Essays on Life 



deep on the back of one figure before baking, 

 and I imagine that this date covers the whole. 

 There is a Queen Anne feeling throughout 

 the composition, and if we were told that the 

 sculptor and Francis Bird, sculptor of the 

 statue in front of St. Paul's Cathedral, had 

 studied under the same master, we could very 

 well believe it. The apartment in which the 

 Virgin was born is spacious, and in striking 

 contrast to the one in which she herself gave 

 birth to the Redeemer. St. Anne occupies 

 the centre of the composition, in an enormous 

 bed; on her right there is a lady of the 

 George Cruikshank style of beauty, and on 

 the left an older person. Both are gesti- 

 culating and impressing upon St. Anne the 

 enormous obligation she has just conferred 

 upon mankind ; they seem also to be imploring 

 her not to overtax her strength, but, strange 

 to say, they are giving her neither flowers 

 nor anything to eat and drink. I know no 

 other birth of the Virgin in which St. Anne 

 wants so little keeping up. 



I have explained in my book " Ex Voto," 1 



1 Longmans & Co., 1890, 

 112 



