The Express.
London, England, 1855-05-18 00:00:00

new cups. Mr. Vechte has completed his beautiful
shield, without, as too often happens, disappointing one
uhe has advanced. Indeed, the Storr and Mortimer
silver work will be hardly come-at-able for the season,
from the exhibitioner this sculptor's handiwork. The
French staircase is illumined by stained-glass win-
dowv, some reviving the quaint draughtsmanship
and the "vinous tint" which used to be, according
to Serval, a source of merriment against the canons
of the St. Chapelle. Didron, whose name is asso-
ciated with Christian iconography, gives
good samples of old and modern work, the lat-
ter suffering evidently from the juxtaposition.
That stained glass was never meant to meet the pur-
poses of oil-painting is a mistake yet more palpably
made by an artist of Lorraine, who is not a Claude.
Napoleon and his robes of state ate quite in a pickle.
As one descends the staircase, one cannot but be
struck with its massive yet elegant proportions. There
is one at each end of the building, and they are the
best features of the edifice. As you emerge, you notice
the equestrian statue of the Emperor, by Count Niew-
erkerke, who is better known by his clever little
statuettes. In augmenting his size, the director of
the Beaux Arts loses none of his title to commenda-
tion, but sets a good example to the arts under his
management.
The building externally shows how far lavish de-
tail can redeem original ugliness. The wonderful
command of ornamental resources is quite as apparent
in the fitting of the stalls, and in other decorative
minutiae, as in the more obtrusive works forming pert
of the Exhibition. The " Salle de l'lmperatrice," for
• example, is decorated at its entrance door with a
L perect host of sportive cupids in stucco, and wreath-
holding nymphs which breathe the spirit of Louis
XV. period, which is all the vogue at present. The
same fertility is, of course, noticeable in the fanciful
silks of Lyons, which are so rich that they need not,
as was the case in London, be replaced by subse-
quent achievements. There is a gilt " chasuble,"
with all the archangels designed with wonderful
neatness and delightful texture, without any of that
gaudiness which is the besetting sin of the Belgian
church robe makers.

THE CATALOGUE.
The official catalogue has just appeared. It is a
closely-printed small octavo volume of 448 pages.
The various contributing countries are in distinct
chapters, aad their contributions are divided into the
30 classes and innumerable sections of the Imperial
plan. This first edition is necessarily imperfect • it
has also faults of arrangement that will make it
almost as intractable as the celebrated shilling cata-
logue of 1851. Much that is in it might have been
omitted, as the 67 pages of official documents,
nearly all of which have been published before.
I find in a preliminary note that 50 states have
contributed to the Exhibition, of which 37 only have
sent lists to the catalogue authorities. There are,
however, 16,944 exhibitors down in this first edition,
of whom 8,968 are French. Tho long gallery and
the palace are confounded in one series of numbers,
so that there is nothing whatever to indicate to the
visitor where he will find a certain contribution.
He is not even told where each class is ar-
ranged, nor how the contributions of various nations
have been placed, but is left to grope his way
about two buildings, and to find the corresponding
numbers to those in his catalogue as he can.