ON A TABLECLOTH.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 6, 6 February 1892, Page 140

ON A TABLECLOTH.

Meissonier had become celebrated and was beginning to make money, when he got acquainted with a Parisian grandee, very wealthy, very fond of posing as an art patron, but very penurious, "tie day Meissonier, breakfasting with the grandee, was struck by the beauty of the texture of the tablecloth. * One could draw apon it,’ he remarked ; and, suiting the action to the word, he produced a pencil, and made on the snowy smooth nappe a wonderfully able sketch of a man’s head. The ‘ economical swell ’ had the head carefully cut out of the damask, and hastened to frame and glaze his prize. A few weeks afterwards Meissonier again breakfasted with his patron, and found by the side of his plate at the corner of the table assigned to him a neat little sheaf of crayons and holders, with a penknife and some india-rubber. While the guests at the conclusion of the repast were enjoying their coffee and cigarettes, the host saw with delight ‘from the corner of his eye ’ that Meissonier was hard at work on the tablecloth—this time with a superb little full-length of a mediaeval halberdier. The party broke up, the guests departed, and the ‘ economic swell rushei back to the aaZZen manner to secure bis trea -are ; bat, alas, the painter had for once -hown himself as economical a* his patron '. He had made disastrou-dy good use of the penknife, and <.ne comer of the tablecloth was gone, halberdier and all !