ART AND ARTISTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2051, 15 June 1893, Page 42

ART AND ARTISTS.

The paiatiog by Millet recently sold at Brussels for £40,000 was originally sold by the artist for a cask of wine worth about £2.

It is interesting to learn from the Artist that •'thire are 100 painters in Paris whose technique surpasses that of Dor 6," while thete are " numerous pupils of the Beaux Arts School who could throw him in the shade."

A Meissonier Exhibition is being held in Paris, The price of admission is lOOfr, and the profits will be divided between three charities. The pictures are insured frr twenty-two mi'lion francs, and include 1400 Meissoniere.

Apropos of royal photograph?, the Empress of Austria would at one time never allow her royal features to be committed to- paper. Dozens of photographers sought permission, but were always refused, and it was not until some enterprising gentleman flooded the shops with a hideou* caricature of the goodlooking sovereign that the Queen's vanity was touched, and she relented.

The genius of Mr Frank Dicksee, the arlist, was early recognised by hia father, who was also a painter, and who used now and then to exercise considerable paternal firmness to get Frank to the easel. Hia efforts were i awarded by his son obtaining, when only 19 years of age, the Royal Academy's silver medal for a drawing from the antique. At the sanctuary of the Pennine Jove, on the Great St. Bernard, the litest report says the waters of the small mountain mere have been drawn eff and its bed dried, without, however, the discovery of anj notable antiquities. The large rectangular buiUiDg to the north-west of the temple has been completely disinterred, and seem* to have been a Koman dwelling of Imperial times. Many tiles were found, having stamps of the Aosta potteries. Gallic and Boman coins and some arms are all else thab rewarded the labour.

Mr Harry Furniss remarked the other day that he very seldom caricatures a woman. Mr Furniss went on to explain that on two or three occasions when he bad succumbed to the temptation he had raised a great deal of ill-feeling. From his experience he has arrived at the conclusion that most women lack the sense of humour. Men, he say?, rarely resent being quizzed. The French Minister for Public Instruction has decided that women students are to bo admitted to the School of Fine Arts. Separate studios and classrooms are to be fitted up, and a regular course of artistic education is to be organised for their benefit. It is proposed to lead the pupils mainly in the direction of decorative art, it being considered that herein the majority will find a more profitable field of labour than in the pursuit of higher art. The credit of this long-needed innovation is due to Madame Bertaux, president of the Women Painters' and Sculptors' Union, who has been indefatigable ia her efforts to secure the admission of and provision for women students. A large Munich glass window has just been placed in St. Bartholomew's Chnic'i, Moorfields, in memory of the lamented Dake of Clarence and Avondale, and a picture of the same has been forwarded to the Qaeen. The subject is "The Angel of the Eisurrection greeting the Holy Women at the Sepulchre, and pointing to a scroll on which are the words : •He is not here. He is risen.'" A plinth in the lower part of the design exhibits the names and date of the death of the Prince, and a tablet is in course of erection with a full inscription.

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