CONCERNING WOMEN.

White Ribbon, Volume 12, Issue 144, 15 May 1907, Page 4

CONCERNING WOMEN.

Mrs Josephine Butler’s Portrait. We understand, says a recent number of the English Methodist Jones, that the late Mr G. F. Watts painted in 1895 a portrait of Mrs Josephine Butler —the only portrait of a woman that he ever painted “ for the nation,” and he did it because he (and his wife, too) honoured and loved her and believed that no woman had ever crucified herself more for a great and just cause than she did. This portrait is still in the studio at Limmersleaze under die loving care of Mrs Watts. The regulation for accepting portraits for the National Portrait Gallery is that a period of ten years must elapse after the death of the |>erson painted before the portrait can be placed or. the walls. There are said to have been occasions, however, when this rule has been waived. Now Mrs Butler, through age

and ill health, had been practically out of life for several years. Might not the ten years’ rule be dispensed with in her case so that the many still living who honoured her as leader and more or h*ss shared her labours might have the satisfaction of seeing her, who oftentimes suffered so acutely in life in the fight for justice for the most miserable of her sex, for an equal standard of morality, publicly recognised as one whom the nation at least feels proud to honour. Perhaps if a requisition were made showing the general desire for the portrait to be placed in the gallery now, permission might be given. \Y r e would that the noble artist were still alive to express the sympathy which we are sure he would entertain for such a project.