Now, if my contention is correct, chronology determines a further point. Caterina died in 1510, so that this likeness of her (which is clearly taken from life) must have been done in or before the first decade of the sixteenth century.[98] This excludes Licinio and Schiavone (both of whom have been suggested as the artist), for the latter was not even born, and the former--whose earliest known picture is dated 1520--must have been far too young in 1510 to have already achieved so splendid a result. Palma is likewise excluded, so that we are driven to choose between Titian and Giorgione, the only two Venetian artists capable of such a masterpiece before 1510. As to which of these two artists it is, opinions--so far as any have been published--are divided. Yet Dr. Gronau, who claims it for Titian, admits in the same breath that the hand is the same as that which painted the Cobham Hall picture and the Pitti "Concert," a judgment in which I fully concur. Dr. Bode[99] labels it "Art des Giorgione." Finally, Mr. Berenson, with rare insight proclaimed the conception and the spirit of the picture to be Giorgione's.[100] But he asserts that the execution is not fine enough to be the master's own, and would rank it--with the "Judith" at St. Petersburg--in the category of contemporary copies after lost originals. This view is apparently based on the dangerous maxim that where the execution of a picture is inferior to the conception, the work is presumably a copy. But two points must be borne in mind, the actual condition of the picture, and the character of the artist who painted it. Mr. Berenson has himself pointed out elsewhere[101] that Giorgione, "while always supreme in his conceptions, did not live long enough to acquire a perfection of draughtsmanship and chiaroscuro equally supreme, and that, consequently, there is not a single universally accepted work of his which is absolutely free from the reproaches of the academic pedant." Secondly, the surface of this portrait has lost its original glow through cleaning, and has suffered other damage, which actually debarred Crowe and Cavalcaselle (who saw the picture in 1877) from pronouncing definitely upon the authorship. The eyes and flesh, they say,[102] were daubed over, the hair was new, the colour modern. A good deal of this "restoration" has since been removed, but the present appearance of the panel bears witness to the harsh treatment suffered years ago. Nevertheless, the original work is before us, and not a copy of a lost original, and Mr. Berenson's enthusiastic praise ought to be lavished on the actual picture as it must have appeared in all its freshness and purity. "Je n'hésiterais pas," he declares,[103] "à le proclamer le plus important des portraits du maître, un chef-d'oeuvre ne le cédant à aucun portrait d'aucun pays ou d'aucun temps."