FAMOUS PICTURE'S HISTORY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19453, 8 October 1926, Page 14

FAMOUS PICTURE'S HISTORY

ORIGINAL OF " THE DOCTOR." "There has probably never Ijeen any other member of the medical profession whose face has been so familiar to the general public as the original of the principal fig,ure in Luke Fildc's famous painting, "The Doctor,' " says Major Fitzroy Gardner, in a recently-published volume of reminiscences. "After being one of the pictures of the year in the Royal Academy Exhibition about 30 years ago, it was reproduced in print, and lias had a phenomenal sale. One meets it in private houses, hotels, country cottages, and inns all over the country, and it seems almost as popular in other lands. I have seen it in France, Germany and China. A few years ago I found the picture adorning one of tho walls of a farmhouse near the Polish frontier in Upper Silesia. "There is something appealingly human in tho subject, and, still more, in the attitude and expression of tho doctor, who is anxiously studying tho face of the sick child on the cottago bed, and looking for any sign of hope, while tho parents in the •background are awaiting his verdict. But probably not one in five thousand of those who liavo admired the picture have been aware that the painter took a real doctor for his model. "In tho face and figure the artist has given not only a remarkably life-like portrait, but has depicted exactly the character of his medical advisor, a Dr. Knott, whom I knew well for several years, when lie had a large practice in the West End. Most unfortunately for his patients, and for many others who valued him as a doctor and admired him as a man, he passed away, at a littlo past middle ago."