ronese--who in this
respect, as generally in artistic temperament, proved themselves the
natural successors of Domenico and Francesco Morone, of Girolamo dai
Libri, of Cavazzola.

Yet when Titian takes colour itself as his chief motive, he can vie with
the most sumptuous of them in splendour, and eclipse them all by the
sureness of his taste. A good example of this is the celebrated _Bella
di Tiziano_ of the Pitti Gallery, another work which, like the _Venus of
Urbino_, recalls the features without giving the precise personality of
Eleonora Gonzaga. The beautiful but somewhat expressionless head with
its crowning glory of bright hair, a waving mass of Venetian gold, has
been so much injured by rubbing down and restoration that we regret what
has been lost even more than we enjoy what is left. But the surfaces of
the fair and exquisitely modelled neck and bosom have been less cruelly
treated; the superb costume retains much of its pristine splendour. With
its combination of brownish-purple velvet, peacock-blue brocade, and
white lawn, its delicate trimmings of gold, and its further adornment
with small knots, having in them, now at any rate, but an effaced note
of red, the gown of _La Bella_ has remained the type of what is most
beautiful in Venetian costume as it was in the earlier half of the
sixteenth century. In richness and ingenious elaboration, chastened by
taste, it far transcends the over-splendid and ponderous dresses in
which later on the patrician dames portrayed by Veronese and his school
loved to array themselves. A bright note of red in the upper jewel of
one earring, now, no doubt, cruder than was originally intended, gives a
fillip to the whole, after a fashion peculiar to Titian.

[Illustration: _La Bella di Tiziano. From a photograph by Aplinari.
Walter L. Cells. Ph._]

The _Girl in the Fur Cloak_, No 197 in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna,
shows once more in a youthful and blooming woman the features of
Eleonora. The model is nude under a mantle of black satin lined with
fur, which leaves uncovered the right breast and both arms. The picture
is undoubtedly Titian's own, and fine in quality, but it reveals less
than his usual graciousness and charm. It is probably identical with the
canvas described in the often-quoted catalogue of Charles I.'s pictures
as "A naked woman putting on her smock, which the king changed with the
Duchess of Buckingham for one of His Majesty's Mantua pieces." It may
well ha