Healy's First Masterpiece

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 52, 27 December 1923, Page 51

Healy's First Masterpiece

There are in the life of the great portrait-painter, Healy, many pleasing and interesting incidents, which cannot fail to delight the rising generation. His grandfather was a patriot larishman financially ruined by his efforts in behalf of freedom; his father a sea-captain, who, after an adventurous but upright life, settled in Boston and became a genuine Yankee by adoption. It was probably from his maternal grandmother, Mrs. Hick, that little George inherited his artistic skill. He was the eldest of five children, and was obliged to be, as so many other elder brothers have been, "mother's right-hand man." George was what the Scotch would call a "wee bit laddie" when the chance came for him to be of help as a wage-earner. He held the horse of a gentleman while he made a call, and was rewarded with a dollar. Probably never again did the sight of a dollar 5 bravely earned, give him the same triumphant pleasure. One friend, Miss Stuart, daughter of Gilbert Stuart, already renowned as a portrait-painter, was the first believer in his artistic vocation. One of her kind acts was to lend him a print of Guido Reni's famous "Ecce Homo," which ho at once proceeded to copy. After he had reproduced the picture as well as he could, he begged a friendly bookseller to hang it in his window,' and to sell it if possible. Mr. Healy confesses in his autobiography that he made as many excuses as possible for passing the goodnatured book-vendor's shop. At last the "Ecce Homo" found a customer—none other than a priest who had charge of a parish not far away. "I am poor," said the priest; "but I wish this picture very much, and will give ten dollars for it." The bookseller promised to ask young Healy about the matter, and report the next day. The transaction was perfected, and the priest carried off the painting in triumph. Now for the sequel. Some thirty years after, when the artist, enjoying world-wide fame, was chatting with some friends at the Capitol in Washington, an aged priest stepped up to him and asked if he were not Mr. Healy, the portrait-painter. The painter admitted his identity, and the priest remarked with a smile: "I believe I am the happy possessor of one of your earliest works, if not the earliest. Do you remember an "Ecce Home" which you had placed in the window of a Boston bookseller? A country priest offered ten dollars fen it. I am that priest, and it still hangs in my church. Who knows? Perhaps that picture brought down blessings on your head." The artist shook hands heartily with his first customer, and told him how much that ten dollars was to him at the time. Mr. Healy died at a ripe old age, honored and admired all over the civilised world. He was all his life a most earnest and consistent Catholic, and after his death it was prettily said of him, "Successful in reproducing the features of others on canvas, he was still more faithful in forming his own heart to the image and likeness of his Creator."— The Sig