Decorative Portrats by Leonard Limousin

concentrate our attention upon the work of the little-known or even anonymous masters and endeavor to delineate the outlines of a "style" belonging not only to an individual but to a generation and a country. Particular problems in the decorative arts can in this way lead to an understanding of the mind and taste of a bygone age that is quite unexpected. Hence it is that such studies in the highways and byways of the history of art so often result in rich and rewarding discoveries. Let us take for example the painted enamels produced at Limoges from the last quarter of the fifteenth century until the end of the sixteenth. Although these pieces enjoyed an exceptional favor with nineteenth-century collectors it has been hard to determine by whom and where they were made. They have been appreciated above all for reasons of style. And it is according to their style that they have been given to several workshops and masters who remain merely as names in the history of art. Among those to be mentioned are the so-called atelier of Monvaerni, Nardon Penicaud, the Master of the Triptych of Louis XII, and Jean I and Jean II Penicaud. Their works represent well enough the transition between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Coming to the work of Leonard Limousin, who is the subject of the present article, we meet with a concrete person and enter definitely into the Renaissance. He is the best known of the