breast to her babe, and Duerer portrays the same maternal duties in
the Virgin on the Crescent Moon. Holbein's Meyer Madonna, splendid
with her jewelled crown, is not less motherly than Schongauer's young
Virgin sitting in a rude stable.

Rembrandt in humble Dutch interiors, Rubens in numerous Holy Families
modelled upon the Flemish life about him always conceive of the
Virgin Mother as delighting in her maternal cares. As has been said of
Duerer's Madonna,--and the description applies equally well to many
others in the North,--"She suckles her son with a calm feeling of
happiness; she gazes upon him with admiration as he lies upon her lap;
she caresses him and presses him to her bosom without a thought
whether it is becoming to her, or whether she is being admired."

[Illustration: DUeRER.--MADONNA AND CHILD.]

This entire absence of posing on the part of the German Virgin is one
of the most admirable elements in this art. This characteristic is
perfectly illustrated in Duerer's portrait Madonna of the Belvedere
Gallery, at Vienna. This is an excellent specimen of the master, who,
alone of the Germans, is considered the peer of his great Italian
contemporaries. Frankly admired both by Titian and Raphael, he has in
common with them the supreme gift of seeing and reproducing natural
human affections. His work, however, is as thoroughly German as theirs
is Italian. The Madonna of this picture has the round, maidenly face
of the typical German ideal. A transparent veil droops over the
flowing hair, covered by a blue drapery above. The mother holds her
child high in her arms, bending her face over him. The babe is a
beautiful little fellow, full of vivacity. He holds up a pear
gleefully, to meet his mother's smile. The picture is painted with
great delicacy of finish.

The Mater Amabilis is the subject _par excellence_ of modern Madonna
art. Carrying on its surface so much beauty and significance, it is
naturally attractive to all figure painters. While other Madonna
subjects are too often beyond the comprehension of either the artist
or his patron, this falls within the range of both. The shop windows
are full of pretty pictures of this kind, in all styles of treatment.

There are the portrait Madonnas by Gabriel Max, already mentioned, and
pastoral Madonnas by Bouguereau, by Carl Mueller, by N. Barabino, and
by Dagnan-Bouveret. Others carry the subject into the more formal
compositions of the enthroned and enskied Ma