than either of its companion pieces it points forward to the Castelfranco “Madonna” in the bold sweep of the draperies, the play of light on horizontal surfaces, and the exquisite gaiety of its colour.

[Illustration:  Hanfstaengl photo.  Vienna Gallery THE “GIPSY” MADONNA]

In claiming this picture for Giorgione I am claiming nothing new, for his name, in spite of modern critics, has here persistently survived.  Not so with a group of three Madonnas, one of which has for at least two centuries borne Titian’s name, another which passes also for a work of the same painter, whilst the third was claimed by Crowe and Cavalcaselle again for Titian, partly on the analogy of the first-mentioned one.[122] The first is the so-called “Gipsy Madonna” in the Vienna Gallery, the second is a “Madonna” in the Bergamo Gallery, and the third is a “Madonna” again in Mr. Benson’s collection.

I am happily not the first to identify the “Gipsy Madonna” as Giorgione’s work, for it requires no little courage to tilt at what has been unquestioningly accepted as “the earliest known Madonna of Titian.”  I am indebted, therefore, to Signor Venturi for the lead,[123] although I have the satisfaction of feeling that independent study of my own had already brought me to the same conclusion.

Of course, all modern writers have recognised the “Giorgionesque” elements in this supposed Titian.  “In the depth, strength, and richness of the colour-chord, in the atmospheric spaciousness and charm of the landscape background, in the breadth of the draperies, it is already,” says Mr. Claude Phillips,[124] “Giorgionesque.”  Yet, he goes on, the Child is unlike Giorgione’s type in the Castelfranco and Madrid pictures, and the Virgin has a less spiritualised nature than Giorgione’s Madonnas in the same two pictures.  On the other hand, Dr. Gronau, Titian’s latest biographer, declares[125] that the thoughtful expression ("der tief empfundene Ausdruck”) of the Madonna is essentially Giorgionesque.  Morelli, with peculiar insight, protested against its being considered a very early work of Titian, basing his protest on the advanced nature of the landscape, which, he says,[126] “must have been painted six or eight