Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/409



,—In the very interesting paper, by M. Auguste Barth, in, No. II, entitled “How They Met Themselves”, he states that he could never find among the most intimate friends of Dante Gabriel Rossetti anyone who could explain the subject of the picture by the poet-artist representing a couple meeting their own facsimiles.

I think that I can indicate the possible source of the subject in question. About twenty years ago I saw, in the studio of a picture-cleaner, the late Mr. Merritt, a very beautiful work by Carpaccio, representing two nuns walking in a garden. As Mr. Merritt proceeded in his uncovering, he was astonished to find that there were really four nuns, two of whom had been painted over. When all was perfectly restored (which was done with extraordinary skill and love), it was apparent that the restored nuns were duplicates of the other pair, but evidently of a spiritual nature, as the trees, or other portions of the landscape, were visible through their dresses as through a mist. When Mr. Merritt asked me what I thought it meant, I replied, in the words cited by Mr. DarmstetterDarmesteter [sic]:—

There was no old Italian artist more congenial to Rossetti than Carpaccio, and the picture to which I refer, as regards rich golden orange sunset light, pre-Raphaelite details of peacocks and flowers, and a peculiar dreamy