STILL more imposing in the landscape of Agra than the Taj Mahal is the Red Fort of the Mughal emperors, refounded by Akbar in about 1565, and altered by Shah Jahan from about 1628 onwards. The attentive visitor to the palace buildings of the Red Fort - the world traveller, to use a Mughal expression that anticipates with much foresight the status of many modern beholder of Mughal buildings - will not fail to wonder what may have been the original shape of the plain brick wall, obviously damaged, facing the perfectly preserved Diwan-i Khass (hall of private audiences) built in 1046 A.H., Islamic era, 1636-37 A.D. The wall, with traces of stucco coating in its lower part and two brick pilasters of irregular shape on each side, forms today the south front of the bath of Shah Jahan. Behind the wall is the bath itself, a suite of vaulted rooms, constructed in brick and stripped of their former revetment and paving.

RELATIVELY little has survived of Frans Post's output during the years that he spent in Brazil (1637-44). Sousa-Leao acknowledges six medium-sized oil paintings, dated from 1637 to 1640, all derived from the 'Presents to Louis XIV' – a transaction by which the Count Jean-Maurice of Nassau-Siegen, formerly Governor-Captain and Admiral-General in Brazil, sold to the French King what remained of his Brazilian collections. Two prior transactions with the King of Denmark and the Elector of Brandenburg had already seriously depleted his ethnographic and artistic holdings.

MUCH recent speculation concerning the influence of the Japanese print on nineteenth-century western art has revolved around the question of precisely when the Japanese print became known in the west. The most controversial pronouncement on this issue appeared early in the history of the literature on this topic. In 1905, Léonce Benédite published the first of a series of articles on Félix Bracquemond in which the latter claimed to have virtually discovered ukiyo-e (Japanese prints) in 1856, transported in a shipment of Japanese porcelain: according to Bracquemond, a volume of a Hokusai masterpiece, the Manga, has been used as stuffing. Despite an undercurrent of implied cynicism on the part of modern authors, the story has been repeated through the most recent literature on japonisme. Not insignificantly, the fact of Japan's closed door policy between 1638 and 1855, and the resultant interruption of artistic traffic with the west, has seemed to support the notion. Benédite's tale, however, must finally be dismissed as apocryphal.

THE statuette in the depository of the Pisa cathedral administration (Opera della Primaziale), here published for the first time, is of white marble, 66cm in height; maximum width 20cm, depth 20cm. The head has been knocked off, and some 7 or 8 cm sawn off at the bottom. The lower part of the right leg is cracked in two places. Apart from further minor damage here and there, the figure is in good condition; the surface is only slightly fouled, and the polish is not marred by weather. At the sides, invisible from the front, and at the back are three bore holders at an equal level close to the ground, no doubt for the insertion of an iron holding device anchored in the pedestal. To judge from this and from the fact that the statuette is in the round, it must have been intended to be viewed from all sides, and in view of its good condition it was evidently kept indoors.

PIER Jacopo Alari-Bonacolsi became famous under his nickname Antico. Already as a young artist, he used the name in its Latin form, or various abbreviations of it. It sums up indeed that astonishing penetration of antiquity which, manifested in various forms, is one of Antico's main characteristics.

THE purpose of this note is to call attention to a drawing discovered in the course of work done for the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, England, to which the authors of this paper are grateful for permission to publish their comments.

The drawing forms part of the Harley Collection belonging to the Society of Antiquaries of London. This collection, a miscellany of engravings, drawings, manuscripts etc., was purchased by the Society in 1741. The small topographical drawing, measuring only 8.4 by 16.8 cm, is executed on laid paper and consists of an unfinished sketch, in pen and brown ink over black lead, of the south front of Wilton, drawn from a position just south of the statue of the gladiator.

MUCH of Colen Campbell's reputation as an architect, now as in the early eighteenth century, derives from the lavish and effective publication of almost all his own designs in Vitruvius Britannicus and, on a reduced scale, in his translation of Palladio. The fact that three of his designs which were executed in his own lifetime are not referred to at all by the architect may therefore need explanation: that all three are directly or indirectly concerned with one patron, and that all refer to either the patron's or the architect's disgrace, suggests how this may be done. The circumstances of the building at Kensington Palace (1718-20) and at Studley Royal (the stables, 1729) have now been clarified, and only the villa at Waverley, Surrey, needs to be discussed. Quite apart from the significance of this house in Campbell's career and in his relations with his most consistent patron, the house aptly illustrates the development, and the weaknesses, in the architect's handling of one of his most influential ideas, the neo-Palladian villa.

A REMARKABLE painting by Thomas Daniell passed recently through London, where it was on view for a brief period at the premises of Eyre and Hobhouse Ltd. The picture has been in private hands since it was painted and is now once again in a private collection. Much of its interest derives  from the original owner, Thomas Hope, who commissioned the picture in 1799 and made it the focal point of his principal drawing-room in that tour de force of Regency electicism, the Hope mansion in Duchess Street.