ons, and a variant in the
Victoria and Albert Museum, No. 7590, 1861.]

[Footnote 224: Marble, Berlin Museum.]

[Footnote 225: Victoria and Albert Museum, No. 7412, 1860; Berlin
Museum; collections of Herr von Beckerath and Herr Richard von
Kaufmann.]

[Footnote 226: Louvre, Berlin Museum; Verona, in the Viccolo Fogge;
_cf._ also the relief under the archway in the Via de' Termini,
Siena.]

[Footnote 227: Victoria and Albert Museum, No. 57, 1867.]

[Footnote 228: Giovanni Bastianini, 1830-68, though the _doyen_ of
forgers, did not profit by his dexterity, and died almost penniless.]

[Footnote 229: Terra-cotta.]

[Footnote 230: Victoria and Albert Museum, No. 8376, 1863.]

[Footnote 231: No. 53 E. Bergamo, Morelli Collection, No.
53.]

[Illustration: _Alinari_

MADONNA AND CHILD

LOUVRE (NO. 389), PARIS]

The little oval Madonna in London[232] is a work of much interest. It
is coloured stucco, and Dr. Bode, who has dated it as early as
1420-30, believes it to be the first example of the _Santa
conversazione_ in Italian plastic art. A variant belonging to Dr.
Weisbach in Berlin is of equal importance, and both are probably
original works and not casts. The Berlin relief is not so thickly
painted as the London medallion, and shows signs of the actual
modelling. There are contradictions in these valuable works. The
music-making angels are like a figure on the Salome relief at Siena:
but they are also related to Luca della Robbia's reliefs on the
Campanile, and to a terra-cotta Madonna in London[233] (which reminds
one of the Pellegrini Chapel); Matteo Civitale uses a similar type on
the tomb of St. Regulus at Lucca; while the crowned saint of the
London version was copied at a later date on a well-known plaquette
forming the lid of a box of which several examples exist.[234] The
figure of the Madonna and Child also suggests another hand; and with
the exception of the stone relief in the Louvre, and another derived
from it at Padua,[235] it is the only case in which the Virgin is not
shown in profile. These latter works are bold and vigorous, and must
be ultimately referred to Donatello, the head of the Madonna being
rendered by fluent and precise strokes of the chisel. A bronze relief
in the Louvre (No. 390), which came from Fontainebleau, has
Donatellesque motives; but the spiral coils of hair, and still more
the fact that the Virgin's breasts are hammered into the likeness
of _putti_'s faces--wholly ali