ART AND ARTISTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1917, 13 November 1890, Page 36

ART AND ARTISTS.

Among the notable works exhibitsd by American artists at the Paris Salon last year was a full life-sized figure called " The Sioux Chief," executed by C. E. Dallin, now of Boston, but formerly of the West, who has for some time been studying art in Paris. It was, however, Mr Dallin's first contribution to the Salon. The study is a horse and an Indian seated upon it. The study was made by Mr Dallin in Paris, with one of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Indian scouts as his model, and the same is true of the pony represented in the sculpture. Mr Dallin has been awarded by the Salon the highest honour ever oonferred upon an American sculptor. In his case it was an unusual' honour, because it was his first exhibition.

This season has, been a very poor one for English artists, if we can believe the papers. Only in \Paris does there seem an inexhaustible market, of which the buying mass is composed, in the first place, of the French Government, then of the municipality of Paris, next the art dealers who supply pretty much all of the European and American worlds, and finally the largest class of individual buyers for love of art or investment which any city or country can boast. Perhaps it means, also, that the world has become so small, owing to the ease and cheapness of travel, that a country which has once established a pre-eminence in the fine arts holds the market of the globe- in that particular and is little, if at all, affected by duties erected against its ascendency in other lands. <

The equestrian statue of General Grant ipr Lincoln Park, Chicago, was duly modelled by the sculptor, Louis T. Bebisso, of Cincinnati, the model approved and the work of casting begun at the foundry of M. H. Mosman in Chicopee, Mass.- 1 It' was to be ready in September 1890, or in October at the latest, and the Society of the Army of Tennessee adjourned at its meeting in Cincinnati last yeai to reassemble the coming autumn in Chicago at the unveiling. But the big horse which was to stand on the big parapet in the big paik of the big city on the big lake declined to be born at the foundry in any shape fit to be set before soldiers. It is a failure, and the meeting of the society, if held at the time designated, would lack its principal reason for existence. Under these circumstances General Sherman, as president of the society, has decided that the meeting shall be postponed until the following spring. The coloured statuette contributed by M. Gerome to the Salon this year symbolises modern archaeology, and follows, to a certain extent, the figurines found at Tanagra and .elsewhere. "Tanagra" is a lady who has I found a statuette in the earth, and, throwing down her pick, examines the little object of art, which she holds before her in her left hand. The right clenches the arm of the chair on which she sits, and her feet are drawn under her, while the knees are pressed together. Tanagra's eyes are painted a faint blue ; her flesh is delicately pink, her hair a light, amber. Gerome has imitated the figures and groups as they appear to us after centuries of burial ; not as they must have looked when the colours were much brighter, if not absolutely brilliant. The question of painting statuary, over which Gibson used to agonise, has been settled in so far that we can be sure the ancients coloured most, if not all of their statues.

At the sale of the pictures belonging to the late Senator Crabbe, of Brussels, recently at the Sedelmeyer Gallery, the chief works sold were the following: — "Buveur et Fumeur," by Van Ostade, put up at 5000fr, price paid, 5100fr; " Interior of a Kitchen," by David Teniers the younger, put up at 8000fr, sold at 7000£r ; " Jeanne la Folle," by Gallaifc, put up at 7000fr, knocked down at 3050fr ; " Inside an Ale-house," by Madon, put up at lO.OOOfr, and sold at 7800fr ; " Une Bonde," by Leys, put up at 12,000f r, knocked down at 8500fr ; " The Mendicants," by Decamps, put up at 8000fr, sold at 9800rr ; " On the Shores of the Zuyder Zee," water colour by Meissonier, put up atl2,ooofr, gold at 9000fr : " Winter in Holland," by Yon Gqyen, put up at, lO.OOOfr, sold at 9000fr ; " The Dog and the Glass," by Joseph Stevens, put np at 8000Fr, acquired by the Brussels Gallery at 10,500fr ; "A Young Girl," by Grouze, put up at 15,000fr, sold at 17,500fr ; " Halt of an Arab Caravan," by Fromentin, put tip at 30,000fr, sold for 42J000fr ; " The Oaks," by Th. Rousseau, put up at 30,000fr, sold for 34,000Fr; "Ophelia," by Alfred Stevens, put up at 35,000fr, sold at 29,100fr ; his "Fedora," put up at 20,000fr, sold at 5000fr; " The Tiger Hunt," by Eugene Delacroix, put up ab 50,000fr, went up to 76,000fr; "Portrait of an Admiral," by Kembrandt, put up at 60,000fr, went up to 106,500fr.— London Times.