FINE ARTS IN 1902. 



FRANCE. 



253 



right to some object in the distance. At the 

 base of the pedestal is Victory bearing an un- 

 furled flag in her left hand and a naked .sword 

 in the other, with an eagle at her feet. 



Indiana has just dedicated at Indianapolis an 

 enormous monument to her dead soldiers and 

 sailors. The shaft, including a bronze figure of 

 Victory, is 284 feet high, and has a balcony 228 

 feet above ground, to which ascent is made by ele- 

 vator. The design is by Bruno Schmitz, of Berlin. 



A Holy Family, attributed to Palma Vecchio, 

 has been discovered in a very dirty und dilapi- 

 dated condition by Prof. Cantalamessa, the di- 

 rector of the gallery of the Venice Academy, and 

 now, in its restored condition, occupies a place 

 in one of the principal rooms of the Academy. 

 The picture is a Sacra Conversazione, represent- 

 ing the Virgin seated holding the Child, who 

 looks toward St. Joseph, seated at the right. At 

 the left is St. Catherine pointing with her right 

 hand to St. John, kneeling on one knee. The 

 picture is a remarkable one, exceedingly beauti- 

 ful in color and composition, and challenges com- 

 parison with some of the finest easel pictures 

 produced in Venice during the later Renaissance. 

 It is assigned to Palma on the strength of inter- 

 nal evidence, and is placed by Prof. Cantalamessa 

 among the very latest of his pictures. 



A memorial to Lord Leighton, late president 

 of the Royal Academy, was unveiled on Feb. 19, 

 in St. Paul's Cathedral, London, by his successor, 

 Sir E. J. Poynter. The monument, the work of 

 Thomas Brock, R. A., consists of a recumbent 

 figure in bronze upon a sarcophagus on which are 

 inscriptions on bronze tablets. At the head and 

 feet respectively are bronze figures symbolical of 

 painting and sculpture. 



A portrait of John Bunyan, painted in 1685 by 

 Thomas Sadlier, has been added to the National 

 Portrait Gallery, London. Its authenticity is 

 said to be established by an unimpeachable rec- 

 ord. It is interesting to note, in this connection, 

 that a copy of the first edition of The Pilgrim's 

 Progress was lately sold at Sotheby's for 1,475. 



An irreparable loss to Venice and a distinct 

 loss to art is the fall of the famous Campanile 

 of St. Mark's, which collapsed and sank into a 

 ruined mass on July 14. Even if the building be 

 reconstructed on the ancient site, it will be only 

 a modern tower, and will never excite the inter- 

 est of art lovers as did the original. 



The age to which Titian lived is the subject 

 of an article in the Nineteenth Century by H. F. 

 Cook, the result of the inquiry being to make 

 it probable that Titian was not born until 1489- 

 '90, twelve years later than the date usually as- 

 signed for his birth, so that he was only eighty- 

 eight years old instead of ninety-n^ine at the 

 time of his death. The only source of the idea 

 that he was born in 1477 is a begging letter writ- 

 ten by him to Philip II of Spain in 1571, in which 

 he says he is ninety-five years old. The explana- 

 tion is that this was an exaggeration to heighten 

 the appeal to the royal pity. 



One of the best works of Perugino, a triptych, 

 has lately been found concealed behind an in- 

 different canvas of the seventeenth century in 

 the Church of Santa Maria Assunta, in the vil- 

 lage of Castelnuovo di Porto, Italy. The prin- 

 cipal figure, that of the Saviour, with the right 

 hand raised in the act of blessing and the left 

 lidding the book of the Gospels, a work of 

 extraordinary beauty, is by the hand of Perugino 

 himself. The Virgin. St. Sebastian, St. John Bap- 

 tist, and a fourth unknown saint, painted on the 

 shutters, are the work of one of his pupils, prob- 

 ably of Berto di Giovanni. The triptych was 



executed in 1501 as a commission from the four 

 brothers Degli Effetti, a distinguished local fam- 

 ily. The tradition concerning this picture had 

 never died out, but its whereabouts was unknown 

 previous to this discovery. 



Sir Thomas Lawrence's portrait of John Phil- 

 pot Curran, which Williams, in his Life of Law- 

 rence, calls " the most extraordinary likeness of 

 the most extraordinary face within the memory 

 of man," has been presented by Lord Iveagh to 

 the National Gallery of Ireland. It was in the 

 Royal Academy in 1800, and was bought for 850 

 guineas at the sale of the Peel .heirlooms in 1900. 

 A recent " find " in Egypt seems to throw new 

 light on The Dance of Death in art, hitherto 

 regarded as a peculiarity of the Renaissance pe- 

 riod. A richly painted earthen drinking-cup 

 exhumed near Alexandria is ornamented with 

 seven dancing and grinning skeletons, each of 

 whom is whirling with drunken joviality a bac- 

 chic thyrsus. The figures seem to be saying to 

 the drinkers w r ho used the cup : " Eat, drink, and 

 be merry, for to-morrow you will be one of us." 

 This, the true Alexandrian philosophy of life, is 

 of great interest from the point of art. The 

 cup has been acquired by the Louvre. 



FLORIDA. (See under UNITED STATES.) 

 FRANCE, a republic in western Europe, pro- 

 claimed Sept. 4, 1870, after the surrender of the 

 Emperor Napoleon III to the Germans at Sedan. 

 The legislative power is vested in the Senate and 

 the Chamber of Deputies, the executive power in 

 the President of the republic and the Council of 

 Ministers. The Chamber and Senate, meeting in 

 joint session, form the National Assembly, which 

 elects the President for seven years and has power 

 to revise the Constitution. The Senate has 300 

 members, elected for nine years by electoral 

 bodies in the departments composed of the mem- 

 bers of the departmental councils, delegates from 

 the communal councils, and the Senators and 

 Deputies of the department. The Chamber of 

 Deputies in 1901 had 581 members, elected for 

 four years, one member for each arrondissement 

 when the population is below, and two members 

 when it is above 100,000. Every Frenchman of 

 the age of twenty-one years or over, not a soldier 

 in active service, is entitled to vote, if a resident 

 of his district for six months, and any French- 

 man who has fulfilled his military duties may be- 

 come a candidate for either House unless he holds 

 an office under the state. The ministers are re- 

 sponsible severally and collectively to the Cham- 

 ber, and either resign or dissolve the Chamber when 

 defeated on a Cabinet question. When a Cabinet 

 resigns the President of the republic selects a 

 new Prime Minister who is able to command a 

 majority, and the latter, in consultation with the 

 President, selects his colleagues. The President 

 of the republic for the term ending Feb. 18, 1906, 

 is Emile Loubet, born Dec. 31, 1838, who was 

 elected to succeed Felix Faure in 1899. The min- 

 istry, constituted on June 22. 1899, was composed 

 in the beginning of 1902 as follows: President of 

 the Council and Minister of the Interior and of 

 Public Worship, M. Waldeck-Rousseau ; Minister 

 of Finance, M. Caillaux; Minister of Justice, M. 

 Monis; Minister of Foreign Affairs, M. Delcasse; 

 .Minister of War, Gen. Andr6: Minister of Marine, 

 M. de Lanessan; Minister of Public Instruction, 

 Georges Leygues; Minister of Public Works, 

 Pierre Baudin; Minister of Agriculture, Jean 

 Dupuy? Minister of Commerce, Industry, Posts, 

 and Telegraphs, M. Millerand; Minister of the 

 Colonies, Albert Decrais. 



Area and Population. The area and the pop- 

 ulation of the 87 departments of France at the 



