In 1998 the important but neglected altar-piece by Albert Cornelis depicting the Coronation of the Virgin surrounded by the nine choirs of angels (Fig. 1) was brought to the attention of a wider public when it was shown in the exhibition Brugge en de Renaissance. Van Memling tot Pourbus in the Memling Museum, Bruges.' In his review of the show, Lorne Campbell drew attention to the painting and expressed some regret that the infra-red reflectograms of it, mentioned in the catalogue entry, were not illustrated.2 The purpose of the present article is to show how the results of infra-red examination may be used to shed light on the division of labour in this altar-piece, which is well known from earlier published documentation to have been a collaborative effort.

That Rubens was in the habit of retouching drawings and paintings by others, often by masters from previous generations, is now well known. Such creative manipulation was in keeping with the established renaissance humanist principle of aemulatio, to which he subscribed, and the practice may also be seen as forming part of his practical working exercises and methods. This consideration may indeed have been the most important purpose of Rubens's retouching - one might even say 'restoration' - of a number of copies after compositions from the Bruegel circle, as I hope to make clear in the following paragraphs.

For many years the titles of four important Turner watercolours have been confused. As a result, the largest and possibly most significant of them (Fig.33) has been incorrectly dated and thus separated art-historically from other comparable works made around the time of its creation, thus lessening our understanding of Turner's achievement during the mid- 1810s. Setting the drawings within the broader context of their early public display allows their correct identities to be established.

Rubens's group portrait in the Pitti Palace in Florence known as The four philosophers (Fig.43) is, as has long been recognised, a commemoration of the humanist, Justus Lipsius (1547-1606), and of his favourite pupil, the artist's dead brother Philip (1547-1611).' Together they occupy the centre of the composition,2 while the man seen in profile to the right is the lawyer Johannes Woverius (1576-1635), also a former student of Lipsius and the scholar's close friend and executor. Woverius is accompanied by a dog, which seems to have both a literal and a figurative presence: a portrait of one of Lipsius's beloved pets, and at the same time a humanist symbol of loyalty and affection. For the dog appears to be Mopsus, who, surviving his master, was probably entrusted to the care of Woverius in Antwerp.3 To the left Peter Paul Rubens has depicted himself. The men are gathered around a table in a sort of antique portico overlooking a classical landscape. To the upper right, in a niche, presiding over the company, is a marble bust believed by the four to represent the philosopher Seneca.' The panel was painted not long after 1611, the year of Philip Rubens's death, though it is difficult to establish a precise date.5

A hitherto unidentified female portrait by an unknown artist in the Musee des Beaux-Arts, Nancy (Fig.46), may be introduced into the discussion of the artistic patronage of the Giustiniani family, which has been the object of scrutiny in recent years and will shortly be celebrated in an exhibition at Rome.' For the woman portrayed is clearly Geronima, the mother of Cardinal Benedetto and marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani. The engraving made by Theodor Matham for plate 4 of the second volume of the Galleria Giustiniana (Fig.47) corresponds exactly with the portrait and was evidently taken from it: although it is in the same sense as the painting, this is also true of other engraved portraits in the Galleria as well as of other reproductive engravings there.'

Ii is well known that, in the earlier part of his career, William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) showed a near-obsessive concern for his appearance or, to be more precise, with his public image. As the 1904 photograph of the poet in his rooms at Woburn Buildings, London, indicates, he chose his clothes carefully, adopted certain mannerisms, and made sure that his pose, context and props re- affirmed his position as a literary figure in the style of the 1890s (Fig.49). This attention to dress and style, as if adopting a role, is recorded in several accounts of the poet, and it is made explicit in George Moore's somewhat spiteful memoir 'Ave' of 1911, in which he recalls his first encounter with Yeats in 1894 (see Fig.50)