A figure full of action and
passion holds up a glass to the statue of the goddess in one corner.
The children are kissing each other and carrying about baskets of
fruit; these baskets are hung with rich pearls and rubies and gems of
all kinds. The green, fresh trees wave against a summer sky, and the
work is full of tender, sensitive elegance and love. It shows to me an
entirely new side of Titian in its extreme delicacy and sweetness.
Nobody can ever speak of a "want of refinement" in Titian, if they
thought so before, after seeing these pictures. Then there is the
Herodias, the same as the girl in Dresden who holds up the
casket,--wonderfully delicate and beautiful; and several other
portraits and pictures, which I cannot tell you of, even if you are not
already tired. I ought, however, to say that Paul Veronese has a very
fine Venus and Adonis here, full of sunlight and summer beauty, and
Christ Teaching the Doctors, nobly serious in character and admirable
in treatment; also two sketches of Cain and of Vice and Virtue, very
full of feeling for his subject. The Cain has his back toward you. His
wife and child look up at him entreatingly. There is a fine, solemn
horizon with a gleam of twilight. There are several Tintorets, but no
favorable specimens,--a portrait is the best.
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