Anne. What,
however, is wanting here at Oropa in meat and drink is made up in
Cupids; they swarm like flies on the walls, clouds, cornices, and
capitals of columns.
Against the right-hand wall are two lady-helps, each warming a towel
at a glowing fire, to be ready against the baby should come out of
its bath; while in the right-hand foreground we have the levatrice,
who having discharged her task, and being now so disposed, has
removed the bottle from the chimney-piece, and put it near some
bread, fruit and a chicken, over which she is about to discuss the
confinement with two other gossips. The levatrice is a very
characteristic figure, but the best in the chapel is the one of the
head-nurse, near the middle of the composition; she has now the
infant in full charge, and is showing it to St. Joachim, with an
expression as though she were telling him that her husband was a
merry man. I am afraid Shakespeare was dead before the sculptor was
born, otherwise I should have felt certain that he had drawn
Juliet's nurse from this figure.
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