If it be true that Titian had the cloths on which he painted well soaked at the back with bees' wax dissolved in oil, to prevent their imbibing the moisture of the atmosphere of Venice, it is a proof of his sound judgment; but if we add to it another reason, and say that he also did it to prevent his colours from falling through the ground into the cloth, and to support the ground itself on the surface of the cloth on which the picture had to be painted, we perhaps shall not be far from the truth, for on a cloth so prepared any kind of ground can be laid, and the ease and satisfaction of working on semi-absorbent grounds was not only well known to Titian, but to all those artists who had been in the practice of painting their dead colourings in distemper, or colours mixed with size, and afterwards of finishing them in oils.,, ,