ng_, No. 174 in the Dresden Gallery. The
master never painted with such a lack of charm and distinction. Very
doubtful, but difficult to judge in its present state, is the _Portrait
of a Lady with a Vase_, No. 173 in the same collection. Morelli accepts
as a genuine example of the master the _Portrait of a Lady in a Red
Dress_ also in the Dresden Gallery, where it bears the number 176. If
the picture is his, as the technical execution would lead the observer
to believe, it constitutes in its stiffness and unambitious _naivete_ a
curious exception in his long series of portraits.]

[Footnote 46: It is impossible to discuss here the atelier repetitions
in the collections of the National Gallery and Lord Wemyss respectively,
or the numerous copies to be found in other places.]

[Footnote 47: For the full text of the marriage contract see Giovanni
Morelli, _Die Galerien zu Muenchen und Dresden_, pp. 300-302.]

[Footnote 48: Joshua Reynolds, who saw it during his tour in Italy,
says: "It is so dark a picture that, at first casting my eyes on it, I
thought there was a black curtain before it."]

[Footnote 49: Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. ii. p. 272.]

[Footnote 50: They were, with the _Rape of Europa_, among the so-called
"light pieces" presented to Prince Charles by Philip IV., and packed for
transmission to England. On the collapse of the marriage negotiations
they were, however, kept back. Later on Philip V. presented them to the
Marquis de Grammont. They subsequently formed part of the Orleans
Gallery, and were acquired at the great sale in London by the Duke of
Bridgewater for L2500 apiece.]

[Footnote 51: This great piece is painted on a canvas of peculiarly
coarse grain, with a well-defined lozenge pattern. It was once owned by
Van Dyck, at the sale of whose possessions, in 1556, a good number of
years after his death, it was acquired by Algernon Percy, Earl of
Northumberland. In 1873 it was in the exhibition of Old Masters at the
Royal Academy.]

[Footnote 52: The best repetition of this Hermitage _Magdalen_ is that
in the Naples Museum; another was formerly in the Ashburton Collection,
and yet another is in the Durazzo Gallery at Genoa. The similar, but not
identical, picture in the Yarborough Collection is anything but "cold in
tone," as Crowe and Cavalcaselle call it. It is, on the contrary, rich
in colour, but as to the head of the saint, much less attractive than
the original.]

[Footnote 53: This pictur