_Piero della Francesca_ (Umbrian: 1416-1492). _See 665._
"This painting is said to be unfinished. But even minute
details, such as the pearls on the robes of the angels and on
the head-dress of the Virgin, have been worked out with an
accuracy which excites astonishment. One of the two shepherds,
standing on the right side and seen in front, appears to have
no pupils to his eyes, and this strange fact might account for
the theory of the unfinished state of the picture. On the other
hand it seems to me to have suffered very much from repainting
in all the flesh parts.... The restorer has, I believe,
forgotten to paint in the pupils of the shepherd's eyes after
having destroyed them by the cleaning of the original painting"
(Richter's _Italian Art in the National Gallery_, pp. 16, 17).
The beauty of the picture is in the choir of angels with their
mouths in different attitudes of singing, making such music
sweet
As never was by mortal finger strook--
Divinely-warbled voice
Answering the stringèd noise,
As all their souls in blissful rapture took.
MILTON: _Hymn on Christ's Nativity_.
"The picture is a masterpiece" says Mr. Hipkins, "in musical
delineation. It is the perfectly expressed singing of these
characteristic angels that arrests attention first; but the
archæologist in musical instruments values the two large lutes held by
the outside angels of the group, who are accompanying the singers. The
splendid lines and fine dimensions of these instruments suggest their
sonorous tone. When this picture came from the Barker Collection, each
lute had eleven strings, and the number of pegs in one of them seems
to have this number; but in cleaning the picture the strings have
disappeared. As the picture was not finished by the painter, it is
supposed that the strings were a later addition. However, the number
was right, according to the practice with large lutes at that time, to
give six open notes; the highest, or melody, string being open"[194]
(_The Hobby Horse_, No. 1, 1893). "The figures of the Virgin and Child
are of the gentlest and fairest type, and show undoubted signs of the
Flemish influence, which made itself felt in Florence and throughout
Central Italy after Hugo van der Goes set up his great altar-piece
in the Ospedale of Santa Maria Novella" (W. G. Waters: _Piero della
Francesca_ p. 64).
This picture was formerly in the possession of the Marini-Franceschi
family, of Borgo San Sepolcro, descendants of the painter. The wings
and the predella once belonging to it are in the cathedral of that city.