314 



FINE ARTS IN 1890. 



street scene in a country town. A country lad 

 on a step in the doorway of a house gazes at the 

 unaccustomed scene in a half-curious, half-negli- 

 gent way, while clasping with his arm the neck of 

 an excited collie dog, whose erect ears, staring 

 eyes, open mouth, and quivering tongue exhibit 

 his wonder at the busy world he sees for the first 

 time. The humor of the design is capital, and 

 the dog is worthy of Landseer's best time. 



Val Prinsep contributed a picture of life-size, 

 full-length figures, entitled " Diva Theodora Ira- 

 peratrix." The Empress stands as if on the steps 

 of her throne, resting one hand on the head of 

 the golden lion which serves as an arm of her gor- 

 geous chair. She wears a sumptuously jeweled 

 crown, a golden breastplate inlaid with precious 

 stones, and a purple mantle, the weight of which 

 is partly borne by an attendant on her left, while 

 on the other side another dame holds her fan. 

 Behind the throne is a splendid mosaic of Christ 

 in majesty and surrounded by the angelic choir. 



Edwin A. Abbey sent to the exhibition his first 

 achievment in oil colors, entitled " A May Day 

 Morning." It represents a lover and his lass 

 tripping along a garden path near a wall on 

 which fruit trees are trained and through a door 

 in which the sunlight pours. The man, dressed 

 in white, with a mandolin under his arm, holds 

 the maiden's hand in his own, and laughs glee- 

 fully as the twain dance toward us. The lady is 

 in a black gown with white stripes, and a red 

 and white kirtle. 



Edward J. Poynter, occupied with his large 

 work, " The Queen of Sheba's Visit to Solomon," 

 contributed this year a comparatively minor 

 picture, entitled " On the Temple Steps." A 

 slender, dark-eyed girl, dressed in a loose, white 

 tissue through which her limbs are partly seen, 

 leans with crossed arms, shading her face with a 

 red palm fan, against a parapet on a steep flight 

 of marble steps leading from the shore to an 

 acropolis in the background. Bread, melons, and 

 pomegranates are heaped in profusion on a table 

 beside her. 



Hubert Herkomer's picture " Our Village " 

 depicts a scene from the daily life of Bushey, the 

 place of his residence, with laborers returning 

 from work, just after sundown has left the air 

 aglow. Mr. Herkomer has been elected a full 

 academician. 



John Collier's " Death of Cleopatra " depicts 

 in a huge canvas the rigid form of the queen 

 stretched on a splendid couch, beneath the colos- 

 sal black effigies of Egypt's gods, with her maid 

 Iras lying dead on the pavement beside her, and 

 Charmian, ready to swoon, timorously listening 

 for footsteps. 



Albert Moore's " A Summer Night " is a large 

 decorative picture, in which several half-nude 

 statuesque female forms, with blonde tresses 

 loosely bound, lie on classical couches draped with 

 steel-blue, primrose, and deeper yellow draperies. 

 The terrace on which they lie is decorated with 

 wreathes of yellow pansies, and looks out upon a 

 moonlit sea. 



Solomon J. Solomon's " Hippolyta " shows in 

 the red light of sunset the queen of the Amazons 

 vanquished by Theseus, to whom she appears quite 

 willing to yield. 



A. C. Gow's " After Waterloo " represents the 

 retreat of the French from the fatal field, with 



their Emperor riding moodily along with his staff, 

 and a wilderness of banners, lances, bayonets, and 

 swords behind in a confusion which attests the 

 hurry and fear of the bearers. 



Frank Dicksee's " Redemption of Tannhauser," 

 from the last act of the opera, is a conventional 

 stagey picture, but well arranged and strongly 

 colored. The heroine, Elizabeth of Hungary, lies 

 on a bier, mourned by a bishop with his acolytes 

 and by knights, with the pilgrims at the right, 

 and monks with torches at the left. In front 

 kneels the expiring Tannhauser, truly repentant 

 at last, while in the background Venus is disap- 

 pearing in a lurid radiance. 



Logsdail's " Ninth of November " represents 

 the progress of the Lord Mayor's show westward, 

 with the Bank of England and the Exchange be- 

 hind the crowded pavements. It is a large can- 

 vas full of figures excellent in grouping and fore- 

 shortening. 



Frank D. Millet's " How the Gossip grew " is a 

 delicately painted interior, with two young ladies 

 seated at a breakfast table. One of them reads 

 aloud from a letter, and the other, listening, 

 pauses in the act of drinking tea. It is firmly 

 painted, and fine in color and modeling. 



R. W. Macbeth's " The Cast Shoe " has been 

 bought with the Chantrey fund. Sir John Gil- 

 bert's " Onward ! " depicts a knight-banneret 

 charging. G. A. Storey's " The Hungry Messen- 

 ger " is a clever piece of humor of the Puritan 

 time. Stanhope Forbes's " By Order of the 

 Court" represents -a forced auction in a humble 

 dwelling. George H. Boughton's " The Puritans' 

 First Winter in New England " is one of his 

 characteristic pictures, with groups of Puritan 

 settlers waiting for a relief ship in a wintry land- 

 scape. Ernest Crofts's " Whitehall : Jan. 30, 

 1649," depicts the execution of Charles 1. J. B. 

 Burgess's " Freedom of the Press " shows some 

 French priests horrified by newspaper attacks on 

 their order, which one of them is reading aloud. 

 George F. Watts's " Patient Life of Unrewarded 

 Toil " represents an old white horse turned out 

 to get his living as he can. Thomas Faed's " The 

 Shepherd's Wife " shows a woman looking anx- 

 iously out of a cottage window into a snowy land- 

 scape. " The Anxious Lookout," a picture of 

 similar motive, represents a fisherman's wife on 

 the beach, with two children grasping her dress, 

 gazing seaward over angry waves. 



London : Grosvenor Gallery. The winter 

 exhibition was devoted to pictures illustrating 

 " sport," with numerous specimens of hunting 

 weapons, implements, and trophies, ancient and 

 modern. Sir Edwin Landseer was well repre- 

 sented, among the exhibits being his " Monarch 

 of the Glen." " The Sanctuary," " Otter and Sal- 

 mon," " Hunter and Hounds," " The Challenge," 

 " The Swannery invaded by Eagles," " The Shrew 

 tamed," and the " Deerstalker's Return." Other 

 noted pictures were E. Nicol's " Steady, Johnnie, 

 Steady ! " C. Haag's " Evening at Balmoral Cas- 

 tle," Rubens's " Wolf Hunt" and " Diana return- 

 ing from the Chase," Snyders' "Eagle mobbed 

 by other Birds," " Wild Boar Hunt," and others, 

 Morland's " Innocence alarmed," Stubbs's " Hun- 

 ter and Arabian," Cooper's "Mare and Foals," 

 Cuyp's " Wild Ducks," and Courbet's " Roe-Deer 

 in the Snow." 



The fourteenth summer exhibition of the Gros- 



