that not this picture, but a replica, was the one which found its way
into Charles I.'s collection, and was there catalogued by Van der Doort
as "the Emperor Charles the Fifth, brought by the king from Spain, being
done at length with a big white Irish dog"--going afterwards, at the
dispersal of the king's effects, to Sir Balthasar Gerbier for _£_150.
There is, however, no valid reason for doubting that this is the very
picture owned for a time by Charles I., and which busy intriguing
Gerbier afterwards bought, only to part with it to Cardenas the Spanish
ambassador.[10] Other famous originals by Titian were among the choicest
gifts made by Philip IV. to Prince Charles at the time of his runaway
expedition to Madrid with the Duke of Buckingham, and this was no doubt
among them. Confirmation is supplied by the fact that the references to
the existence of this picture in the royal palaces of Madrid are for the
reigns of Philip II., Charles II., and Charles III., thus leaving a
large gap unaccounted for. Dimmed as the great portrait is, robbed of
its glow and its chastened splendour in a variety of ways, it is still a
rare example of the master's unequalled power in rendering race, the
unaffected consciousness of exalted rank, natural as distinguished from
assumed dignity. There is here no demonstrative assertion of _grandeza_,
no menacing display of truculent authority, but an absolutely serene and
simple attitude such as can only be the outcome of a consciousness of
supreme rank and responsibility which it can never have occurred to any
one to call into question. To see and perpetuate these subtle qualities,
which go so far to redeem the physical drawbacks of the House of
Hapsburg, the painter must have had a peculiar instinct for what is
aristocratic in the higher sense of the word--that is, both outwardly
and inwardly distinguished. This was indeed one of the leading
characteristics of Titian's great art, more especially in portraiture.
Giorgione went deeper, knowing the secret of the soul's refinement, the
aristocracy of poetry and passion; Lotto sympathetically laid bare the