t is here that we see his child-angels at
their best. He has also introduced them into the Holy Family of Seville,
as well as into that most wonderful painting of the Christ-child
Appearing to Saint Anthony of Padua.

A beautiful method of introducing child-angels into religious pictures,
differing widely from the treatment of angel hosts, is to represent
one[17] or two, sometimes three, in attendance upon the Madonna and
Babe, or the Christ. This is especially appropriate where the subject is
treated devotionally, and the central figure is elevated on a throne or
pedestal, with the angels at the foot.

Among the Florentine artists, the two friends Raphael and Bartolommeo,
as well as their contemporary, Andrea del Sarto, furnish many examples
of these angel attendants. With Andrea del Sarto, as was characteristic,
they are bewitching winged boys; while with Bartolommeo and Raphael they
partake of a more delicate spirituality, which marks them as truly
celestial.

The Madonna of the Harpies, which is considered the masterpiece of
Andrea del Sarto, contains two charming cherubs, which may be taken as
excellent types of the artist's rendering of these subjects. The Two
Angels, from his great painting of the Four Saints, are somewhat above
his average plane. These lovely and graceful figures originally stood in
the centre of a large composition, but were at a later date removed from
the canvas to make a separate picture. Their real significance is to
show forth the beauty of a saintly life. Each carries a scroll, and one
points upward.

In the work of Bartolommeo the finest cherubs are those of his Throne
Madonna, the Madonna Enthroned, and the Risen Christ. All three show the
same masterly hand, and express a similar conception of the office
filled by the angels. In every case one is looking up with a rapt
expression of joy, while the other is more contemplative, drooping the
head as if in reflection. The contrast suggests the distinction of
early theology between the seraphim and cherubim, the former being,
according to etymological significance, the spirits who love and adore,
and the latter, those who know and worship. This distinction was
scrupulously adhered to in early art by representing the seraphim as
red, and the cherubim as blue. Although later artists no longer observed
any discrimination between two classes of celestial beings, it may be
that the difference between Bartolommeo's two angels is due to the
i