Pietro Vannucci, called Perugino

owe and Cavalcaselle make a definite statement to which I can give no adherence. They speak of Pietro's work changing from tempera to oil work, and they allude

es were painted in tempera on a gesso background,"[H] and I find it as difficult to accept t

ra or not. Even Ruskin once admitted that he had for a long time been holding up for admiration as the finest oil-painting what he finally discovered to be tempera. The repeated oiling and varnishing to which Italian pictures have been submitted renders the task of discriminating the original medium o

e obtained much information, and have coupled it with close personal examination of the pictures, and some interesting experiments. I think, in considering tempera painting, one factor, that of climate, has not always received sufficient attention. Mr. Spencer Stanhope has expressed to Mrs. Herringham that tempera never dries completely in this country, and should not be varnished, but that has not been her experience. It, however, expresses in crude statement, the difficulty there is in this moist climate in using te

for them. There is also a curious variety in Perugino's pictures as to hatching, especially after 1500, and the hatching which till then only appears in the flesh, is later on to be seen in other parts of the picture. Blending of one colour with another is also to be seen in some of the later pictures to an extent that the earlier pictures never show, as with pure tempera painting the paint "cannot be moved and blended as in oil work," but "it must be put on and left alone till it is dry." I do not pretend to have touched more than the fringe of this subject, but my opinion is that Perugino did many of his pictures wholly

g conversation with Dr. Laurie, and I agree with him absolutely that the only vehicles which lock up the colours against moisture and against the action of sulphuretted hydrogen are those composed of balsams. The stickiness of colour ground in balsam to which he alludes can, I have ascertained, be overcome by a few drops of pure linseed oil and a morsel of w

s to Perugino's use of it, and would always be present when it was used. The artist took the Prior's distrust to heart, and by constantly washing his brush in a bowl of water allowed more colour to be precipitated than he was using in his fresco. Having punished the Prior in this way, he gathered up the blue from the water and returned it to him with the words, "This belongs to you,

he panel and the gesso as if to bind them together. Verdigris is, I believe, the only colour that will produce some of Perugino's greens, and, as far as I have experi

ing discoveries. Resta calls Perugino's colouring dry and sparing; Lanzi alludes to what he terms its skimpiness, but the very thinness of it is but proof of the artist's complete mastery of h