on a small scale, they are very important on account of the completeness of their execution and of the perfection of their colour, the scale of which is very clear, and very French. Pale blue, white, soft grey, pale pink, pale trembling green, heightened with gold, bloom on the surface of a black shining mirror. These tints are full of pulsations like a flower of flame burning in the sky at night. Now and again comes a small touch of deeper colour in a sleeve, or in a fold of drapery which solidifies the general fluency of tone and carries it into the ground. The wreaths of foliage which enclose each separate figure run in alternate bands of green and shimmering blue; clear and pale, but sharply detached at the angles by spaces of warm transparent brown, covered with gold tracery. The original settings have unfortunately been replaced by poor gilt mouldings; it is rarely, indeed, that any piece has the good fortune to retain, like the cup-cover in the Fountaine collection, its original mounting undisturbed.

This cover, signed by Léonard, and dated 1549, is decorated with subjects from the story of Actæon, executed in pure grisaille on a deep blue ground; the rim is protected with delicate embossed work, and the knob which surmounts the top is chiselled into the form of a winged figure, the lines of which are rendered both admirably decorative and convenient to use. Another cup in the same collection, also painted in grisaille, bears the same date, and has been stamped

as special property by a shield, the outlines of which are still visible; the bearings have disappeared, destroyed, in all probability, for safety in theft and sale, but the motto, which remains, Ut prosit sibi non parcit suis,' may yet identify the arms.

year

In the after the execution of this cup, in 1550, Léonard took proceedings against the heirs of a refractory debtor, record of which is still preserved in the archives of Limoges. In the same year also he dated several portraits: one,-a posthumous representation of Claude de France, wife of François I., is now in the Hôtel Cluny; another,—that of a noble wearing the collar of St. Michael, is now in the Louvre. The latter bears, beneath the translucent enamel with which the reverse is coated, the figure 1550, coupled with the monogram of Léonard. A third portrait, that of some unknown magistrate, or man of letters, also in the Louvre, is neither dated nor signed, but appears to have been executed at about the same time. Both the Louvre portraits are oval in form, though differing in size. The persons represented cannot be determined in spite of the strong air of individual character by which they are distinguished, and which shows how conscientiously Léonard, when engaged on work of this sort, could adhere to the lines laid down by his original.

The delicacy and precision of the drawing in both instances speaks of the influence of François Clouet from