says, “ancorche che sia bellissima, non muove a lascivia, ma a commiserazione,” and the contrary might, without exaggeration, be said of the Pitti picture.[52] Another of the Barbarigo heirlooms which so passed into the Hermitage is the ever-popular Venus with the Mirror, the original of many repetitions and variations.  Here, while one winged love holds the mirror, the other proffers a crown of flowers, not to the goddess, but to the fairest of women.  The rich mantle of Venetian fashion, the jewels, the coiffure, all show that an idealised portrait of some lovely Cytherean of Venice, and no true mythological piece, has been intended.

At this date, or thereabouts, is very generally placed, with the Rape of Europa presently to be discussed, the Jupiter and Antiope of the Louvre, more popularly known as the Venere del Pardo.[53] Seeing that the picture is included in the list[54] sent by Titian to Antonio Perez in 1574, setting forth the titles of canvases delivered during the last twenty-five years, and then still unpaid for, it may well have been completed somewhere about the time at which we have arrived.  To the writer it appears nevertheless that it is in essentials the work of an earlier period, taken up and finished thus late in the day for the delectation of the Spanish king.  Seeing that the Venere del Pardo has gone through two fires—­those of the Pardo and the Louvre—­besides cleanings, restorations, and repaintings, even more disfiguring, it would be very unsafe to lay undue stress on technique alone.  Yet compare the close, sculptural modelling in the figure of Antiope with the broader, looser handling in the figure of Europa; compare the two landscapes, which are even more divergent in style.  The glorious sylvan prospect, which adds so much freshness and beauty to the Venere del Pardo, is conspicuously earlier in manner than, for instance, the backgrounds to the Diana and Actaeon and Diana and Calisto of Bridgewater House.  The captivating work is not without its faults, chief among which is the curious awkwardness of design which makes of the composition, cut in two by a central tree, two pictures instead of one.  Undeniably, too, there is a certain meanness and triviality in the little nymph or mortal of the foreground, which may, however, be due to the intervention of an assistant.  But then, with an elasticity truly astounding in a man of his great age, the master has momentarily regained the poetry of his youthful prime, and with it a measure of that Giorgionesque fragrance which was evaporating already at the close of the early time, when the Bacchanals were brought forth.  The Antiope herself far transcends in the sovereign charm of her beauty—­divine in the truer sense of the word—­all Titian’s Venuses, save the one in the Sacred and Profane Love.  The figure comes in some ways nearer even in design, and infinitely nearer in feeling, to Giorgione’s Venus at Dresden than