facilitate the rendering of the peculiar curves and lines of the sitter's features, and further variations of it developed to express the draperies and other component parts of the picture. It is this inventiveness in handling which most distinguishes Dürer from painters like Raphael and Holbein, and makes his work comparable with the masterpieces of Rembrandt and Titian, in spite of the extreme opposition in aspect between their work and his. The noble portrait of a middle-aged man, No. 557c, in the Royal Gallery at Berlin, (supposed to represent Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, Dürer's first patron), gives us a master portrait, in which the technical treatment is comparable to that of the early triptych at Dresden, and which is a monument of sober power and distinction, though again very difficult to compare with the other splendid portraits by the same hand which hang beside or near it in that Gallery. The vivid _Oswolt Krel_ at Munich shows the peculiarity of Dürer's caligraphic touch better than perhaps any other of his portraits. The finish is not carried so far as in the Madrid portrait of himself, where even the texture of the gloves has been softened by touches of the thumb, and the absence of these extra refinements leaves it the most spontaneous and vigorously bold of all Dürer's paintings. The concentrated energy of the sitter's features demanded such a treatment; he seems to burn with the inconsiderate atheism of a Marlowe. Young, and less surprised than indignant to be alone awake in a sleepy and bigoted world, he seems convinced of a mission to chastise, _even_ to scandalise his easy-going neighbours. Let us hope he met with better luck than the Marlowes, Shelleys, and Rimbauds, whose tragedies we have read; for one can but regret, as one meets his glance so much fiercer than need be, that he is not known to history. [Illustration: Oil Portrait of a Lady seen against the Sea In the Berlin Gallery] [Illustration: Oil portrait, dated 1506, at Hampton Court] The fine portrait of Hans Tucher, 1499, in the Grand Ducal Museum at Weimar should, judging from a photograph alone, be mentioned here. It has obvious affinities with the _Oswolt Krel_, but the caligraphic method is again modified in harmony with the character of the sitter's features. The companion piece, representing Felicitas Tucherin, would seem at some period to have been restored to the insignificance and obscurity that belonged to the sitter before Dürer painted her. IV