ty of
his master. His portraits, however, have many qualities of grace and
good taste, and his success in France was somewhat analogous to that
of Lawrence in England. Under the Restoration his vogue continued; in
1819 he was given the title of baron; and, dying in Paris on January
11, 1837, he left as his legacy to the art of his time no less
than twenty-eight historical pictures, many of great dimensions,
eighty-seven full-length portraits, and over two hundred smaller
portraits, representing the principal men and women of his time. The
portraits of the Countess Regnault de Saint-Jean-d'Angely and of the
Princess Visconti are both excellent specimens of the work of this
estimable painter.

[Illustration: PRUD'HON. FROM A PEN DRAWING BY HIMSELF.]

Of the pictures which testify to the industry and talent of
Louis-Leopold Boilly, who was born at La Bassee, near Lille, on July
5, 1761, the Louvre possesses but one specimen; namely, the Arrival of
a Diligence before the coach-office in Paris. This is undoubtedly due
to the fact that with the preoccupation of the public mind with the
events of the time, and the prevailing taste for great historical
pictures, Boilly's art, so sincere and so intimate in character, was
underestimated. It is certainly not due to any lack of industry on the
part of the painter. Even at the age of eleven years he undertook to
paint, for a religious fraternity of his native town, two pictures
representing the miracles of St. Roch. These still exist, and they are
said to be meritorious. His facility in seizing the resemblance of
his sitter was evidently native, for when only thirteen years of age,
without instruction of any kind, he left his parents, and established
himself as a portrait painter first at Douai and afterwards at Arras.
In 1786 he went to Paris, where he lived until his death. Here
he painted a great number of pictures of small size, representing
familiar scenes of the streets and of the homes of Paris, and an
incredible number of portraits.

[Illustration: THE PRINCESS VISCONTI. FROM A PAINTING BY
FRANCOIS-PASCAL-SIMON (BARON) GERARD.

The picture gives an interesting study of the costume of the First
Empire, and is a work conceived in the style of the time when the
recent publication of "Corinne" by Madame de Stael had influenced the
popular taste. The original painting is now in the Louvre.]

A valiant craftsman, happy in his work, following no school but that
of nature, ca