The Sun.
London, England, 1870-04-23 00:00:00

FINE ARTS IN BOSTON.

L. Prang, the head of the house known as L. Prang
and Co., is the oldest and most distinguished of all the
chromo-lithographers and print-publishers in the United
States; and has brought this popular branch of art to
such perfection that his name has become synonymous
with excellence, and a household word throughout the
country. Displaying as much taste and judgment in the
selection of works for reproduction, as in the rare quali-
ties he exhibits in the execution of the chro'no-copy,
Mr. Prang for some years has wielded a salutary in-
fluence, tending toward educating the masses in art
matters. In short, he has done more than any other man
in the same space of time to popularize American art.
Such is the confidence reposed in Mr. Prang, and so well
do our artists appreciate his skill, in his department of the
art, that he finds no difficulty in securing copyright for
chrome purposes from the most eminent painters. Hence
he finds it comparatively easy to sustain the high reputa-
tion he has so honestly won. As America is the great mart
for all the finest foreign prints, as well as other pictures,
your English readers will readily suppose Prang and Co.
have their hands as well as their heads busy to keep up to
the European standard of excellence. But they not only
do this, they do more ; some of the prints published by
this firm are the finest specimens of chrome-litho-
graphy ever exhibited on our side of the Atlantic.
As the new works brought out by this house may soon
again bring the proprietors under our notice it will suffice
for the present to mention a few of their late chromos, in
order to show the high class of paintings they select to
popularize : —"A Family Scene in Pompeii," after the ori-
ginal by Joseph Coomans, an eminent Belgian artist, is a
masterpiece—a perfect copy in every way, notably in the
colouring of the painting; "The Boyhood of Lincoln,"
after Eastman Johnson, of New York; "The Unconscious
Sleeper ;" after Perrault, the French genre painter; "The
Baby" (or "Going to the Bath"), from the original by Bou-
gureau, the great French artist, is charmingly rendered ;
"Sunset in California," from a picture by A. Bier..
stadt, of New York; 'The Birth-place of Whittier,
the Poet," after Thomas Hill, a Boston landscape pain-
ter of high repute ; "Rest by the Wayside ;" and
" Under the Apple Tree," from originals, by Mr. Niles, of
Boston, a rising young genre painter. Then we have fine
chromes, after landscapes, by James M. Hart, G. L. Brown,
S. Colman, and others; Marines, after E. Moran, De
Haas, &c.; Still-life, Fruits and Flowers, after Mrs. L. M.
Spencer, Mrs. James M. Hart, Miss V. Granberry, &c.
Messrs. Prang and Co., having just disposed of a large
collection of paintings, are at present making efforts to
collect works of the highest order to supply their place for
future publication ; and, it may be proper to add, they have
engaged pictures of some of our most distinguished artists.
Miss Mary Kollock, a rising young landscape painter, has
just completed two or three charming little landscapes,
which she proposes to send to the Academy. One of these,
called "Afternoon on the Kishacoquilla," is full of tender-
ness and sweetness; with fine sentiment, both in colour and
treatment. The warm, hazy sunlight comes struggling
through the tree tops, throwing twilight shades over the
water and its undergrowth surroundings, while some wild
ducks, and other water-fowl, glide over the tranquil bosom
of the lake, forming a complete picture of primeval loveli-
ness and quietude. "Long Beach, near Cape Ann," is the
title of another of these little gems.

GEOLOGY OF ALASKA. —The American Naturalist
remarks as follows upOn M. Dull's explorations:--" The
most interesting results are the determination of the facts

that west of tie 105th degree of longitude the Alaskan
coast is riing, that the former violence of volcanic forces
is diminishing throughout the territory, and that there
are no evidences of general glacial action. Mr. Dall
has travelled thirteen hundred miles up the valley
of the Yukon, and explored on the shores of Norton
Sound, without obtaining any evidences of glacial action.
The whole territory north of the Alaskan Mountains could
not therefore have been covered by the same general sheet
of ice whilh has scratched the section east of the Rocky
Mountains. This raises an unexpected obstacle in the
path both of the hypothesis of a general terrestrial glacial
sheet, and the theory of floating ice."