242 
THE WINTER FINE ART EXHIBITIONS. 
Nature and Art, December 1, 18(>6 
we are furnished with a picture of Goldsmith’s experiences 
as a doctor, as set forth in Foster’s biography. It is sufficient 
to say, that it is as exaggerated . and unlike the event 
as it must have happened as it can be. The artist has, 
with great accuracy, given the doctor purple silk small- 
clothes, a scarlet roquelaire, and wig, sword, and cane, as 
described by Mr. Foster ; but his art and accuracy have alike 
ended with this inventorial piece of imagination. Gold- 
smith looks a mere puppet — a stuffed dell ; and the rest of 
the figures are simply insipid and characterless abstractions. 
Mr. Yal. Prinsep has three works of comparatively small 
size, of which the best are “ Going to Mass,” and “ Mar- 
guerite.” These are both able, even powerful, studies, with- 
out great character, but marked by considerable vigour of 
execution, free handling, and a perception of the more subtle 
requirements of art rarely manifested. 
The portrait of Mrs. Rose, by Frederick Sandys, is in 
point of executive merit a very fine pendent to that of an 
elder Mrs. Rose painted and exhibited some two or three 
years ago. Mr. Sandys has evidently, for example, gone to 
the Augsburg school, and has studied, with no common 
earnestness, the realism which Holbein, among more 
familiar exemplars, illustrated so wisely and well. Without 
any assumption or pretence to that elevation which is mani- 
fested in Mr. Watts’s Rt. Browning’, and which has drawn its 
inspiration from an Italian soil, Mr. Sandys has attempted, 
and it may be also said, has achieved, a portrait that would 
not have discredited Holbein in earnest and literal fidelity, 
though graced by tie resources of modern execution, acces- 
sories, and draughtsmanship. The texture painting is a 
marvel of fidelity ; and the lace which adorns the bodice of 
the dress, the pearls, the satin itself, and the flowers with 
which the lady trifles, are rendered with an accuracy of 
colour and verisimilitude that it would be difficult to trace 
in the works of another modern artist. The hands, moreover, 
are exquisitively drawn, and are, with the face and neck, 
not less admirable and natural in colour than the subor- 
dinate accessories. Among the more really meritorious 
works are a landscape, representing, apparently from the 
local colour, a scene in Cheshire, called “Reflection;” a 
shepherd with sheep being in the foreground. This is an 
exceedingly well-painted and natural work, marked by 
truthfulness and a love of nature. Mr. Goodall’s “ Hagar 
and Ishmael” is the sequel on a smaller scale of the large 
picture exhibited in the Academy this year, and represents 
the mother at another stage of her journey giving her son 
water to drink. Mr. J. E. Hicks is represented by a matron 
teaching a child to walk, called “ A Mother’s Love Mr. 
Watson, by “Tkel Barber’s Shop,” “The Tailor,” and 
two others ; the first being the best. Mr. Spencer Stanhope 
gives a scene, or has intended to give a scene, of poachers 
at a grouse drive, which is doubtless fine, but invisible. 
But the best of the works of less known artists is “ The 
Breakfast,” of Mr. G. A. Storey, representing four little 
children at their morning meal under the supervision of 
their governess. Quaintness and simplicity of treatment 
give considerable value to this picture, and without pre- 
tence it may be characterised as a very charming and 
attractive work. 
Mr. Wallis’s Collection graces the rooms of the 
British Artists’ Society in Suffolk Street. The superiority 
of private enterprise in catering for the public could scarcely 
be better illustrated than here. Walls oftentimes too liberally 
stocked with mere damaged canvas, are now rich as the 
gardens of Alcinous in the choicest fruits of pictorial art. 
The exhibition may be also said to represent the cream of 
the French and English Continental and insular studios for 
the year. It includes two works by the great Gerome, one 
a masterpiece ; two by L. Bonnat worthy a place in any 
exhibition in the world ; a replica of the famous picture of 
the interior of the Bastile, by C. L. Muller ; a large work of 
undeniable merit, “ The Return of Columbus,” by E. Long ; 
three landscapes, by B. W. Leader, which fairly vindicate 
the claims of our own school of landscape ; two charming 
cabinet pictures by Meissonier ; and several more or less 
important contributions by R. Ansdell, A.R.A., E. Osborne, 
F. Pauwels, Marcus Stone, Erskine Nicol, and Auguste 
Bonheur. 
