This panel was, presumably, part of a frieze illustrating the Loves of the Gods but the present writer is unable to attach any other panel to it, either by the same hand or another. The painting was attributed to Dosso Dossi by Berenson in 1907 but this attribution was not retained in later editions of his lists. It is clearly inaccurate but it may in part have been prompted by the pose of the woman at lower right, which does have something of the gesticulating clumsiness of the later Dosso. Even so, none of the other figures is at all like those in his work nor are the colours and textures like his. The figure of Persephone is surprisingly poorly drawn and lacks substance but the running man before the chariot seems to have a faint echo of Pordenone and Pluto himself is a little reminiscent of Paris Bordone, of whom Professor Humfrey also thought when he was consulted.¹ However, it is not Paris’s work, as Dr Andrea Donati has kindly confirmed.²

The present writer is inclined to think that this picture is by one of the minor painters who gravitated round Titian; the colours and lighting of the landscape are reminiscent of those of Titian’s work of the early 1520s. The estimated date is c.1530–40.