28 
ART NOTES FROM PARIS. 
[Nature and Art, January 1, 1867. 
Boaux-Arts, representatives of the Old School as well as of 
the New, and artists in all styles, history, genre, and land- 
scape, classic as well as picturesque. The other lists ai - e as 
strong in good names, or nearly so, as that of the painter 
Jurors. The Government nominees are principally officials 
connected with arts, connoisseurs and literary men, amongst 
whom are the Marquis Maison, M. P. de St. Victor, M. Ad. 
de Beaumont, Vicomte H. Delaborde, M. Charles Blanc, M. 
de Longperier, M. Theophile Gautier, and M. Soulie, keeper 
of the gallery of Versailles. 
The Imperial Commission has revised its regulations con- 
cerning the admission of works of art in the most liberal 
spirit ; instead of requiring works to be sent in during the 
month of October last, artists are to make application in 
writing, giving title and description of their works, which, 
when known to the juries, will be admitted or rejected 
without previous displacement, the decisions to be made by 
the end of the present year. Those works admitted on 
written application will not have to be sent in till the 25th 
February, and those which the juries desire to examine 
previously, by the 20th January. The artists are well 
pleased, as they should be, with these arrangements ; the 
only subject of complaint is the comparatively small amount 
of space for the art productions of France during the last 
eleven years. The space is certainly not too large, and the 
sifting must be severe, but even the Chavvp de Mars will not 
accommodate the whole world of art. 
It must be explained that the juries mentioned above are 
only for admission of works, not to award the prizes ; the 
appointment of the prize juries has been deferred by decree 
until the others have finished their duties. 
Those who are not accustomed to large galleries will be 
surprised perhaps to hear that the famous Louvre does not 
contain more than two thousand pictures ; of these 560 
belong to the Italian, 620 to the German and other Northern 
Schools, 700 to the French, and 25 to the Spanish School. 
Amongst the works of the Great Masters are 12 by Raphael, 
3 only by Correggio, 18 by Titian, 13 by Paul Veronese, 9 
by Leonardo da Vinci, 8 by Perugino, 22 by Rubens, as 
many by Vandyk, 17 by Rembrandt, 40 by Poussin, 16 by 
Claude, and 11 by Murillo. 
The Raphaels will presently be increased by the appear- 
ance of a picture which has gone through strange vicissitudes : 
the work represents John the Baptist as a boy, seated on 
the trunk of a ti’ee, with the right arm raised, and the legs 
apart. The picture has been much injured and retouched, 
but the face is said to be intact, and such as no one but 
Raphael could paint, the drawing and expression full of 
force and elegance, and the landscape superb. It was en- 
graved by Valee, and is also to be found in Landon’s work, 
No. 324. Passavant says that it was given by Louis XVIII. 
to a village church, but being injured by dampness it was 
returned to the Due de Maille, who had placed it there by 
the king’s orders ; after the death of the duke his heirs 
found it in a loft, and knowing nothing about it, let it go 
with a lot of lumber, and it was sold for fifty-nine francs to 
a picture-dealer, who soon discovering the pearl he had 
picked up, had it repaired, and offered it to the Government 
for 60,000 francs ; it was, however, claimed as belonging to 
the State, the dealer only receiving a sum equal to the price 
he had paid for the work, and what he had expended upon 
it, and restored to the Louvre — where it has actually been 
lost for nearly forty years. Such is the account of the re- 
covered Raphael, and it is curious enough to be true. 
The Louvre has made another acquisition : an English 
picture presented by a French amateur, M. Callon, and signed 
G. Ferguson, 1610 ; the first, it is said, of our School in the 
gallery, though we think we remember seeing one, if not 
more, by Bonnington, but perhaps he is classed as a 
naturalized French artist. The subject of the picture in 
question is Dead Poultry and Game ; we could have wished 
something a little more classical, and yet where could the 
Louvre have obtained a Reynolds or a Gainsborough ? Little 
could G. Ferguson have dreamed of the honour that awaited 
him and his fowls, two centuries and a half after the latter 
had been made objects of art. 
