ANIMAL LIFE IN ITALIAN PAINTING 



creatures, and the hillsides with pools of water, and the 

 pools of water with flowering reeds." ^ 



There is a delightful little smooth dog being carried 

 rather uncomfortably by a boy in the picture of the 

 Exodus, and looking up with a half-peevish, half-resigned 

 expression. The rams at the well in one scene are full 

 of life, vigour, and movement, and the goats in another 

 are even frantic with impatience. 



A swarm of hornets is issuing from the tree-trunk 

 near the head of the sleeping knight in Mars and Venus 

 (National Gallery). They are carelessly painted, and in 

 some cases the legs are on the wrong part of the body. 



Of this school is the Tobias and the Atigel, also in 

 the National Gallery, which is now attributed to Botticini. 

 It is a subject frequently found in Italian painting. 

 The story is taken from the Apocrypha,- and is 

 briefly this : An unfortunate woman, named Sarah, 

 had been married seven times, but in each case her 

 husband had been strangled by an evil spirit. Tobias is 

 chosen to be the eighth, and the Archangel Raphael 

 conducts him to Media, accompanied by the young 

 man's dog. On the way Tobias goes to wash in the 

 Tigris, and a fish appears and attempts to swallow him, 

 but, by Raphael's suggestion, is landed and the liver 



* The Renaissance, 1893, p. 56. 

 ^ Tobit vi. 1-9. 

 40 



