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[137]
At the same moment, another gentleman who knew Mr. Appleton entered, and said, “Ah!
a Palma Vecio, Mr. Appleton; how delightful!
It is a Palma, is it not?”
“That,” replied Mr. Appleton, “is probably a Palma; but what do you say to this, which I consider a much better picture?”
The gentleman did not know; but it looked like Venetian coloring.
“Quite right,” said Mr. Appleton; “I bought it at the sale of a private collection in Rome, and it was catalogued as a Tintoretto, but I said, “No, Bassano;” and it is the best Bassano I ever saw. The Italians call it “Il Coconotte.””
Mr. Appleton had no intention of palming off doubtful paintings on his friends or the public; but in regard to “Il Coconotte” he was confident of its true value, and rightly so. The painting, so called from a head in the group covered very thinly with hair, was the pride of his collection and one of the best of Bassano's works.
The other painting looked to me like a Palma, and I have always supposed that it was one.
After this Mr. Appleton branched off on to an interesting anecdote concerning an Italian cicerone, and finally left his audience as well entertained as if they had been to the theatre.
In 1871 he published a volume of poems for
1905. E. P. DUtton and Co. Boston,.
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