This is Tintoret’s conception: A high priest, patriarchal in dignity, stands at the top of a flight of steps leading to the door of the Temple. Just below him Mary is mounting, her slight form and dress being beautifully contrasted with the sky beyond. Behind her is a young woman (probably her mother, Anne) carrying a young child. At the foot of the steps, in the centre of the painting, another mother (one of Tintoret’s matchless creations) is pointing toward Mary, and telling her little daughter that she, too, will erelong be presented at the Temple. Two girls recline on the steps near by. On the left, seven or eight old men and idlers (such as one still sees at the approach to churches in Italy, and to mosques and synagogues in the Orient) are ranged along the stairs, indolently watching the scene. The shadow of the building falls upon them, and prevents their figures from being too prominent. There is no suggestion of Venice or Venetian nobles. The attention is not distracted by costly apparel or imposing architecture, but is fixed upon the chief actors,--upon the venerableness of the high priest, the simplicity and confidingness of the little maiden, and the magnificent forms and naturalness of the women. Critics have disputed whether Titian’s picture or Tintoret’s be the earlier. The presumption is in favor of the former,[17] but there is no reason to cry plagiarism against either, because each master has worked out a similar conception with characteristic independence. The central idea--the youthful Virgin ascending the steps of the Temple to be received by the high priest--may be seen in one of Giotto’s frescoes.[18] What we admire is the originality of treatment in both pictures. To me, Tintoret’s conception seems the more nobly appropriate; and I know not in which of Titian’s works to look for a counterpart of that woman in Tintoret’s foreground, so easy, so living, so superb. [17] Crowe and Cavalcaselle give 1539 as the date of Titian’s “Presentation;” 1545-46 is usually assigned as the date of Tintoret’s. [18] At the Arena, Padua.