This St. Stephen series, again, once existed entire as five pictures, all by Carpaccio, in the Scuola (or Guild) of St. Stephen at Venice. Similar sets of other saints still exist in the Scuola di San Rocco and other Guilds in the city. The first of the group, which represents the saint being consecrated as deacon by St. Peter, is now in the Berlin Gallery. The second, the Preaching of St. Stephen, is the one before which you are now standing. The third, St. Stephen disputing with the Doctors, is at the Brera in Milan. The fourth, the Martyrdom of St. Stephen, is at Stuttgardt. The fifth and last, St. Stephen Enthroned, between St. Nicolas and St. Thomas Aquinas, has disappeared from sight, or at least its present whereabouts is unknown to me. It is interesting to look out for such companion works in widely separated galleries. Rightly to understand this picture, once more, one should know Carpaccio. And fully to know him one must have spent some time in Venice. But even without that knowledge, it is pleasant here to remark the familiar acquaintance with oriental life, which is equally visible in the neighbouring picture of the School of Bellini representing the reception of a Venetian Ambassador at Cairo. The mixed character of the architecture and the quaint accessories are all redolent of Carpaccio’s semi-mediæval and picturesque sentiment. The pellucid atmosphere, the apparent realism, the underlying idealism, the naïveté of the innocent saint in his deacon’s robes, counting his _firstly_, _secondly_, and _thirdly_ on his fingers, irrespective of persecution, and the glow and brilliancy of the Venetian colouring, here approaching its zenith, all combine to make this daintily simple picture one of the most attractive in this part of the Louvre. Recollect it when you go to Milan and Venice, and let it fall into its proper place, in time, in your mature conception of the painter and the epoch in which he lived.