CRIVELLI TO VERONESE 



Giovanni Bellini), was fond of the partridge. Here one 

 stalks delicately up to the Saint's old pair of shoes, 

 so neatly laid together, as who should say: "Anything 

 interesting in here, I wonder ? Nothing that will make 

 me jump, I hope ? " The lion does not look a cheerful 

 pet. In the Warrior adoring the Infant Christ there 

 are also two red-legged partridges feeding behind the 

 Madonna, and a little curly dog. 



The partridge is frequently introduced in Italian 

 painting. It is connected in legend with St. John, 

 and there are far-fetched analogies about it in Physio- 

 logus. It is said, for instance, to rob its fellow birds 

 of their eggs because it is anxious to have more to 

 hatch and rear, and so typifies the Church in its zeal 

 for souls. It is also, by contrast, said to represent the 

 Devil. Even with so wide a range of possible inter- 

 pretation it is difficult to discover its appropriateness 

 in any given picture. It appears even in Titian's Venus 

 Reposing (Florence, Uffizi). 



In the Madonna of the Meadow (National Gallery), Basaiti, 

 originally attributed to Marco Basaiti, then to Giovanni ^' 

 Bellini, and now again to Basaiti,^ there is some good 

 painting of animal life, with nothing perfunctory about 

 its rendering. A stork with active wings and beak 



^ Sir Walter Armstrong thinks that it is by Catena. See Notes oft the 

 National Gallery, 1887, p. 23. 



87 