The great vase from Amathus, supposed to be the only 
remaining relic of the famous temple dedicated to Venus, 
has been placed in the gallery of Egyptian and Ninivite 
antiquities ; it is an immense amphora, about six feet high 
and ten feet in diameter, hewn out of a block of coarse- 
grained stone, and bears strong marks of antiquity ; the 
form, though imperfect, is not .ungraceful, and there are 
traces of ornament about the handles. As an object of art 
it certainly is not remarkable, but it is very old and probably 
unique, and likely to remain so. 
The Louvre is busy preparing for the Exhibition year ; the 
galleries of ancient sculpture have been closed for a con- 
siderable time ; the frescoes in four of the rooms, executed 
by Romanelli in 1660, are being restored by M. Baize, and 
a fifth is being decorated by M. Matout and M. Biennoury. 
A fine and highly decorated room in the new Louvre is being 
prepared for the larger works of the old French masters, 
Lebrun, Poussin, Lesueur, and others ; and the grand stair- 
case, which will eventually form a principal way to the 
galleries, is being constructed, but it is doubtful if this work 
will be completed for the coming year. The reconstruction 
of the further end of the great picture gallery, and of the rest 
of the river front which connects the Louvre with theTuileries, 
is proceeding with extraordinary rapidity ; in the latter portion 
will be the new Salle des Etats, in which the Sovereign meets 
the members of the two legislative bodies at the opening of 
each session ; and when this is finished the present salle in 
the new Louvre will be devoted to pictures. The Pavilion 
de Flore, the corner of the Tuileries on the river side, is 
nearly finished, as regards the exterior, and both this and 
the two faces of the new gallery adjoining are profusely 
decorated with sculpture. 
The sculptural work of the facade of the new Opera house 
is just commenced, and this and other parts of the building 
will give employment to an immense number of artists, in- 
cluding some of the most eminent in France. Besides the 
grand composition of the entablature, the principal fa<;ade 
will be decorated with medallions of Cimarosa, Pergoleso, 
Bach, and Haydn ; seven busts in bronze gilt are to be placed 
in bull’s-eyes, Mozart occupying the central place with 
Beethoven, Auber, and Rossini to the right, and Spontini 
Meyerbeer, and Halevy to the left ; and on the return of 
the facade, busts of the librettists Quinault and Scribe. 
The lateral fa 9 ades are to receive twenty-four busts of com- 
posers, commencing on the one hand with Monteverde and 
ending with Verdi, and on the other beginning with Cam- 
bert and closing with Adam. In the principal vestibule, 
Italian, French, German, and English music are to be re- 
presented by seated statues of Lulli, Rameau, Gluck, and 
Handel, the latter, though born in Germany, being, as it is 
said, claimed by England as her own. Every part of the 
new Opera house, available for the purpose, will be decorated 
with sculpture or painting. 
The new church of the Triniti is approaching completion, 
and promises to be the most sumptuous of all the modern 
religious edifices of Paris ; the original estimates amounted 
to very nearly ,£160, 000. The sum set apart for the deco- 
rative paintings is equal to ,£6,000, and that for sculpture 
to <£7,680 ; the tympans of the nave and the gablets have 
been painted by M. Jobbe-Duval and M. Barrias, the Lady 
Chapel by MM. Emile Levy and Delaunay, and M. Baize has 
executed several works on faience slabs ; the sculpture has 
been entrusted to MM. Cavelier, Maillet, Crauk, and Car- 
peaux, all able artists, for the four principal groups ; M. 
Guillaume, member of the Academy, has executed four 
statues ; and two other sculptors, MM. Doublemard and 
Dantan, junior, have other commissions. Two of the most 
eminent artists in stained glass, MM. Oudinot and Nicod, 
are engaged on the windows. The Municipal Council 
evidently intends that the new church shall be a chef- 
d’oeuvre. 
But a still more important work is spoken of : the district 
of the Champs Elysees has no church of importance, and it 
is said that it is under consideration to erect, near the Arc de 
Triomphe, a Gothic cathedral on as grand a scale as any of 
the most remarkable edifices of the middle ages. This 
on dit has a touch of the marvellous ; the Imperial Govern- 
ment is not very likely to undertake a work which, judging 
from the time the repairs of Notre Dame have taken to 
execute, would scarcely be completed in the present centurj' ; 
