Untitled

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 6440, 3 December 1881, Page 3

A story is to be found in old jest-books of an Irish artist who painted “ The Passage of the Red Sea” by covering his canvas with red paint, and he explained his interpretation of the scene by saying that the Egyptians were supposed to be drowned, while the Israelites had escaped. According to the Moniteur des Aril, no less an artist than M. De Neuville has produced a corresponding whimsicality, A canvas, which measures 4m. by 2 m., and represents nothing but a vast expanse of sand, with a single ostrich’s egg in the centre, has been entitled by the painter “ The Capture of Bou Amena by the French.” When M. de Neuville was asked by a puzzled visitor to the studio to point out where Bou Amena was, the painter gravely replied that the chief had fled, and, as regards the French troops, they had not arrived at the time the scene was depicted I The picture is, of course, a sarcasm, and will no doubt ha appreciated in Pari*.