Yet Dr. Gronau, who claims it for Titian,
admits in the same breath that the hand is the same as that which
painted the Cobham Hall picture and the Pitti "Concert," a judgment in
which I fully concur. Dr. Bode[99] labels it "Art des Giorgione."
Finally, Mr. Berenson, with rare insight proclaimed the conception and
the spirit of the picture to be Giorgione's.[100] But he asserts that
the execution is not fine enough to be the master's own, and would rank
it--with the "Judith" at St. Petersburg--in the category of contemporary
copies after lost originals. This view is apparently based on the
dangerous maxim that where the execution of a picture is inferior to the
conception, the work is presumably a copy. But two points must be borne
in mind, the actual condition of the picture, and the character of the
artist who painted it. Mr. Berenson has himself pointed out
elsewhere[101] that Giorgione, "while always supreme in his conceptions,
did not live long enough to acquire a perfection of draughtsmanship and
chiaroscuro equally supreme, and that, consequently, there is not a
single universally accepted work of his which is absolutely free from
the reproaches of the academic pedant." Secondly, the surface of this
portrait has lost its original glow through cleaning, and has suffered
other damage, which actually debarred Crowe and Cavalcaselle (who saw
the picture in 1877) from pronouncing definitely upon the authorship.
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