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The Fountain of Youth consists of a central figure on a pedestal, and two rounded side panels with figures in relief. Youth is symbolized as a girl, an immature figure, beautifully modeled. She stands, perfectly poised, among rising blossoms. On the pedestal are more flowers in relief, and two dimly indicated half-figures of a man and woman may be discovered.
Two others show a close affinity with this composition; one is the Madonna del Cardellino, in the Tribune of the Uffizi, in which S. John presents a goldfinch to the infant Christ. The other is the so-called Belle Jardinière, inscribed 1507, in the Louvre. It is interesting to observe Raphael's progress in the smaller pictures which he painted in Florence half-figures of the Madonna and Child.
The often-cited biographers of our master are clearly in error in their conclusion that the painting described in the collection of Charles I. as "done by Titian, the picture of the Marquis Guasto, containing five half-figures so big as the life, which the king bought out of an Almonedo," is identical with the large sketch made by Titian as a preparation for the Allocution of Madrid.
Outside, instead of a drip-mould, runs a broad band covered with plaited ribbon. On the tympanum, which rests on corbels supported on one side by the head of an ox and on the other by that of a man, are a large circle enclosing a modern inscription, and two smaller circles in which are the symbols of the Sun and Moon upheld by curious little half-figures.
Manabozho was a great chief, who had two wives that quarrelled. The two stumpy half-figures represent the wives; the mound between them is the displeasure of Manabozho. Further on you see him caught up between two trees an unpleasant fix, from which the wolves and squirrels refused to extricate him.
There has not been discovered any mark or initials that might help us to assign a positive date. The roof over the apse is flat. It has been decorated from a design by Sir G.G. Scott, with an emblematical representation of Christ as a Vine, the Disciples being half-figures in medallions among the foliage. An inscription bearing upon the subject forms the border.
Among the subjects can be recognised a Crucifixion, with half-figures beside the cross; Adam and Eve; the Virgin Mary and Elizabeth, holding between them a book inscribed "Magnificat"; the Annunciation, with "Ave Maria Gracia plena"; the Ascension, indicated by the skirt and feet of the Saviour and five heads of apostles; the coronation of the Virgin; and the Virgin in an aureole.
Entablatures with ornamental friezes divide each story, while at the top the centre is raised to admit of an arch, an arrangement probably copied from João de Ruão's altar-piece. In the half-story at the bottom are half-figures of the twelve Apostles, four under each of the square panels at the sides, and one between each pair of pilasters.
Thausing suggests that this "other Quadro" is the "Christ among the Doctors" in the Barberini Gallery at Rome a picture containing seven life-size half-figures or heads, and dated 1506. The inscription states it to have been opus quinque dierum. At Brunswick there is an old copy of it. The original studies for the hands are likewise in existence.
The five panels in the upper row show the Angel of the Annunciation, S. Blaise, Christ with the Cross, and half-figures of S. Anthony and the Virgin. The centre subject is rather broader. Below it is a later painted wood carving of the Madonna and Child. The panels at the sides have figures of SS. Roch and John the Baptist, Francis and Catherine. The frame is carved and painted blue, and gilded.
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