ACADEMY MODEL.

Thames Star, Volume LIX, Issue 16627, 24 October 1925, Page 8

ACADEMY MODEL.

SOUGHT FOR HAREM.

One day an Indian Rajah was walking through the Royal Academy rooms when he was attracted by the painting of “Perseus and Andromeda” (writes W. Greenwood). “Who is the original of that beautiful young woman?” he asked his guide, pointing to Andromeda. “I do not know, Your Highness,” was the answer; “but I can easily find the artist.” The address of the artist was quickly obtained, and the Rajah repaired there post-haste. “Tell me who your Andromeda is,” he said, “I will give you £SOO for the picture.” The original, he was informed, was the daughter of a .neighbouring greengrocer. “Send for her at once,” said the Rajah. Within half an hour the girl, accompanied by her father, arrived at the studio, and proved to be even lovelier than her presentment. So charmed was his dusky Highness that he forthwith offered a large sum to the tradesman for the privilege of adding Andromeda to his harem. But alas for the Rajah’s ambition! Father and daughter alike repudiated the offer of the gold, and His Highness went away in high disgust that neither his rank nor his money could purchase an English wife. MENDING A SHATTERED ROMANCE. One day, a few years ago, a pros-perous-looking Australian of middleage, who chanced to stroll into the academy to pass away an hour before taking train for the north, suddenly paused before a picture which seemed to attract him as none other did. It was an inconspicuous canvas on which was pictured a hayfield flooded with sunshine—and in the foreground was a daintly-poised girlish figure, whose blue eyes looked' out half demurely, half coquettishly, from under the shade of the sun-bonnet.

When the stranger’s eyes fell on this girlish figure he gave a gasp of astonishment, for it was the exact presentment of the girl who had won his heart long years earlier, before he crossed the seas in quest of fortune, and whom he had lost. At any cost he decided he must see the original; and, learning the name and address of the artist through an official, he soon found himself in the presence of the little haymaker, whom he found living in semipoverty in a Gray Inn road attic. From her he learned the story of her life —which confirmed his expectations. She was, to make the story short, the daughter of his former love, who had made an unhappy marriage and had died leaving her child penniless, to earn a scanty livelihood by placing her beauty at the service of art. But the days of her struggle were now ended; for, a few weeks later, she was crossing the seas with her husband, ,to become one of the most popular and envied women in Sydney society.

A pair of blue eyes full of laughter and mischief, a dimple that seems to come and go as you look at it, a tiny rosebud of a mouth, and a dainty little head running over with golden curls.

' Such was the vision that same years age arrested the eyes of Edward Fortesque, a wealthy scion of the noble family of that name, at the Academy Exhibition. The picture was by a young unknown artist, and it bore the simple but expressive title, “Springtime. ” TRAGEDY OF “SPRINGTIME.”

Fortesque determined to find Its owner, and after weeks of pursuit, ran the artist to earth in a small village in the heart of Wales. From him he learnt that the original of “Springtime” was his only sister, who had died suddenly, tragically, of heart failure, less than a month after the last touch had been put to her portrait.

Fortesque was ineonsolate. He sought distraction in other lands; but the blue eyes pursued him. On his return he flung himself into political work and social pleasures, but nowhere could be find solace or escape. One December morning in 1866 lie was found dead in bed in liis chambers in the Temple, and in his right hand was clasped a miniature of the lady of '"the “Springtime.”

In -Room IV. at the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1909 was a full-length portrait of a fisher-girl, gazing seaward, her long beautiful hair flung back by the wind, which outlined the contour of her erect graceful figure. FISHER MAID TO SOCIETY LEADER It was a picture which always had a small crowds of admirers in front of it; and among them one day was a young and wealthy squire from one of the home counties, who was so struck by the fisher-girl that he determined to seek her out and make her acquaintance. He found that she was living in a Cornish seaside village; and, journeying there in the character of a poor student, he wooed her so successfully that, within two months, she had promised to be liis wife. He sent her away for two years to a boarding-school to be educated, and to-day there is no happier or more popular woman in the county society than the fisher-maid, whose, picture occupies the place of honour in her husband’s study.