ART AND ARTISTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1906, 21 August 1890, Page 36

ART AND ARTISTS.

Burne Joneß has sold his "Legend of tf •■* Briar Rose " picture for £22,000. People who think that the trade in Japanese curios and art work |is declining would have their opinion* ohanged if they coul<s see the Japan Gazette. An item in a recent issue-states that DeakTn Brothers have just paid £2800 for a pair of gold lacquer screens. ' , „± . , The annual report of the British National Gallery shows that but of a total expenditure of £400Q only £200 went . for English pictures. The tastes of the students, it is remarked, are hot those of the trustees. Out of the 17 pictures which were copied 10 time* or over during the last year 11 were by English artiste. , , Oleographs and chromo-lithographs are both printed in oil colours, and in exactly the same way, the only difference being that the oleograph is passed through a machine when finished to be "roughed "-in other words, to have theoanvas textuie embossed on the paper. • - The extraordinary prices paid to artists and . sculptors of, olassical times for their worts form the theme of one of the most interesting of W. W. Story's " Conversations in -a Studio." The profession of an artist was then very lucrative. The author cites a large number of instances of great prices from the ancient authors. He concludes that the most enormous prices paid nowadays for works of art do not equal those of the palmy days of Greece and Rome. What the Pall Mall Budget calls "one of the most comprehensive and unique exhibitions of feline life ever grouped together" has been opened in London at the Fine Art Society's Galleries, New Bond street. It is a collection of pictures of cats by Madame Ronner and, judging from tbe three bits engraved for the Pall Mall Budget, the pictures are as fine in their way as the dog pictures by Miss Strong lately shown at the St. Botolph Olub. Sleepy kittens and playful kittens are depicted to the life. The St. James' Gauette gives the following description of one of the new landscapes of Sir J. E. Millais :— " It is early morning in the woods ; the gossamer spiders have been hard at work and have covered every Bpray of gorse with their webbing; hoar frost has been scattered like ashe3 everywhere, and only here and there has the sun which pierces 'through the mist dissolved it into dew drops. In the foreground a splendidly plumaged cock pheasant emphasises the oold by tucking one leg into his feathers, while his mate nestles in the dry hollow of the whin— her plumage so akin in colour to her surroundings as to make one for aoroe time quite oblivious of her presence." People who take an interest in Sir Frederick Leighton's pictures may like to know that Miss Dorothy Dene (her real name is Palleen), who is known to the world at large as a favourite actress and a beautiful woman, enjoys the distinction of being chosen by the president of tho Royal Academy as the original of many of his delightful representations of cha»ming women. Miss Dene sat to Sir Frederick Leighton for his admired picture " Invoci tion" last year, a maiden in classic atlU* with lifted eyes appealing to Heaven. t*i« large bunch of purple grapes before Jier v*y ing a clue to the subject of the in v«vs«vr Miss Dene figures again this year in Sir Frederick Leighton's " Psyche," which is a very important canvaa. The sitter is undoubtedly a beautiful woman still ; she bae lovely eyes and lashes of abnormal length, but in full light her complexion in seen te bo a little faded, probably the remit of mine: pigments and powders for make-up on the stage.