her
women; the nurses waiting on the lovely new-born child; the visitors
who enter to congratulate; but all, down to the handmaidens who bring
refreshments, are noble and dignified, and draped in that magnificent
taste which distinguished Andrea, Angels scatter flowers from above
and, which is very uncommon, Joachim is seen, after the anxious night
reposing on a couch. Nothing in fresco can exceed the harmony and
brilliancy of the colouring, and the softness of the execution. It
appeared to me a masterpiece as a picture. Like Ghirlandajo, Andrea
has introduced portraits; and in the Florentine lady who stands in the
foreground we recognize the features of his worthless wife Lucrezia,
the original model of so many of his female figures that the ignoble
beauty of her face has become quite familiar.

THE PRESENTATION OF THE VIRGIN.

_Ital._ La Presentazione, ove nostra Signora piccioletta sale i gradi
del Tempio. _Ger._ Joachim und Anna weihen ihre Tochter Maria im
Tempel. Die Vorstellung der Jungfrau im Tempel. Nov. 21.

In the interval between the birth of Mary and her consecration in the
temple, there is no incident which I can remember as being important
or popular as a subject of art.

It is recorded with what tenderness her mother Anna watched over
her, "how she made of her bedchamber a holy place, allowing nothing
that was common or unclean to enter in;" and called to her "certain
daughters of Israel, pure and gentle," whom she appointed to attend
on her. In some of the early miniature illustrations of the Offices of
the Virgin, St. Anna thus ministers to her child; for instance, in a
beautiful Greek MS. in the Vatican, she is tenderly putting her into
a little bed or cradle and covering her up. (It is engraved in
d'Agincourt.)

It is not said anywhere that St. Anna instructed her daughter. It has
even been regarded as unorthodox to suppose that the Virgin, enriched
from her birth, and before her birth, with all the gifts of the Holy
Spirit, required instruction from any one. Nevertheless, the subject
of the "Education of the Virgin" has been often represented in later
times. There is a beautiful example by Murillo; while Anna teaches her
child to read, angels hover over them with wreaths of roses. (Madrid
Gal.) Another by Rubens, in which, as it is said, he represented his
young wife, Helena Forman. (Musee, Antwerp.) There is also a picture
in which St. Anna ministers to her daughter, and is intent on