All this was of course recognized by the great portraitists of the Renaissance and the seventeenth century, but while most of them endeavoured to enhance the sensorial beauty of their men subjects, little attempt was made to add intellectual grace to the portrayals of women. Antonio Moro[a] and Van Dyck, in their full length portraits of women, sometimes succeeded in converting dignity of form into what we understand as grandeur, which implies dignity of expression as well as grace and dignity of form, but they were largely handicapped by the dress fashions of their times. They had to deal with heavy formal drapery which hung over the figures like elongated bells, and bid defiance to freedom of pose. When fashions and customs had so changed as to allow of definition being given to the figures, Van Dyck had been dead for many years. Meanwhile Hals, Rembrandt, Velasquez, and hundreds of lesser lights, were casting around their flowers of form and mind, but all on the old plan, for it is difficult to find a portrait of a woman painted during the century succeeding Van Dyck, where beauty of feature is allied to nobility in expression. [a] Catilina of Portugal, and Maria of Austria, both at the Prado. [Illustration: PLATE 14 (See page 168) Sacrifice of Iphigenia (Pompeian Fresco) Supposed copy of a painting by Timanthes] The production of this combination awaited the maturity of Reynolds, who with Gainsborough, broke into a new field in the portraiture of women. Gainsborough took the grandeur of Van Dyck for his pattern, but improved upon it by substituting simplicity for dignity and elaboration, which he was able to manage without great difficulty, as he had a clear advantage over the Flemish master in that the costumes in use in his time were lighter in character, and permitted of the contour of form being properly exhibited. This simple grace of form allied to grandeur in bearing, naturally brings about an apparent modification in expression in conformity with it, so long as there are no conflicting elements in expression present, which Gainsborough was careful to avoid. Reynolds went further than Gainsborough, for after the middle of his career he directly added an expression of nobility to his portraits of women whenever the features would admit of it, and so brought about the highest type of feminine portraiture known in art. He was more nearly allied to Titian than Van Dyck, and though in sheer force of sensorial beauty he did not reach the level of the Venetian master, yet in pure feminine portraiture, where high beauty of expression is combined with a perfect generalization of the features, Reynolds is unsurpassed in the history of painting, so far as we can judge from examples remaining to us. For we must estimate an artist from his best work. Reynolds painted forty or fifty portraits of women of the character indicated, and a few of them, notably Mrs. Siddons as Tragedy,[a] and Mrs. Billington as St.