outrages of time, it may be taken as a very characteristic example of Titian’s late but not latest manner in sacred art.  In the most striking fashion does it exhibit that peculiar gloom and agitation of the artist face to face with religious subjects which at an earlier period would have left his serenity undisturbed.  The saint, uncertain of her triumph, armed though she is with the Cross, flees in affright from the monster whose huge bulk looms, terrible even in overthrow, in the darkness of the foreground.  To the impression of terror communicated by the whole conception the distance of the lurid landscape—­a city in flames—­contributes much.

[Illustration:  Venus with the Mirror. Gallery of the Hermitage, St. Petersburg.  From a Photograph by Braun, Clement, & Cie.]

In the spring and summer of 1554 were finished for Philip of Spain the Danae of Madrid; for Mary, Queen of Hungary, a Madonna Addolorata; for Charles V. the Trinity, to which he had with Titian devoted so much anxious thought.  The Danae of the Prado, less grandiose, less careful in finish than the Naples picture, is painted with greater spontaneity and elan than its predecessor, and vibrates with an undisguisedly fleshly passion.  Is it to the taste of Philip or to a momentary touch of cynicism in Titian himself that we owe the deliberate dragging down of the conception until it becomes symbolical of the lowest and most venal form of love?  In the Naples version Amor, a fairly-fashioned divinity of more or less classic aspect, presides; in the Madrid and subsequent interpretations of the legend, a grasping hag, the attendant of Danae, holds out a cloth, eager to catch her share of the golden rain.  In the St. Petersburg version, which cannot be accounted more than an atelier piece, there is, with some slight yet appreciable variations, a substantial agreement with the Madrid picture.  Of this Hermitage Danae there is a replica in the collection of the Duke of Wellington at Apsley House.  In yet another version (also a contemporary atelier piece), which is in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna, and has for that reason acquired a certain celebrity, the greedy duenna is depicted in full face, and holds aloft a chased metal dish.

Satisfaction of a very different kind was afforded to Queen Mary of Hungary and Charles V. The lady obtained a Christ appearing to the Magdalen, which was for a long time preserved at the Escorial, where there is still to be found a bad copy of it.  A mere fragment of the original, showing a head and bust of Christ holding a hoe in his left hand, has been preserved, and is now No. 489 in the gallery of the Prado.  Even this does not convince the student that Titian’s own brush had a predominant share in the performance.  The letter to Charles V., dated from Venice the 10th of September 1554, records the sending of a Madonna Addolorata and the great Trinity.  These, together with another