“ Calling the Condemned : the Interior of the Bastile,” 
by L. Muller, is a signed replica of the world-famous and 
often engraved picture in the Luxembourg. To us, this 
picture is the most complete epitome of the horrors of the 
Revolution ever achieved. Neither in the pages of Carlyle, 
in the Memoirs of Madame Campan, nor in the narratives 
of Michelet, Lamartine, or Louis Blanc, do we gain so clear 
an insight into the misery and horrors of the Directory, of 
the excesses of the Jacobins — the long sad story of suspense 
and cruelty, suffering, and slaughter — as this scene of the 
condemned in the Bastile. The soi-disant minister of 
justice steps forward and calls the names of the victims, 
who cower and attempt to conceal themselves, or hide 
their identity by mingling in the crowd. Through the open 
door there is a glimpse of heaven’s sun, and of the wretches 
struggling’ with gaolers and their fate. One figure of a 
Girondist, seated sad and contemplative in the foreground, 
is in itself a poem, in its despair, calm, and isolation. The 
work of which this is a transcript is one which reconciles us 
to the mission and services of art in an age of mediocrity, in 
which so much of its purpose is lost or misunderstood. 
Of the two pictures contributed by Gerome, “ The Marchand 
d’Habits” is the finer and more important, and is in finish 
of execution, simple realism, and verisimilitude, equal to any 
work he has ever exhibited. An Arab bandit, a true son of 
the desert, is cheapening a Damascus blade, which he is 
purchasing from a Jew salesman. He is examining the 
weapon with a workmanlike air, as one to whom good steel 
is of priceless value, and as jealous of its smallest flaw ; 
some of his companions, eager in speech and zealous of 
advice, crowd round him ; and the Jew, by voice and gesture, 
deprecates the disparagement of the would-be purchaser. 
The men, the dresses, and the architecture, are all Eastern, 
and the scene might be laid in Damascus itself. There is, 
moreover, about the whole picture, an air of reality that 
asserts the resources of the artist and the very purpose and 
province of art ; and seems to suggest a glimpse into the 
life and character it represents, rather than the simulation 
of a mere painting. 
H. Merle is represented by a picture of “ Marguerite trying 
on her Jewels,” which lays claim to especial merit of 
colour and conception ; but is somewhat more formal and 
statuesque than pictorial. Marguerite, perhaps a little too 
girlish, is exquisite in expression and sentiment, and the 
old woman her companion is portrayed with admirable 
dramatic feeling. The Mepkistopkeles, represented in the 
background, though rendered in the traditional manner, is 
powerfully painted ; and the whole picture, without being 
an entire success, is a masterpiece of art, and narrowly 
escapes such entire x>erfection as would have made it a 
world-famous illustration of the world-reputed poem. The 
hands are well drawn ; the flesh is admirable in colour ; the 
execution, without being vigorous, is accurate and free ; and 
the management of the background is marked by con- 
siderable skill, both in colour and composition. A large 
work, life size, “ St. Vincent de Paul taking the Place of the 
Galley-slave,” and “Neapolitan Peasants before the Farnese 
Palace at Rome,” by L. Bonnat, are compositions of the 
highest possible merit in their respective manners. They 
are both freely handled, and are’ marked by a vigour and 
dash of execution, a technical skill, and mastery of colour 
and material of the most daring kind. The large picture is 
as vigorously drawn as if by Rubens himself ; free and bold, in 
colour and technic skill not unlike Velasquez, and the story 
it tells is most vividly expressed. The smaller work, scant 
in material, is an illustration of the power of handling and 
treatment to compensate for paucity of subject. A few 
peasants bathing in an Italian sun, before the door of a 
palace, which recalls every association of magnificence and 
wealth, — that is the story ; but the scene is photographic in 
accuracy, and superadds the charm of colour and of charac- 
ter to its air of literal fidelity. 
The works already specified mark the Continental school, 
which is further represented by a fine historic composition, 
by F. Pauwels, of Ghent, with a representation of a religious 
ceremony restoring the orphan children of Lierven Pyn, chief 
