374 VENETIAN INDEX

the Sala dei Pregadi. One of the most interesting mythic pictures of Venice, two Doges being represented beside the body of Christ, and a most noble painting; executed, however, for distant effect, and seen best from the end of the room.

6. Venice, Queen of the Sea, by Tintoret. Central compartment of the ceiling, in the Sala dei Pregadi. Notable for the sweep of its vast green surges, and for the daring character of its entire conception, though it is wild and careless, and in many respects unworthy of the master. Note the way in which he has used the fantastic forms of the sea-weeds, with respect to what was above stated (XI. 187), as to his love of the grotesque.

7. The Doge Loredano in prayer to the Virgin, by Tintoret; in the same room.¹ Sickly and pale in colour, yet a grand work; to be studied, however, more for the sake of seeing what a great man does “to order,” when he is wearied of what is required from him, than for its own merit.

8. St. George and the Princess. There are, besides the “Paradise,” only six pictures in the Ducal Palace, as far as I know, which Tintoret painted carefully, and these are all exceedingly fine: the most finished of those are in the Anti-Collegio; but those that are most majestic and characteristic of the master are two oblong ones, made to fill the panels of the walls in the Anti-Chiesetta; these two, each, I suppose, about eight feet by six, are in his most quiet and noble manner. There is excessively little colour in them, their prevalent tone being a greyish brown opposed with grey, black, and a very warm russet. They are thinly painted, perfect in tone, and quite untouched. The first of them is “St. George and the Dragon,” the subject being treated in a new and curious way. The principal figure is the princess, who sits astride on the dragon’s neck, holding him by a bridle of silken riband; St. George stands above and behind her, holding his hands over her head as if to bless her, or to keep the dragon quiet by heavenly power; and a monk stands by on the right, looking gravely on. There is no expression or life in the dragon, though the white flashes in its eye are very ghastly: but the whole thing is entirely typical; and the princess is not so much represented riding on the dragon, as supposed to be placed by St. George in an attitude of perfect victory over her chief enemy. She has a full rich dress of dull red, but her figure is somewhat ungraceful. St George is in grey armour and grey drapery, and has a beautiful face; his figure entirely dark against the distant sky. There is a study for this picture in the Manfrini Palace.²

9. St. Andrew and St. Jerome. This, the companion picture, has even less colour than its opposite. It is nearly all brown and grey; the fig-leaves and olive-leaves brown, the faces brown, the dresses brown, and St. Andrew holding a great brown cross. There is nothing that can be called colour, except the grey of the sky, which approaches in some places a little to blue, and a single piece of dirty brick-red in St. Jerome’s

¹ [Now in the “Collegio” room. See for further notices of this picture, Modern Painters, vol. ii. (Vol. IV. p. 304 and n.).]

² [This collection of pictures has now for the most part been dispersed: see below, p. 391.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]