e to attract the eye, and when they
selected scenes from ancient mythology, and allegories decked out with
an ostentation of learning, the result is positively disagreeable.

The most satisfactory productions of this period will be found in the
department of portrait painting, which, by its nature, threw the artist
upon the exercise of his own original feeling for art. As in every other
respect this epoch is far more important as a link in the chain of
history than from any pleasure arising from its own works, it will be
sufficient to mention only the more important painters and a few of
their principal pictures.

The first painter who deserted his native style of art was, as before
mentioned, Jan Mabuse. After the large _Adoration of the Kings_ in the
National Gallery the most important picture of his pre-Italian period is
the _Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane_ at Berlin. Nearly all his works
subsequent to 1512, by which time he had settled in Brussels, are
characterised by all the faults above mentioned. Their redeeming quality
is their masterly treatment. Among those of religious subjects the
smallest are as a rule the best. The _Ecce Homo_ at Antwerp, so
frequently copied by contemporary painters, is a specimen of masterly
modelling and vigorous colour. He is less successful with his life-size
_Adam and Eve_, of which there are repetitions at Brussels, Hatfield,
Hampton Court and Berlin. But his most unpleasing efforts are the
mythological subjects such as the _Danae_ at Munich, and the _Neptune
and Amphitrite_ at Berlin. On the other hand, his portraits are
attractive both from being more original, and less influenced by his
acquired mannerisms of style Four of these are in the National Gallery,
and the _Girl weighing Gold Pieces_, in the Berlin gallery, is also
worthy of mention.

BERNARD VAN ORLEY, born at Brussels in 1471, is characterised in the
catalogue of the National Gallery as "taking his place after Massys and
Mabuse on the downward slope of Netherlandish painting." He has been
immortalised by the fine portrait head of him by Albert Duerer which is
now in the Dresden Gallery. He was Court painter to Margaret of Austria,
Governess of the Low Countries, and retained the same post under her
successor, Mary of Hungary. He is said to have visited Rome in 1509, and
there made the acquaintance of Raphael, whose influence is certainly
apparent, though hardly his inspiration, in the _Holy Family_ in the
Louvr