architectural effects.

His Cabinet d'amateur is

filled with pictures, statues and other works of art. "The picture called Solon at the Court of King Croesus is arranged with taste and treated with remarkable elegance. The Feast takes place in a great Renaissance hall, of magnificent appearance and beautiful effect. Moreover, all the guests are splendidly represented, the elegance of the personages corresponding with the splendour of the place."—(B. P.)

Sebastian Vranck has two pictures here. One is a valuable historical document, for it shows the interior of the Church of the Jesuits in Antwerp with all the pictures by Rubens before fire destroyed it in 1718. On the high-altar you see the Miracles of Saint Ignatius which this gallery owns. (See page 328.) The other work shows travellers in wagons, assailed by Spanish soldiers.

Among the pictures by Snayers twelve are historical works depicting the most memorable actions of the Archduke Leopold William and the Field Marshal Octave Piccolomini. The other four works are also battle scenes, one of which is a cavalry-charge near a river and a bridge. The other two portray respectively a troop of horsemen near a pond and a band of travellers riding through a verdurous landscape.

An Adoration of the Shepherds, by Van Oost the Elder, is a superior work. The Child Jesus is lying before his mother on a piece of white linen, and the daughter of the House of David gazes at the entering shepherds.

She charms the eyes by her purity, her graceful features and her elegant proportions. Behind her stands St. Francis of Assisi, whom we are somewhat astonished to find in Bethlehem so soon after the Birth of Christ. A

young shepherd, who is kneeling before the cradle, merits the greatest praise. The colours have a charm and a rare beauty and mingle very harmoniously."-(A. M.)

The works of A. C. Lens are very scarce in public galleries. His style and colour may be studied here in Jupiter and Juno Asleep on Mount Ida.

THE VENICE ACADEMY

VENICE

THE Accademia di Belle Arti is situated in the old Scuola di Santa Maria della Carità (the oldest brotherhood in Venice, founded in 1260), on the Grand Canal. The picture gallery dates from 1798, and consists almost exclusively of Venetian paintings. The greatest treasure is Titian's Assumption. Of special interest are the pictures of old Venice by Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio.

The Academy is rich with the priceless work of the founder of the Venetian School, Giovanni Bellini. The Virgin and Six Saints, also known as the San Giobbe altar-piece, is a beautiful picture, painted for a chapel which was especially arranged to bring all its beauties into relief. It is the crowning work of this great master: it established his fame and led to his employment by the State. The three angels playing musical instruments at the foot of the throne are especially graceful.

"As a piece of oil painting and what the artists call composition with entire grasp and knowledge of the action of the human body, the perspectives of the human face, and the relations of shade to colour in expressing form, the picture is deservedly held unsurpassable."(J. R.)

The Madonna with a Choir of Cherubs is an early work, and is noted for the beauty of the Virgin and the wondering expression of the lovely

Child, the landscape background and the circle of rosy cherubs in the sky.

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'Here there is a conscious attempt at a strange effect of light, this time of early dawn, the pale apricot glow in the sky indicating the exact moment when the white of the Virgin's headdress becomes luminous, though the flesh is still dull in tone. The charming conceit of the choir of cherubim amusing the Infant Christ (now entirely human) marks the change in Bellini's feeling."(R. E. F.)

In the Madonna between St. Catherine and Mary Magdalen, three beautiful female figures stand out from a dark-green background with great effect. The Virgin is in the centre holding the Child; on her right, St. Catherine with pearls and flowers in her hair; and on her left Mary Magdalen. The picture is very thinly painted and glazed.

"The illumination and the colour scheme are peculiar, and appear to have been suggested by a lamplight effect. The way in which the local colours are all modulated to a single key of rich golden brown is an anticipation of Titian's art of arousing the sensation of colour by a varied monochrome. Here, for instance, so perfectly is the key kept throughout that the periwinkles in St. Catherine's hair appear blue, although the actual pigment is almost a brown grey."-(R. E. F.)

The Madonna of the Two Trees (1487) takes its name from the formal trees that stand on either side of the parapet of marble.

We know not which to admire most, the noble gravity of the mother or the pulsation of life in the Child. Bellini never so completely combined relief with transparence, or golden tinge of flesh with rich and tasteful harmony of tints. By dint of perseverance he had succeeded in losing all trace of hardness and acquired what may be called the Giorgionesque touch."-(C. and C.)

Another early work is the Virgin and Child