Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/317

Rh which they are rendered, and the careful attention given by this master to all the details of the anatomy. His women also are singularly beautiful, their draperies are graceful, and the decorations of every part are fanciful and appropriate. In the heads of the old, likewise. Rosso was careful to exhibit the hard lines and sharp angles proper to their age, while to those of women and children he imparted a pleasing expression, and gave a delicate softness of feature. His inventive powers, moreover, were so rich that he never had any portion of his picture remaining unoccupied, every part was appropriately used, and all were executed with so much facility and grace that they cannot be sufficiently extolled.

For Giovanni Bandini, Rosso painted a picture of Moses slaying the Egyptian, the nude figures of this work exhibit extraordinary beauty, and there are besides many other particulars therein which are highly worthy of commendation. The picture was sent, as I believe, into France. Another, which he painted for Giovanni Cavalcanti, was forwarded to England; the subject of this last is Jacob requesting to drink from the Women at the Well; it was considered an exquisite work, the artist having therein exhibited his power in the treatment of the nude figure, and having also given to the female forms those slight half transparent draperies, those waving or gracefully arranged tresses, and those delicately fancied and skilfully managed habiliments with which he delighted to invest the women of his pictures.

While Rosso was occupied with this work he had his abode in the Borgo de’ Tintori, in a house the windows of which looked into the gardens belonging to the monks of Santa Croce. The painter had at that time a monkey in whose pranks he found great pleasure, and who had the intelligence rather of a man than of a mere animal; for this cause he was held in the utmost affection by Rosso, who loved him as himself, and, availing himself of the extraordinary cleverness exhibited by the creature, he employed his monkey in every kind of service. This ape took a great fancy to one of the