A Story of Rhodes.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIX, Issue XII, 20 September 1902, Page 706

A Story of Rhodes.

Professor Hubert Herkomer, in opening a free picture exhibition in London recently, delivered an amusing speech on the painting of por-

the war with China, is now over fifty years of age. He came to England to study in 1806, and while still a young man began his official career in his own country. He was first Governor of the Province of Kobe, but was afterwards transferred to the Foreign Office, and after the Chinese war assisted in the negotiations for peace. as Envoy Extraordin-

traits. “Has it ever occurred to you,” the distinguished artist said, “what an awful thing a bad portrait is? It is worse than a white elephant, because nobody wishes to keep it, and it can’t be given away, because nobody else will have it. I knew a man who had three portraits painted. Two were failures, and the third was a success. (Needless to say, I painted the success.) The subject of the three portraits spent a large sum of money to obtain possession of the two unsuccessful pictures, which had in the meantime both been presented to public galleries. When he got them he burned them both. The third portrait was in great danger during the siege of Kimberley, but it was not destroyed, and is in Kimberley now. The portrait to which I refer,” the speaker concluded, “is that of the late Mr Cecil Rhodes.”

ary and Minister Plenipotentiary to China. Later he was sent as Minister to St. Petersburg, and in 1899 was appointed to succeed Mr Kato as Ambassador in London. In 1899 he served as Japan’s chief delegate to the Hague peace Conference. We give on this page a picture of his wife, who is a most charming and popular woman.