band Zebedee, and her children James Major
and John the Evangelist.[1]

[Footnote 1: This picture I saw in the Louvre some years ago, but it
is not in the New Catalogue by M. Villot.]

A yet more beautiful example is a picture by Perugino in the Musee
at Marseilles, which I have already cited and described (Sacred and
Legendary Art): here also the relatives of Christ, destined to be
afterwards his apostles and the ministers of his word, are grouped
around him in his infancy. In the centre Mary is seated and holding
the child; St. Anna stands behind, resting her hands affectionately on
the shoulders of the Virgin. In front, at the feet of the Virgin, are
two boys, Joseph and Thaddeus; and near them Mary, the daughter of
Cleophas, holds the hand of her third son James Minor. To the right is
Mary Salome, holding in her arms her son John the Evangelist, and at
her feet is her other son, James Major. Joseph, Zebedee, and other
members of the family, stand around. The same subject I have seen in
illuminated MSS., and in German prints. It is worth remarking that all
these appeared about the same time, between 1505 and 1520, and that
the subject afterwards disappeared; from which I infer that it was
not authorized by the Church; perhaps because the exact degree of
relationship between these young apostles and the Holy Family was
not clearly made out, either by Scripture or tradition.

In a composition by Parmigiano, Christ is standing at his mother's
knee; Elizabeth presents St. John the Baptist; the other little St.
John kneels on a cushion. Behind the Virgin are St. Joachim and St.
Anna; and behind Elizabeth, Zebedee and Mary Salome, the parents of
St. John the Evangelist. In the centre, Joseph looks on with folded
hands.

* * * * *

A catalogue _raisonnee_ of the Holy Families painted by distinguished
artists including from two to six figures would fill volumes: I
shall content myself with directing attention to some few examples
remarkable either for their celebrity, their especial beauty, or for
some peculiarity, whether commendable or not, in the significance or
the treatment.

The strictly domestic conception may be said to have begun with
Raphael and Correggio; and they afford the most perfect examples
of the tender and the graceful in sentiment and action, the softest
parental feeling, the loveliest forms of childhood. Of the purely
natural and familiar treatment, which came into