Note 127 — NUMERICAL CATALOGUE, WITH BIOGRAPHICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE NOTES (continued 5)

In an interesting discussion with Sir J. E. Millais, R.A., Mr. Watts, R.A., refers to the colours in this picture. Sir J. Millais had said that time and age are the greatest old masters, and that old Venetian colours were crude. Mr. Watts replied: "The colour of the best-preserved pictures by Titian shows a marked distinction between light flesh tones and white drapery. This is most distinctly seen in the small 'Noli me Tangere' in our National Gallery, in the so-called 'Venus' of the Tribune, and in the 'Flora' of the Uffizi, both in Florence, and in Bronzino's 'All is Vanity,' also in the National Gallery (651). In the last-named picture, for example, the colour is as crude and the surface as bare of mystery as if it had been painted yesterday. As a matter of fact, white unquestionably tones down, but never becomes colour; indeed, under favourable conditions, and having due regard to what is underneath, it changes very little. In the 'Noli me Tangere,' to which I have referred, the white sleeve of the Magdalen is still a beautiful white, quite different from the white of the fairest of Titian's flesh—proving that Titian never painted his flesh white" (Magazine of Art, January 1889).