to
beg I would paint an altar-piece for their chapel: they wished to have
a kneeling figure of Mary, to whom the shrine was dedicated; but the
subject, being a favourite one of Titian's, had at that time deterred
me. Its difficulty was now its charm; and as I pondered over in my mind
the features I wished to transfer to my canvass, I suddenly remembered
a painting which I had had for some years in my possession, and which,
from the surpassing loveliness of the countenance it represented, as
well as the beauty of its execution, had long fascinated me. I now
reverted to it at once, and opening a secret drawer in my cabinet,
took out the picture and placed it before me. It was a small and most
beautifully painted enamel, representing two figures--one that of an old
and stern-visaged man, upon whose harsh and severe features there played
a scowl of deadly hate and scorn: he stood, drawn up to his full height,
his hands and arms widely extended before him, as if in the act of
performing some mystic or sacred rite over the lovely being who knelt
at his feet in an attitude of the deepest and most reverential
supplication. This was a lovely girl, her age scarcely eighteen years:
her forehead, fair as alabaster, was shaded by two braids of dark brown
hair, which hung back in heavy locks upon her neck and shoulders. Her
eyes, of the deepest blue, were upraised and tearful, and the parted
lips seemed almost to utter a murmured prayer, as her heaving bosom told
some inward anguish; her hands were firmly clasped, but the arms hung
powerless before her, and the whole figure conveyed the most perfect
abandonment to grief it was possible to conceive. Here were the
features, here the very attitude, I desired. Could I only succeed in
imparting to my Madonna the lovely and sorrow-struck countenance before
me, my triumph were certain. I had walked every gallery of Europe, from
one end to the other; I had visited every private collection where a
good picture was to be found, yet never had I beheld the same magic
power of conveying, in one single scene, so much of storied interest as
this small picture displayed. The features of that beautiful girl,
too, bad the semblance of being copied from the life. There are certain
slight and indescribable traits by which a painter will, in almost every
case, distinguish when nature and when only fancy have lent the subject;
and here, every thing tended to make me believe it to be a portrait. The
manner