Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/241

Rh the work as was paid for it to the artist, who never demanded more than a very sm*all price.

Two reasons may he given for the circumstances just alluded to; first, the timidity of disposition, which, as we have said, was natural to Andrea; and secondly, the fact that certain of the masters in wood-work, who at that time were most commonly employed to superintend the best works in the dwellings of the citizens, would never oblige their friends by giving Andrea any work to execute, unless they knew that he was at the time in very great need of money, when he would content himself with the meanest price. Be this as it may, these things do not deprive his paintings of their value, nor prevent them from being, as they are, most admirable. Nor do they affect the estimation in which they are held; very great account is made of them, and very deservedly, seeing that Andrea was certainly one of the greatest and best masters that the world has yet seen.

There are many drawings by Andrea del Sarto in our book, which are good, but that of the picture which he painted at Poggio may be particularly remarked, seeing that it is perfectly beautiful. The subject, as will be remembered, is the Presentation to Cassar, of Tribute, consisting of all sorts of animals brought from the East. This drawing, which is in chiaro-scuro, and a truly admirable work, is perhaps the most finished design ever executed by Andrea del Sarto; for when he drew the different objects from nature which he proposed to use in his works, it was his custom for the most part to sketch them but very slightly, since these few memoranda sufficed him, although, when the object in question was executed in the painting, he completed it to the utmost perfection. His drawings, therefore, were rather used as memorials to remind him of what he had seen, than as copies, to be imitated exactly for the representations depicted in his work.

The number of Andrea del Sarto’s disciples was very great, but they did not all pursue the same course of studies under his guidance, since some remained a shorter, and others a longer time with him; those who left him doing so not by his fault, but by that of his wife, who, refusing to pay due regard to any one, had respect to nothing but her own will; she treated all, therefore, with an arrogance of