286 



FINE ARTS IN 1896. 



second to objects of the goldsmith's art. Corot 

 \\.is represented by his " Avignon." " Rome," and 

 ' Vue de Ville d'Avray " ; Millet by " Les Scieurs 

 do Long " and " Reverie " : Meissonier by " Bravi " 

 and " Polichinelle " ; Daubigny by "Clair de 

 Lune"; and, among the older masters, Delacroix 

 by " Portrait de Paganini " and " Execution de 

 Marino Faliero " ; and Watteau by " Le Bal sous la 

 Colonnade." The best of the British artists, Rey- 

 nolds, Lawrence, Gainsborough, etc., were well 

 represented. 



The one hundred and twenty-eighth summer ex- 

 hibition was scarcely up to the standard of some of 

 the late ones, as it contained few good subject pic- 

 tures and many crude portraits. By the Royal 

 Academy's law 'that but one work by a deceased 

 member 'shall be admitted to the exhibition imme- 

 diately following his death, the late Lord Leighton 

 was represented only by his " Clyde," a work which 

 was left on his easel nearly finished. It represents 

 a life-size figure, in an olive-colored dress, kneeling 

 with outstretched arms before an altar raised upon 

 a lofty platform, her head thrown back in passion- 

 ate adoration, hailing the uprising of Pho3bus 

 Apollo. Her auburn tresses have broken from 

 their fillet and roll in masses upon her shoulders. 

 The altar is laden with pomegranates, grapes, and 

 other fruit. The dawn fills the atmosphere and, 

 firing the east with golden pomp, rolls away masses 

 of white vapor that impart a striking character to 

 the scene. 



"A Forerunner" is the title of the principal 

 contribution of Sir John E. Millais, Lord Leigh- 

 ton's successor. It represents the tall, worn figure 

 of a young man of the earliest Christian epoch, 

 standing in a gloomy landscape before a stone altar 

 on which lies a knife, in the act of binding a cross- 

 piece near the head of a tall reed so as to form a 

 cross, on which he looks with passionate interest. 

 The sentiment is intensified by a lurid twilight, 

 which glows upon the horizon and lights by its re- 

 flections the attenuated figure. 



Mr. Poynter, the new president, was represented 

 by only two small canvases, the more important one 

 illustrating the twelfth ode of the third book of 

 Horace. The fair Neobule sits in a chamber lined 

 with colored marbles, brooding in an angry mood, 

 her embroidery lying neglected at her feet, and 

 pouting because she is not allowed to go where II e- 

 brus is to be seen swimming, riding, or running vic- 

 toriously. The second picture, "An Oread," is a 

 half-length, nearly half life-size figure running, 

 with the locks of her dark hair tossed about her 

 beautiful face, in a wild mountainous landscape, 

 while a storm gathers overhead. 



Alma-Tadema's " The Coliseum " represents three 

 classically draped maidens in a marble balcony of 

 the Baths of Titus watching the crowds pouring 

 out of the Coliseum below. One of the ladies is in 

 a warm white robe, another in pale grayish blue, 

 and all are exquisitely harmonized with the marble 

 and contrasted with the delicate rose of a child's 

 dress in the center. The subject, a larger one than 

 the artist usually handles, is broadly treated and 

 yet with his customary skill in details. 



J. W. Waterhouse's "Pandora" gives a nearly 

 life-size whole-length figure of the, maiden who 

 i brought all evil into the world, kneeling before a 

 gray altarlike rock in a wood of ilexes and pines 

 before the golden casket. A still, green pool near 

 her feet is overflowing by a tiny cascade to a lower 

 rocky bed. Pandora has cautiously lifted the lid, 

 and the slowly curling smoke that issues from it 

 takes a dragon's shape before it drifts away into 

 the shadows of the wood. 



London : New G.allery. The winter exhibition, 

 which closed on April 8, was devoted to a collection 



illustrative of Spanish art, including, besides pic- 

 tures, tapestries, embroideries, laces, jewelry, fai- 

 ences, etc. About half the paintings shown were 

 attributed to Velasquez and Murillo, but there were 

 also good examples of Zurbaran, Ribera, and Alonso 

 Cano, and among the more modern ones Fortuny, 

 and Madrazo. 



