fe. His draperies, or rather
his rumpled linen, torn and treated grossly in a systematic fashion to
give full value to the delicacy of the flesh, reveal in their very
negligence an easy brush. _La Malediction Paternelle_ and _Le Fils
Maudit_ are homilies that are well painted and of a practical moral, but
we prefer _L'Accordee du Village_, on account of the adorable head of
the _fiancee_; it is impossible to find anything younger, fresher, more
innocent and more coquettishly virginal, if these two words may be
connected. Greuze, and this is the cause of the renown which he enjoys
now after the eclipse of his glory caused by the intervention of David
and his school, has a very individual talent for painting woman in her
first bloom, when the bud is about to burst into the rose and the child
is about to become a maiden. As in the Eighteenth Century all the world
was somewhat libertine, even the moralists, Greuze, when he painted an
Innocence, always took pains to open the gauze and give a glimpse of the
curve of the swelling bosom; he puts into the eyes a fiery lustre and
upon the lips a dewy smile that suggests the idea that Innocence might
very easily become Voluptuousness.

[Illustration: LA CRUCHE CASSEE.
_Greuze._]

_La Cruche Cassee_ is the model of this _genre_. The head has still the
innocence of childhood, but the fichu is disarranged, the rose at the
corsage is dropping its leaves, the flowers are only half held in the
fold of the gown and the jug allows the water to escape through its
fissure.

_Guide de l'Amateur au Musee du Louvre_ (Paris, 1882).

PORTRAIT OF LADY COCKBURN AND HER CHILDREN

(_REYNOLDS_)

FREDERIC G. STEPHENS

The number of Reynolds's portraits of ladies has never been given,
probably it cannot be ascertained with precision; it is beyond all
question marvellous, but not less so is the variety of the attitudes in
which he placed the sitters, that of the ideas he expressed, and of the
accessories with which they are surrounded; to this end, and to show how
successfully he fitted things together, background and figure, compare
the portrait of _Elizabeth Hamilton, Countess of Derby_ splendidly
engraved by W. Dickinson, with that of Lady Betty Delme. It is the same
everywhere.

We believe that Reynolds, of that English school of portrait-painters of
which he was the founder, was the happiest in introducing backgrounds to
his works; to him we are for the most part inde