Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/296

252 had offered him a hundred for his work. Accordingly, the picture became the property of some private owner, from whose hands it passed into the collection of Francis I. at Fontainebleau, and is now among the greatest treasures of the Louvre. In spite of its blackened colour and repainted condition, the "Vierge aux Rochers" is a masterpiece of profound originality and infinite charm. The old trammels of tradition have been cast away, and the Virgin appears no longer crowned and throned, attended by saints or kneeling in adoration before her Son, but simply as a human mother, watching her child with all a mother's tender delight. The Child, sitting on the grass, blesses the little St. John, whom the Virgin caresses with her hand; a red-robed angel, with uplifted finger, kneeling at his side, completes the lovely group. In the oval types and rippling hair of both the Virgin and angel, the innocent grace of the curly-headed children and the soft blue of Mary's mantle, we see the exquisite refinement of Leonardo's fancy. Still more remarkable is the execution of the picture. The ease and freedom with which the figures are modelled, the subtle harmonies of line and delicately-blended tints, the wonderful play of light and shade in the deep hollows and splintered shafts of the rocky background, all reveal the presence of a new power in art.

The replica of this famous picture in the National Gallery is probably the work of the Milanese artist Ambrogio de Predis, who had already painted the angels on the wings of the altar-piece, and remained in the Franciscan church until 1796, when Gavin Hamilton bought it for thirty ducats. The small-