This portrait was formerly ascribed in the Official Catalogue to Masaccio. The wish was perhaps father to the thought, for Masaccio is a very important person in the development of art (being the leader of the scientific movement in Florentine painting, and also "the first man," says Ruskin, "who entirely broke through the conventionality of his time and painted pure landscape"), and is not otherwise represented in the National Gallery. Mr. Wornum (the late Keeper) ascribed the portrait to Filippino Lippi; it is now ascribed to Botticelli, who was also distinguished in portrait-painting, which in his time was becoming increasingly fashionable. "The waving lines in the falling hair, and the drawing of the mouth, seem to leave no doubt that Botticelli alone is the author of this impressive, yet simple and unpretentious, likeness of an unknown Florentine" (Richter: _Italian Art in the National Gallery_, p. 24). 627, 628. WATERFALLS. _Ruysdael_ (Dutch: 1628-1682). Jacob van Ruysdael is usually accounted the greatest of the Dutch landscape painters. He often painted wild scenery, but it is perhaps in the quiet, and as it were uneventful pictures from the neighbourhood of Haarlem, that he charms us most. "At each moment in the country around Haarlem," says M. Michel, "the name of Ruysdael occurs to one with a recollection of some picture of his. One can follow his course and even find the very place where he must have sat." "Of all the Dutch painters," says Fromentin, "Ruysdael is the one who has the noblest resemblance to his country. He has its spaciousness, its sadness, its somewhat gloomy placidity, its monotonous and tranquil charm." But though in this way a product of the soil, Ruysdael's genius is essentially human and individual. His means of expression were the simplest. His touch is crisp and spirited, his workmanship thorough and conscientious; but he had no adventitious aids to attraction. There is, however, continues Fromentin, something in his works which compels respect. "It is the conviction created by them that they are the outcome of a great man who has something to say. The cause of his superiority to others is to be found in this, that there is behind the painter a man who thinks, behind each of his pictures an idea. In studying a picture by Ruysdael we become interested also in the personality of the painter. We find ourselves asking questions. Had he joys, as he certainly had bitterness? Did destiny give him occasion to love other things than clouds, and from what did he suffer most, if he did suffer, from the torment of painting well or of living? All these questions remain without answer, and yet posterity is interested in them. Would it occur to you to ask as much about Berchem, Karel Dujardin, Wouwerman, Goyen, Terburg,