success in this particular matter. The splendidly brushed-in prospect of
cloudy sky and far-stretching country recalls, as Morelli has observed,
the landscapes of Rubens, and suggests that he underwent the influence
of the Cadorine in this respect as in many others, especially after his
journey as ambassador to Madrid.

Another portrait, dating from the first visit to Augsburg, is the
half-length of the Elector John Frederick of Saxony, now in the Imperial
Gallery at Vienna. He sits obese and stolid, yet not without the dignity
that belongs to absolute simplicity, showing on his left cheek the wound
received at the battle of Mühlberg. The picture has, as a portrait by
Titian, no very commanding merit, no seduction of technique, and it is
easy to imagine that Cesare Vecellio may have had a share in it.
Singular is the absence of all pose, of all attempt to harmonise the
main lines of the design or give pictorial elegance to the naïve
directness of the presentment. This mode of conception may well have
been dictated to the courtly Venetian by sturdy John Frederick himself.

The master painted for Mary, Queen Dowager of Hungary, four canvases
specially mentioned by Vasari, _Prometheus Bound to the Rock, Ixion,
Tantalus_, and _Sisyphus_, which were taken to Spain at the moment of
the definitive migration of the court in 1556. Crowe and Cavalcaselle
state that the whole four perished in the all-devouring conflagration of
the Pardo Palace, and put down the _Prometheus_ and _Sisyphus_ of the
Prado Gallery as copies by Sanchez Coello. It is difficult to form a
definite judgment on canvases so badly hung, so darkened and injured.
They certainly look much more like Venetian originals than Spanish
copies. These mythological subjects may very properly be classed with
the all too energetic ceiling-pictures now in the Sacristy of the
Salute. Here again the master, in the effort to be grandiose in a style