"
It is a natural inference that, supposing Giorgione to be the painter,
he would never have selected such a subject of his own free will to be
treated, as this is, on so large a scale. There may be, therefore,
something in the suggestion which Crowe and Cavalcaselle make that this
may be the large canvas ordered of Giorgione for the audience chamber
of the Council, "for which purpose," they add, "the advances made to him
in the summer of 1507 and in January 1508 show that the work he had
undertaken was of the highest consequence."[30]
Be this as it may, the picture was in Venice, in the Casa Grimani di
Santo Ermagora,[31] in Ridolfi's day (1646), and that writer specially
mentions the unfinished executioner. It passed later into the
Marescalchi Gallery at Bologna, where it was seen by Lord Byron (1820),
and purchased at his suggestion by his friend Mr. Bankes, in whose
family it still remains.[32]
It will be gathered from what I have written that Giorgione and no other
is, in my opinion, the author of this remarkable work. Certain of the
figures are reminiscent of those by him elsewhere--e.g. the old man with
the beard is like the Evander in the Vienna picture, the young man next
the executioner resembles the Adrastus in the Giovanelli figures, and
the young man stooping forward next to Solomon recurs in the "Three
Ages," in the Pitti, which Morelli considered to be by Giorgione. The
most obvious resemblances, however, are to be found in the Glasgow
"Adulteress before Christ," a work which several modern critics assign
to Cariani, although Dr.
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