tttmkx, 



FROM THE ADMIRABLE PICTURE 



& m. J. L. BBeB-SS, 



BY MR. W. H. SIMMONS. 



SIZE OF THE ENGRAVING, WITH MARGIN FOR FRAMING, 30 BY 25 INCHES. 



Artists' Proofs .... ^3 3 



Proofs Before Letters 2 2 



Prints 1 1 



Prints, Coloured from tlie Original Picture ... 2 2 



May and Decemeeh. Engraved by \V. H. Simmon!', from a Paiutiiig by J. Lamout 



Crodie. — Fores & Co. 

 The visitors to the Royal Academy Exliibition of the past year, sucli at least of them 

 as have an eye for the pleasing, the merry, and the bright — the admirers of Allegro, 

 rather than her more solemn sister-nymi)h Penseroso — must have noticed, and having 

 noticed, been attracted, by the clever painting of Mr. Brodie, bearing the title of 

 " May and December." The original pictm-e, which can throw sunshine but on one 

 apartment, is now multiplied ; and nmnerous cheerful rays may beam from the walls of 

 humbler i>ersons of taste, less fortunate than the possessor of the artist's first conception. 

 Mr. Simmons has well performed his task of transferring from the canvas to the plate, 

 the spirit, the mind, the vis comica of the original, while the depth of the middle-tinting 

 and the chalklike softness of the flesh are evidences of his skilful care in the mechanical 

 details. The subject, we may observe, for the information of those who did not visit 

 the Exhibition, is a fine ripe Laughing lass, a long way in her "teens," if not just coming 

 out of them; her face, which "smiles all over," is turned full tov.ards the spectator, and 

 her half-delighted, half-mischievous eyes, are glittering with a mixture of gratified 

 vanity, and a sense of the ludicTOv;s absurdity of the situation of herself and her aged 

 innamorato. The latter is indeed " December" personified. Imagine a beetle-browed, 

 heavy -featured sexagenarian, or perchance approximating the three -score-and-ten of 

 man's pilgrimage, bending, with the devotion of an idol-worshipper, over one of the 

 plump hands of his earthly divinity, which he holds in liis gnarled and knotted fingers, 

 and presses to his sensual lips, exposing over his artistically foreshortened face a 

 polished cranium, denuded of its Idrsute covering, except at the sides, where two fiercely 

 brushed tufts of white hair still stand upright in admirable agreement with the organic 

 development of obstmacy in its general bony contour. The accessories of the picture 

 are also su2:gestive : on the left, where the mischievous maiden is seated, ai*c a modern 

 flower-vase^ a guitar, &c., and in tlie chimney glass is reflected the poi-trait of a 

 moustached mU'daire (doubtless a suitor for the fair hand here in the cold grasp of 

 winter), which looks do\vn on the gi-oup with an expression of appeahng regret. On 

 the right of the old man is a tankard of elegant chasing, a pen, and inkstand, and the 

 like emblems. As a composition the picture is excellent, and as a piece of genre paint- 

 ing, and highly-flnished engraving, " May and December" is a most agreeable and 

 tideutetl work. — Morning Advertiser. 



PUBLISHED BY MESSRS. FORES, 41, PICCADILLY. 



(CORNER OF SACKVILLE STREET.) 

 London; Printed by- Harbison amd SonSj 4-5, St. Martin's Lone. 



