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Madonna of the Roses by Pseudo Pier Francesco Fiorentino is not on the top of the Italian art pyramid but it firmly lodged itself into my memory since I first saw it more than 30 years ago. Its imperfection, its curves, cracks in the paint, criss-crossed eyes, perspective somewhere between two and three dimensions and the flat wallpaper of thorny roses, which pushes one out of the picture's realm bewitch me to this day.

Besides San Diego Art Museum there is private Timken Art Gallery next door, they did not let me photograph there. They have Frans Hals, Claude Lorraine, excellent Francois Clouet. They also have a room of Russian icons. Some of these dated XV century always seemed too perfectly new to me. In fact there was an article in the early 80s in the Kontinent magazine by an art historian who described a collection of forged Russian icons put up for sale by Sotheby or Christie and purchased by the Timken Art Gallery of San Diego.