To the summer exhibition Sir Edward Burne- 

 Jones contributed two pictures : " Aurora," a single, 

 full-length, nearly life-size figure of a damsel clad 

 in a bronze-green robe, shot with red and tinged 

 with rosy light by the coming day, which reveals 

 her walking lightly across a bridge spanning a 

 stream in a village and clashing cymbals as she, 

 goes. A larger picture is " The Dream of Lancelot," 

 representing the knight, who, exhausted by his long 

 quest for the Chapel of the San Grael, has sunk to 

 sleep before the entrance, a small half-ruined 

 shrine in the heart of a wood. It is somber and 

 melancholy in color and sentiment, but dramatic 

 in treatment. 



G. F. Watts sent his " Earth," a ruddy, vigorous 

 figure, holding an armful of fruits, and " Time, 

 Death, and Judgment." Alma-Tadema exhibited 

 a portrait group of himself, wife, sister-in-law, and 

 others, in half-length figures, gathered around an 

 easel, and Mrs. Alma-Tadema " The Ring," showing 

 two lovers in a window seat. 



London : Grafton Galleries. The winter ex- 

 hibition was devoted to a loan collection of the 

 Dutch and the Barbizon schools. Of the former were 

 17 canvases by Joseph Israels, which were given a 

 room by themselves, and examples of James Maris, 

 Mauve, van Marcke, and others. The Barbizon 

 pictures included 67 by Corot, 40 by Millet, 33 by 

 Daubigny, ' 30 by Diaz, and examples by Jules 

 Dupre, Troyon, Charles Jacque, Theodore Rous- 

 seau, Georges Michel, Courbet, and others. There 

 were also 200 original black-and-white drawings 

 by Paul Renouard, John Charlton, W. Small, and 

 Florian. 



London : Miscellaneous. The most important 

 picture sale of the year was that of the collection 

 of Sir Julian Goldsmid. Bart., which realized in 

 all 67,342. Seventeen pictures brought more than 

 1,400 guineas each, a goodly proportion of the 

 twenty-eight canvases that reached that amount in 

 the sales of the year. The highest price attained 

 was 7,500 guineas for the well-known portrait of 

 " The Hon. Mary Moncton," by Sir Jostma Rey- 

 nolds, the same price which it brought in 1894. 

 Other Reynolds portraits were : " Barbara, Countess 

 of Coventry," 3~,800 guineas; "Charles Manners, 

 Fourth Duke of Rutland," 1,400 guineas ; and " Mr. 

 Mathew," 4,000 guineas. The last sold in the 

 Wynn-Ellis sale in 1876 for 900 guineas, and in 

 the Duchess of Montrose's collection, 1894, for 4,400 

 guineas. Gainsborough pictures were: "Dorothea 

 Lady Eden," 5,000 guineas ; " Mr. and Mrs. Dehaney 

 and Daughter," 2,100 ; " A Grand Landscape," 

 3.100. Romney : " Lady Urith Shore," 2,000 ; " Miss 

 Harriet Shore,'" 2,750 ; " Mrs. Oliver," 3,100. Tur- 

 ner : " Rockets and Blue Lights," 3,700 ; " Sea Piece," 

 2.050. Sir W. Beechey, "Catherine Duchess of 

 York," 1,400. Clarkson Stanfield, "A Guarda 

 Costa," 3,200. Constable : " Embarkation of George 

 IV at Whitehall on the Opening of Waterloo 

 Bridge," sketch for the finished picture, 2,000. Sir 

 John Millais, "Little Speedwell's Darling Blue," 

 1,400. Alma-Tadema, " Expectations." 1,950. 



The highest price paid for a single picture in 

 1896 was given by Mr. Charles Wertheimer for 

 Romney's well-known "Caroline Viscountess Clif- 

 den and Lady Elizabeth Spencer," which fell to 

 him, after a spirited competition, for 10,500 

 guineas. The same gentleman was the buyer also, 

 at private sale, for a similar large sum, of Rein- 



