The Express.
London, England, 1865-04-24 00:00:00

TELEGRAPHIC INTELLIGENCE.

[Stamped, ld. Additional.)

(MOM OCI Owl 001

ream, SATURDAY STUDIO._

The furniture of the late Prince de Beauvais was
sold yesterday at the Auction Mart, and produced
upwards of 360,000 f. A lady's writing desk of the
time of Louis XVL, richly ornamented by Goa-
thieves, was prushaeed for the Emprees, at the
enormous price of 60,000 f.
The new verb hatistmaniser, invented by M.
I Pioiud, is now in very general use. The following
pun in illustration of it, is attributed to a fashion-
able' lady :—" OM, le Prifet de la Seine s'est fait
verbs, et Paris s'est fait cher."
"M. Isaac Pismire " says the Unime, "has bad
an audience at the Tuileries. Report says that the
Mobilier will be charged with the new loan
of 300 millions for the city of Paris." This is the
loan which M. Ronber admitted the other day. was
about to be raised, but which the semi-official jour-
nals had strenuously affirmed for some time past
the Prefect of the Seine was not thinking of at aIL
It also comes out now that money is to be raised by
a sale of the state forests, a project very diligently
denied when some indiscreet newspapers first got
wind of it.
The Bonne was in a rather feverish state ; the
closing quotations show scarcely any change from
yesterday.

THE SOCIETY OF PAINTERS IN WATER
COLOURS.

Both the water colour exhibitions were openel to
the public to-day. The older society may take
precedence on the ground of " age before honour,"
otherwise we should find it difficult to say which of
the rival exhibitions claims our notice as standing
first in the order of merit. We fancy, however,
that it will be pretty generally felt that neither of
the societies has quite cisme up to the mark set by
the exhibitions of some of their former seasons.
There is, as it seems to us, on the part of the first
rent men a disposition to rest on their laurels,
and be content with the success of a confirmed and
confident mannerism ; while there is little sign of
effort to enlarge the scope of water-colour painting
from either the works of the old or the young mas-
ters. There is scarcely as much proof of new blood
and fresh vigour tobe found in these two " legi-
timate " exhibitions, which emanate from the cen-
tralised talent of the water-colour artists, as in the
exhibition of the works of "outsiders," which we
recently noticed under the title of " the General
Exhibition," and which is still open at the Egqp-
tian-haU. There is no denying that the polished
neatness of an exquisite in painting who is per-
petually harping on the same theme rather
pals the senses, let his story be ever so good.
It is not that our innate lore of change
and variety makes us discontented with hie beau-
ties, it is that we cannot help feeling that the artist
has it all so much at his fingers' ends that be has no
need to think over hi work, and thus keeps spin-
ning ea it were all from the same yarn. Ot course
a painter cannot be expected to escape a certain
mannerism any more than an actor or a writer ;
properly controlled, this should be his " style," but
indolently followed in the choice of subject as well
as method, it must inevitably make his work dry
and unsympathetic. There is a good deal of this
observable in the works of the foremost painters in
the old society.