e figures have mainly come. I say "mainly," because
there is at least one other sculptor who may well have belonged to the
year 1709, but who fortunately has left us little. Examples of his work
may perhaps be seen in the nearest villain with a big hat in the
Flagellation chapel, and in two cherubs in the Assumption of the Virgin.

We may say, then, with some certainty, that the designer was a cultivated
and practised artist. We may also not less certainly conclude that he
was of Flemish origin, for the horses in the Journey to Calvary and
Crucifixion chapels, where alone there are any horses at all, are of
Flemish breed, with no trace of the Arab blood adopted by Gaudenzio at
Varallo. The character, moreover, of the villains is Northern--of the
Quentin Matsys, Martin Schongauer type, rather than Italian; the same sub-
Rubensesque feeling which is apparent in more than one chapel at Varallo
is not less evident here--especially in the Journey to Calvary and
Crucifixion chapels. There can hardly, therefore, be a doubt that the
artist was a Fleming who had worked for several years in Italy.

It is also evident that he had Tabachetti's work at Varallo well in his
mind. For not only does he adopt certain details of costume (I refer
particularly to the treatment of soldiers' tunics) which are peculiar to
Tabachetti at Varallo, but whenever he treats a subject which Tabachetti
had treated at Varallo, as in the Flagellation, Crowning with Thorns, and
Journey to Calvary chapels, the work at Saas is evidently nothing but a
somewhat modified abridgement of that at Varallo. When, however, as in
the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Crucifixion, and other chapels, the
work at Varallo is by another than Tabachetti, no allusion is made to it.
The Saas artist has Tabachetti's Varallo work at his finger-ends, but
betrays no acquaintance whatever with Gaudenzio Ferrari, Gio. Ant.
Paracca, or Giovanni D'Enrico.

Even, moreover, when Tabachetti's work at Varallo is being most obviously
drawn from, as in the Journey to Calvary chapel, the Saas version differs
materially from that at Varallo, and is in some respects an improvement
on it. The idea of showing other horsemen and followers coming up from
behind, whose heads can be seen over the crown of the interposing hill,
is singularly effective as suggesting a number of others that are unseen,
nor can I conceive that any one but the original designer would follow
Tabachetti's Varallo