As soon as Elie Magus entered the sanctuary, he went straight to the four masterpieces; he saw at a glance that these were the gems of Pons’ collection, and masters lacking in his own.  For Elie Magus these were the naturalist’s desiderata for which men undertake long voyages from east to west, through deserts and tropical countries, across southern savannahs, through virgin forests.

The first was a painting by Sebastian del Piombo, the second a Fra Bartolommeo della Porta, the third a Hobbema landscape, and the fourth and last a Durer—­a portrait of a woman.  Four diamonds indeed!  In the history of art, Sebastian del Piombo is like a shining point in which three schools meet, each bringing its pre-eminent qualities.  A Venetian painter, he came to Rome to learn the manner of Raphael under the direction of Michael Angelo, who would fain oppose Raphael on his own ground by pitting one of his own lieutenants against the reigning king of art.  And so it came to pass that in Del Piombo’s indolent genius Venetian color was blended with Florentine composition and a something of Raphael’s manner in the few pictures which he deigned to paint, and the sketches were made for him, it is said, by Michael Angelo himself.

If you would see the perfection to which the painter attained (armed as he was with triple power), go to the Louvre and look at the Baccio Bandinelli portrait; you might place it beside Titian’s Man with a Glove, or by that other Portrait of an Old Man in which Raphael’s consummate skill blends with Correggio’s art; or, again, compare it with Leonardo da Vinci’s Charles VIII., and the picture would scarcely lose.  The four pearls are equal; there is the same lustre and sheen, the same rounded completeness, the same brilliancy.  Art can go no further than this.  Art has risen above Nature, since Nature only gives her creatures a few brief years of life.

Pons possessed one example of this immortal great genius and incurably indolent painter; it was a Knight of Malta, a Templar kneeling in prayer.  The picture was painted on slate, and in its unfaded color and its finish was immeasurably finer than the Baccio Bandinelli.

Fra Bartolommeo was represented by a Holy Family, which many connoisseurs might have taken for a Raphael.  The Hobbema would have fetched sixty thousand francs at a public sale; and as for the Durer, it was equal to the famous Holzschuer portrait at Nuremberg for which the kings of Bavaria, Holland, and Prussia have vainly offered two hundred thousand francs again and again.  Was it the portrait of the wife or the daughter of Holzschuer, Albrecht Durer’s personal friend?—­The hypothesis seems to be a certainty, for the attitude of the figure in Pons’ picture suggests that it is meant for a pendant, the position of the coat-of-arms is the same as in the Nuremberg portrait; and, finally, the oetatis suoe XLI. accords perfectly with the age inscribed on the picture religiously kept by the Holzschuers of Nuremberg, and but recently engraved.