First come the men whose names are those of their works or of their birthplace: Master William of Cologne, Master of the Death of Mary, Master of the Holy Companionship. Then the Van Eycks, Hubert and Jan, Rogier van der Weyden, Hugo van der Goes, Hans Memling, Quentin Massys, Lucas van Leyden, the two Hans Holbein, elder and younger, Burgkmair, Wolgemut, and then, master of them all, Albrecht Dürer. Something of their honesty of purpose must have been mixed with their pigments, for the works of these fortunate painters of the early Dutch and German schools shine on us to-day from the gallery walls with undiminished splendor; and brave with vivid reds, with blues as rich and deep as an organ chord, and yellows rich as the gold with which they embroidered their Virgin's robes, their pictures show, with touching lapses in some of the details, a large technical mastery, coupled with an intensity of sentiment which has remained unapproachable. [Illustration: HOLY FAMILY. NICOLAS POUSSIN (FRENCH: BORN 1594; DIED 1665).] [Illustration: MOTHER AND CHILD. LANDELLE. A LIVING FRENCH PAINTER.] [Illustration: MOTHER AND CHILD. UNKNOWN EARLY FLEMISH PAINTER.] [Illustration: THE MADONNA WITH THE DIADEM. RAPHAEL (ITALIAN: BORN 1483; DIED 1520).] [Illustration: MOTHER AND CHILD. RUBENS (FLEMISH: BORN 1577; DIED 1640).] [Illustration: VIRGIN, INFANT JESUS, AND ST. JOHN. BOTTICELLI (ITALIAN: BORN 1447; DIED 1515).] [Illustration: THE REPOSE OF THE HOLY FAMILY. CANTARINI (ITALIAN: BORN 1612; DIED 1648).] The next of these northern painters who can claim the first rank is he who is in some respects the greatest of all from a painter's standpoint, Rembrandt van Ryn. There is little of the primitive Italian here, little of the painter who worships his Madonna through the medium of his craft as some great lady, "empress of heaven and of earth." Rembrandt's picture, lacking this mysticism, gains, however, in humanity; and however far even from our modern point of view it may be as a creation embodying the divine Motherhood, it throbs with tenderness. The homely interior, the good mother, the almost pathetic _abandon_ of the sleeping child--surely no painter ever wrought better, nor, we may be sure, more devoutly! [Illustration: MOTHER AND CHILD. P.A.J. DAGNAN-BOUVERET, A LIVING FRENCH PAINTER.]