Note 210 — NUMERICAL CATALOGUE, WITH BIOGRAPHICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE NOTES (continued 12)

Sir Walter Armstrong attributes No. 1079 to David. "The National Gallery possesses one of the best of David's authenticated works (1045), and a comparison between it and the "Adoration of the Magi," numbered 1079, goes far to prove them to be by one hand. Compare, for instance, the figure of the beggar in the one picture with that of St. Joseph in shadow behind the Virgin, in the other. And the evidence of style is confirmed by a curious discovery that I happened to make one bright day, when the glass was off the latter picture. Low down in the left-hand corner the word Ouvvater is written in a way that precludes the notion of forgery, for it has been scratched with, perhaps, the butt end of a brush, while the paint was still wet, so that the red under-painting shows through the letters. David was born at Ouwater, or Oudewater, about 1450, and did not migrate to Bruges till 1484" (Notes on the National Gallery, p. 29).