Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/206

198 who was then a very highly renowned artist in design, formed the wish to learn the art of painting in oil; wherefore, knowing that there was no one in Florence who understood the method of proceeding in that branch of art more perfectly than did Andrea del Sarto, he caused the latter to paint his portrait, which must have resembled him greatly at that age, as we may perceive even yet. By observing Andrea execute this and other works, therefore, Baccio obtained a knowledge of his mode of colouring, but he did not put the knowledge thus acquired into practice, either because of the difdculty which he found in doing so, or perhaps, because he was not sufficiently attracted by the art of painting; be this as it may, he betook himself again to sculpture, as being the art which he found to suit him the best.

For Alessandro Corsini, Andrea painted a picture of Children surrounding a figure of Our Lady, who is seated on the earth, with the divine Child in her arms. The whole is executed with much ability, and the colouring in particular is very pleasing. For a merchant who carried on his traffic in Borne, and who was Andrea’s particular friend, the latter also painted a head of the most exquisite beauty; and in like manner, for the Florentine, Giovanni Battista Puccini, whom the manner of Andrea pleased exceedingly, our artist painted a picture of the Virgin. This work Puccini had caused to be executed for the purpose of sending it into France; but finding it to be a most exquisite production, he could not resolve on parting with it, and kept it for himself. He was, nevertheless, so frequently commissioned to send fine paintings, by good masters, into France, where he had much traffic, that he soon gave Andrea another picture to paint, and the subject of this work was the Dead Christ sur-