extrapolated from Vasari's statement that he was 62 at his death in 1547. That he was first known as a musician and singer may suggest an upper-middle-class background; the extent to which his playing on the lute and other instruments was professional is unclear. Like his contemporary Raphael, his career was marked by his ability to get on well with both other artists and patrons. He began to train as a painter at a relatively late age, probably 18 or 20, so around 1503–05, becoming a pupil of Giovanni Bellini and probably afterwards of Giorgione, both of whose influence is apparent in his works; Vasari's mention of their relationship is rather vague: "si acconciò con Giorgione". No signed or firmly documented works survive from his period painting in Venice, and many attributions are disputed. As with other artists, some of Sebastiano's works have long been confused with Giorgione's. Like Titian, he may have completed work left unfinished at Giorgione's death in 1510; Marcantonio Michiel says he finished The Three Philosophers. The earliest significant work attributed to him is a portrait of a girl in Budapest, of about 1505. He is now usually assigned the unfinished and reworked Judgement of Solomon now at Kingston Lacy. This dramatic and imposing picture, "one of the masterpieces of Venetian narrative painting", was also long attributed to Giorgione; it may have been abandoned about 1508, though the estimated dates vary in the period 1505–1510. After extensive restoration in the 1980s, removing later overpainting, the painting is now left with traces of the three different compositions visible; still more can be seen with infra-red reflectography. Still over 2 × 3 metres, it seems originally to have been even larger, with some 40 cm lost along the left edge. There are two versions of the elaborate architectural background, which was a recurrent interest of Sebastiano's Venetian period. The last setting is in a basilica, which may reflect a "more learned" picture intended for a building holding courts of justice. The figure at the front of the executioner, left without clothes or the baby, is clearly drawn from classical sculpture. Four standing figures of saints in niches on the organ-shutters of San Bartolomeo, Venice, now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice, date from c. 1508–09, and are "very Giorgionesque", especially the pair on the insides. They were painted at the same time as Giorgione's frescos for the Fondaco