ACADEMY PICTURES

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 4, 5 July 1928, Page 21

ACADEMY PICTURES

"THE BLACK CAP" ■/ (From "The Post's" Sepresentatlvt.) LONDON, 16th May. At this year's Royal Academy, Sir William Orpen has painted the only picture that has' aroused curiosity as to its meaning. It is called "The Black Cap." The Judge, who wears blackrimmed glasses, and is bowed with years and gravity, carries the black cap in his hand. Before him marches tipstaff; after him, holding my lord's robes, comes tho usher. 'To the left of the painting is the picture of a gallows. •The clock records 10.5 a.m. The period is, apparently,- the middle of the eighteenth century. Sir' William, who is surprised to find his picture regarded as a puzzle, says he has never heard a death sentence pronounced. He explains that in 1910 an old Lord Justice sat for him. He left all his robes, and to amuse himself the -artist painted 4a "picture from them of a Judge, with a flunkey holding up his train. This was shown at the Cheuil Galleries and sold.. "Now in this picture," said Sir William, in an interview, "there are three figures.' It was painted for my own amusement in Paris about two months ago. I had the idea of the first oiio somehow in my head, I had no models. It was all imagination. A problem? Good lord, no! I was trying to mix some very bright colours — nothing but that. . ■ "And why make all this fuss about the Judge's robes being wrong? Why, everything is wrong. It is meant to be. I ask you, have you ever seen a Judge's attendant dressed like that? Of course hot. Such things are reserved for royal palaces—if there. "There's a little satire about it if you like—an old man shortly to die in the natural way who is going to sentence some one to death —but nothine else." •■ Sir William Orpen, by the way, demands the biggest price in the exhibition for this picture—2loo. The next biggest is asked by'Mr. Alfred Munnings, E.A.—£lsoo for his "Saddling up for the Grand National, 1919; before the Snowstorm." Four of the late Mr. Sims's mystic pictures—"Behold, I have graven theo on the palm of-my hand," "My painbeneath your sheltering hand."' ". man's last pretciiee of consummation in indifference,"• and "'Here am I" have now been sold. The price- of each of these pictures was £300. The purchasers were private individuals.