386 The Miseries of a Portrait-Painter. 



nefit can accrue to the artist in this quarter he must look out for a 

 new sitler. All his dependence is on the favour of his sitter for the 

 time being, that he may be recommended to some other client or pa- 

 tient. For this he must sacrifice every thing- ; he must never hesitate 

 to alter and change, spoil, if necessary, the picture that the sitter is 

 paying for, and therefore conceives ought to be as he likes. Let the 

 reader only suppose the caprice of people as exhibited in the common 

 accidents of life applied ten-fold to the subject of pictures, and he 

 will have some idea of the situation of a portrait-painter under this 

 unceasing necessity of acquiring new patronage. 



When we come to compare Portrait-painting with other depart- 

 ments of art, we shall perceive that the professors of the first are sin- 

 gularly placed as regards their openness to attack. In no class of art 

 is identity in face, figure, costume, and ornament, of such paramount 

 importance as in portraits. The historical and landscape painters 

 luxuriate in a comparative freedom from attack. If they are not 

 much patronised, neither are they much criticised ; for the objects of 

 their skill are not sufficiently known to the world to be brought to 

 bear upon the imitations. The landscape-painter may paint a tree 

 awry, or a cloud topsy-turvy, and no one will challenge his work. 

 The historical painter may insert a drapery or ornament of the colour 

 or shape he pleases just where he likes ; he may put in figures, or he 

 may put them out, at his own free will ; he may paint faces like some- 

 body or like no one in particular, at his option ; he may do, in short, 

 as he thinks fit, without let or hinderance from the world. Now the 

 portrait-painter works under no such freedom from control ; he is 

 placed in a totally different situation. He has to represent the men 

 and women with whom we are in daily communication, and with 

 whose individuality of face and figure and costume we are perfectly 

 familiar. He exercises his profession with his hands tied. Let him 

 only paint Miss A.'s mouth an idea on one side, or omit or change 

 some of Mrs. B.'s curls or ornaments, or represent Mr. C/s eyes look- 

 ing slightly crooked, or his figure not perfectly correct, and he is at 

 once found out. The sitter becomes extremely distressed at the dis- 

 covery, and there is immediately an abundant outcry among the 

 friends ; no quarter is given, and the artist is by common consent 

 offered up as a sacrifice to the offended pride of the person who was 

 to have been correctly handed down to posterity. What portrait- 

 painter does not know the plagues that arise from the uncompromis- 

 ing importance attached by sitters (dare we say female sitters in 

 especial) to the article of dress ? If a sleeve do not exactly follow 

 the fashion that is to say, the milliner's idea or a skirt (we speak 

 learnedly) have not the exact degree of fulness or of length, or the 

 exact amount and kind of ornament, even sometimes to the pattern 

 of the lace set out for him, woe betide the unhappy painter ; his 

 omission or commission is somehow sure to be discovered, and then 

 he may consider himself a lost man. The good-natured observations 

 of the circle of acquaintances are sure to chime in with the sitter's in- 

 dignation, and the artist has nothing left for it but to hide his dimi- 

 nished head, and grieve that he does not understand lace-making, and 

 that he is not able to shut his eyes to the absurdities milliners and 

 tailors seem in a league to commit. 



