[Illustration:  St. Eustace (or St. Hubert) with the Miracle of the Stag.  From a Drawing by Titian in the British Museum.]

Apart from all these sacred works, and in every respect an exceptional production, is the world-famous Cristo della Moneta of the Dresden Gallery.  As to the exact date to be assigned to this panel among the early works of Titian considerable difficulty exists.  For once agreeing with Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Morelli is inclined to disregard the testimony of Vasari, from whose text it would result that it was painted in or after the year 1514, and to place it as far back as 1508.  Notwithstanding this weight of authority the writer is strongly inclined, following Vasari in this instance, and trusting to certain indications furnished by the picture itself, to return to the date 1514 or thereabouts.  There is no valid reason to doubt that the Christ of the Tribute-Money was painted for Alfonso I. of Ferrara, and the less so, seeing that it so aptly illustrates the already quoted legend on his coins:  “Quod est Caesaris Caesari, quod est Dei Deo.”  According to Vasari, it was painted nella porta d’un armario—­that is to say, in the door of a press or wardrobe.  But this statement need not be taken in its most literal sense.  If it were to be assumed from this passage that the picture was painted on the spot, its date must be advanced to 1516, since Titian did not pay his first visit to Ferrara before that year.  There is no sufficient ground, however, for assuming that he did not execute his wonderful panel in the usual fashion—­that is to say, at home in Venice.  The last finishing touches might, perhaps, have been given to it in situ, as they were to Bellini’s Bacchanal, done also for the Duke of Ferrara.  The extraordinary finish of the painting, which is hardly to be paralleled in this respect in the life-work of the artist, may have been due to his desire to “show his hand” to his new patron in a subject which touched him so nearly.  And then the finish is not of the Quattrocento type, not such as we find, for instance, in the Leonardo Loredano of Giovanni Bellini, the finest panels of Cima, or the early Christ bearing the Cross of Giorgione.  In it exquisite polish of surface and consummate rendering of detail are combined with the utmost breadth and majesty of composition, with a now perfect freedom in the casting of the draperies.  It is difficult, indeed, to imagine that this masterpiece—­so eminently a work of the Cinquecento, and one, too, in which the master of Cadore rose superior to all influences, even to that of Giorgione—­could have been painted in 1508, that is some two years before Bellini’s Baptism of Christ in S. Corona, and in all probability before the Three Philosophers of Giorgione himself.  The one of Titian’s own early pictures with which it appears to the writer to have most in common—­not so much in technique, indeed, as in general style—­is