A little closer examination revealed the strange inequality in the surface of the picture, the stringiness and lumpiness of the draperies and the streaky character of the background. Much of my perplexity, however, ought not to have existed, inasmuch as in the _Gazette des Beaux Arts_, April 1896, Mr. Berenson had carefully examined the whole question, and ascribed the picture not to Perugino at all, nor to an earlier period than the Raphael "Sposalizio," but to the hand of Lo Spagna, and since 1504. With his opinion, although contrary to the accepted judgment, I am in the fullest accord, and I think that Vasari, going only upon hearsay, and with probably only a casual glance at the picture, if ever he saw it at all, makes a grave mistake when he attributes it to Pietro. Mr. Berenson examines all the evidence pro and con with his usual ability, and produces, in my opinion, overwhelming proof of his attribution. He compares the "Sposalizio" with the pictures by Lo Spagna in other places, the "Virgin and Child" at Perugia, the "Nativity" and the "Madonna and Child" at the Louvre, and the "Coronation of the Virgin," Lo Spagna's greatest work (dated 1511), and preserved at Todi. He points out that several of the faces in these pictures are identical with faces at Caen, notably the face of the Virgin, which in every way, even in position, is the counterpart of the one in the "Nativity" in Paris. He finds the face of St. Joseph in more than one of Spagna's pictures, and especially he refers to a figure in the Caen picture, the fourth to the right, a woman wearing a hood, which never once appears in any work of Perugino's, but which does appear, line for line, not only in the Todi "Coronation," but in another of Spagna's pictures. Other points of close resemblance are to be found in the drawing of the ears, which are totally different to those of Perugino's figures; in the hands, which are broad and heavy in the Caen picture and in Lo Spagna's usual work, but fine and delicate in Perugino's; and especially in the colouring, certain special tints such as a chartreuse-green and rose-salmon appearing in the Caen and Todi pictures, and never once to be found in Perugino's accepted work.