_Cima da Conegliano_ (Venetian: 1460-1518). _See 300._
This picture was sold as a Carlo Dolci; but the attribution was an
obvious absurdity. There is no resemblance whatever between the
affected sentimentality of Dolci and the sincere pathos of this
picture. Its deep and rich colouring also is very different from
Dolci's. Sir Frederick Burton labelled his _trouvaille_ "Giovanni
Bellini." But its attribution to Cima is now accepted. "This type of
Christ," says Mr. Claude Phillips, "of a perfect, manly beauty, of a
divine meekness tempering majesty, dates back not to Gian Bellino but
to Cima. The preferred type of the elder master is more passionate,
more human. Our own Incredulity of St. Thomas, by Cima, shows in a
much more perfunctory fashion a Christ similarly conceived" (_The
Earlier Work of Titian_, p. 31 _n._). To the same effect a writer in
the _Academy_ (July 26, 1890) says: "The modelling--not precise or
searching enough for Giambellino--resembles that of his gifted pupil,
the parted lips being one of his especial characteristics, as may be
noted in his great 'Incredulity of St Thomas' (816). The treatment
of the heavy wig-like masses of the hair, with its fine lines, is
very similar to that of the Saviour's parted locks in the larger
work, while a certain want of flexibility in the muscles of the face
is also a distinguishing mark of the master. More striking still is
the coincidence that from the head of Christ issue in both instances
single rays, disposed in three distinct and separate _fasciculi_--an
arrangement not found, as far as we are aware, in the works of Giovanni
Bellini, and never common in Italian art. The peculiarly brilliant
blue of the drapery is paralleled by that of the little 'St. Jerome'
from the Hamilton Palace Collection, and approached by that of the
'Virgin and Child'--both these panels being sufficiently representative
examples of Cima. Comparison has in these remarks been restricted to
works in the National Gallery, as being most readily available for
purposes of verification. The influence of Antonello--from whom Bellini
himself borrowed so much--is, in the new acquisition, undeniable,
and may account for a virility and an intensity of pathos not often
reached even in the better productions of the sympathetic Bellinesque
painter to whom we would attribute it."