Essays on Life 



Against the right-hand wall are two lady- 

 helps, each warming a towel at a glowing fire, 

 to be ready against the baby should come out 

 of its bath ; while in the right-hand foreground 

 we have the levatrice, who having discharged 

 her task, and being now so disposed, has re- 

 moved the bottle from the chimney-piece, and 

 put it near some bread, fruit and a chicken, 

 over which she is about to discuss the confine- 

 ment with two other gossips. The levatrice 

 is a very characteristic figure, but the best in 

 the chapel is the one of the head nurse, near 

 the middle of the composition; she has now 

 the infant in full charge, and is showing it to 

 St. Joachim, with an expression as though 

 she were telling him that her husband was 

 a merry man. I am afraid Shakespeare was 

 dead before the sculptor was born, otherwise 

 I should have felt certain that he had drawn 

 Juliet's nurse from this figure. As for the 

 little Virgin herself, I believe her to be a fine 

 boy of about ten months old. Viewing the 

 work as a whole, if I only felt more sure 

 what artistic merit really is, I should say 



that, though the chapel cannot be rated very 



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