The painting known as Peace and War is one of the most interesting in Ruben's career. While, as a gift to Charles I, it rounded off the artist's political activity in England, in different terms it may be seen as the beginning of a great series of meditations on the nature of war, composed during the last decade of a painter's life and ending with the Pitti Palace canvas sent to Florence in 1638. 

The publication of sources by J.A. F. Orbaan and G. J. Hoogewerff entitled Bescheiden in Italie omtrent Nederlandsche kunstenaars en geleerden, published in The Hague in 1911, 1913 and 1917 is nowadays little consulted. I found in the third volume a reprint of a letter by P. P. Rubens, which is dated 3rd December 1627, but has no name of addressee. In 1917 the original belonged to the Commendatore Giuseppe Azzolini in Rome, who in 1910 had inherited the collection of autographs from his brother Luigi Azzolini. 

SCHOLARS have long recognised the political importance of Ruben's second trip to the court at Madrid, where he arrived September 1628 and stayed for the following eight months. He had been summoned slightly earlier by the Royal Council, because he possessed a set of confidential letters from an English agent, the painter Balthasar Gerbier, servant and political confidant of Buckingham. Their correspondence had originally been undertaken at Buckingham's behest, in order to attempt to effect a peace between England and Spain; and the two painters had met and corresponded frequently during 1627. 

Among the works executed by Sisto Badalocchio (1585-after 1621) in his native Emilia after the death of his teacher, Annibale Carracci, in 1609, Bellori mentions two paintings in the Oratorio della Morte in Reggio Emilia, 'la presa all'horto, e Christo portato al sepolcro' painted 'in concorrenza di altri allievi de' Carracci'. Often mentioned in local guidebooks and similar literature, these two works remained in their original location till the end of the eighteenth century, when the collection of paintings belonging to the Confraternita della Buona Morte was broken up. 

While it is generally admitted that Pellegrino Tibaldi's frescoes in the former Palazzo Poggi in Bologna are among his finest achievements, only passing mention has been made of one of his ceiling decorations there. Reasons for this neglect are not hard to find. Compared with the well-known rooms containing the frescoes devoted to the story of Ulysses, the room's ceiling decorations have suffered irreparable damage. and in part they are all but illegible. Despite this loss, it is still possible to appreciate something of the original appearance of Tibaldi's design. 

The history of the paintings for the high altar-piece of basilica of San Lorenzo de El Escorial is long and complicated. The succession of Italian artists who worked on the altar-piece, with varying degrees of success, has been well documented by Annie Cloulas in her important article on the subject. However, an unpublished document in the Simancas Archive reveals that at an early stage the commission was given to a native Spanish painter, Juan Fernandez de Navarrete 'El Mudo'. Although this document deals only with what might have been, it is important in adding to our knowledge of the history of the period immediately before Navarrete's death. 

THE National Gallery has recently acquired the most famous of Murillo's full-length portraits, his painting of Don Justino de Neve. formerly in the Lansdowne collection, which represents one of the few aspects of Murillo's art not already shown to advantage at Trafalgar Square. One of the comparatively rare surviving portraits by the artist, it is the only seated full-length he is known to have painted, and a picture, moreover, that has gained appreciably from restoration (carried out before acquisition). The style of the portrait and its subtle colouring are now much more clearly apparent than hitherto. as are the alterations made by the artist in the course of creating it; the dated inscription panel is fully visible for the first time in many years.