Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 1.djvu/212

194 the Virgin and St. John, and that the representation of Christ crucified and lying on his parent's knees, did not occur before the fifteenth century; M. Monnier corroborating this by allusions to the churches of the Jura, and M. Laurens to a stained glass at Villefranche, where above the head of the Father is a dove. M. Frelet then learnedly discussed the manner in which, during the twelfth century, the figures of Christ and the Virgin were depicted, observing that in pictures and sculptures the features given to Christ were invariably alike. He attributes this similarity to a conceived duty on the part of the artist to imitate a Mosaic traditionally said to have been given to Prudentius a Roman patrician by St. Peter himself, and of which mention was made by church writers of the fourth century, and that the manner prevailed until the fourteenth century. M. Frelet stated also that he had observed the same conventional similarity in the figures of the Virgin and of certain saints, and supposes that there was formerly some authentic portrait of the Virgin.

With these observations the session, the last of the Society in 1841, closed. W. BROMET.

