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.