The most satisfactory productions of this period will be found in the department of portrait painting, which, by its nature, threw the artist upon the exercise of his own original feeling for art. As in every other respect this epoch is far more important as a link in the chain of history than from any pleasure arising from its own works, it will be sufficient to mention only the more important painters and a few of their principal pictures. The first painter who deserted his native style of art was, as before mentioned, Jan Mabuse. After the large _Adoration of the Kings_ in the National Gallery the most important picture of his pre-Italian period is the _Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane_ at Berlin. Nearly all his works subsequent to 1512, by which time he had settled in Brussels, are characterised by all the faults above mentioned. Their redeeming quality is their masterly treatment. Among those of religious subjects the smallest are as a rule the best. The _Ecce Homo_ at Antwerp, so frequently copied by contemporary painters, is a specimen of masterly modelling and vigorous colour. He is less successful with his life-size _Adam and Eve_, of which there are repetitions at Brussels, Hatfield, Hampton Court and Berlin. But his most unpleasing efforts are the mythological subjects such as the _Danae_ at Munich, and the _Neptune and Amphitrite_ at Berlin. On the other hand, his portraits are attractive both from being more original, and less influenced by his acquired mannerisms of style Four of these are in the National Gallery, and the _Girl weighing Gold Pieces_, in the Berlin gallery, is also worthy of mention. BERNARD VAN ORLEY, born at Brussels in 1471, is characterised in the catalogue of the National Gallery as "taking his place after Massys and Mabuse on the downward slope of Netherlandish painting." He has been immortalised by the fine portrait head of him by Albert Duerer which is now in the Dresden Gallery. He was Court painter to Margaret of Austria, Governess of the Low Countries, and retained the same post under her successor, Mary of Hungary. He is said to have visited Rome in 1509, and there made the acquaintance of Raphael, whose influence is certainly apparent, though hardly his inspiration, in the _Holy Family_ in the Louvre. A more Netherlandish work, both in feeling and in treatment, is the _Pieta_ in the Gallery at Brussels. IAN SCOREL, born in 1495, was a pupil of Mabuse, and appears to have been the first to introduce the Italian style into his native country--Holland. When on a pilgrimage to Palestine he happened to pass through Rome at the time his countryman was raised to the papal dignity as Adrian VI., and after painting his portrait he was appointed overseer of the art treasures of the Vatican. Returning to Utrecht, where he died, he painted the picture of the _Virgin and Child_, with donors, which is now in the Town Hall. A fine portrait by Scorel of Cornelius Aerntz van der Dussen is in the Berlin Gallery.