fly away; quite a pleasing statuette, and executed with skill except
as regards the extremities of the fingers, where the bronze has
failed. It resembles Donatello's _putti_ who play and dance on the
corners of the tabernacle of Quercia's font at Siena; but the base of
this figure differs from that of the other four. A fifth of the
Sienese _putti_ was recently bought in London for the Berlin Gallery,
an invaluable acquisition to that growing collection.[152] This group,
however, is less important than the wonderful pair of bronze _putti_
belonging to Madame Andre.[153] These are much larger: they carry
candle-sockets and are lightly draped with a few ribands and garlands:
judging from the way they are huddled up, it is possible that they
formed part of a larger work. They appear to be a good deal later than
the Cantoria, though they do not show any technical superiority to
the large Bargello Amorino; but they have not quite got that freshness
which cannot be dissociated from work made between 1433 and 1440.
Madame Andre has another superb Donatello--a marble boy: his attitude
is unbecoming, but the modelling of this admirable statue--the urchin
is nearly life-sized--is almost unequalled. There is a similar figure
in the Louvre made by some imitator. It need hardly be said that
Donatello's children, especially the free-standing bronze statuettes,
were widely copied. According to Vasari, Donatello designed the wooden
_putti_ carrying garlands in the new Sacristy of the Duomo. There are
fourteen of these boys, and they overstep the cornice like
Michelozzo's angels in the Capella Portinari at Milan. Donatello may
have given the sketch for one or two, but there is a lack of
intelligence about them, besides a certain monotony. Moreover, it is
improbable that Donatello would have designed garlands so bulky that
they threaten to push the little boys who carry them off the cornice.
In spite of its faults, this frieze is charming. The _naivete_ of the
quattrocento often invests its errors with attraction. It would be
wearisome to catalogue the scores of bronze children which show
undoubted imitation of Donatello. They exist in every great
collection, one of exceptional merit being in London.[154] A large
school sprang into existence, chiefly in Padua and Venice, whence it
spread all over Northern Italy, and produced any number of bronze
works which recall one or other feature of Donatello's children. But
they never approached Dona