The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1876-11-05
MISS ELIZABETH TR0MPSOM.

over, IN any department OF arGs achieved III
so short a time the repown which Miss Eli
zabeth Thompson has 80 worthily secured
She has at very early a g, by her talent
taken a frat rank among the painters Of
battle pieces, of our day. The interest
which naturally is taken in this successful
artist and her works causes us to reprini
from The Weekly Visitor the following
sketch of her achievements in art.
Miss Elizabeth Thompson's name is
hardly so famous yet in this country as that
of Rosa Bonheur, but al: ce she has far
| more genius than her French companion,
since she has already achieved a position
amongst English artists higher thau has
been held by any woman, since she gives
| promise of noble future work perhaps some
words concerning her by ore who had the
pleasure of knowing her in her home, be-
| fore aud during the time of her earliest great
success, may not be amiss:
When the writer knew her first, Miss
Thompson was Gving with her parents and
sister in beautiful home in that loveliest of
bland aired English resorts, Ventnor, in
| the Isle of Wight. She has a right to
! genius, her mother being one of the fDest
| of amateur musicians, and 30 clever with
her brush that her water color sketches
have won Ruskin's praise while from her
father, an English gentleman, scholarly, &C
sister have bad the most careful training
and education, almost the undivided atten-
| ton of years. The sister, who ia a fine
musician, has strong literary tendencies !;
her fret volume of poems has met q very
favorable reception amongst English critics
tque, thoughtful pen no reader of the lite
rary and art notices in the London Tablet,
which she furnishes, can deny.
The young painter's bent towards her
artist career was very early manifested,
| and the field in which she has found fame
as a painter of military subjects, always
soldiers, soldiers and horses, was as clearly
| indicated. If the annals of a quiet family
could be searched for details of the adven-
lures of it's members in posing, coaxing,
struggling with unpersuadable horses,
cows, sheep, goats, dogs, for hours together
for the eager artists benefit, the contribu-
| ton would be droll one both to art aad
natural history.
Always tie artist eye was busy one
of the household complained that even her
swoons were studied, and that upon her re-
covery from ohe attack the painters first
exclamation was, =" Oh, A.! why did
you get over it so quickiyf wanted to be
spre of that livid color7 But your hands,
zee, and nails are quite deathly and perfect,
yeti" And how size worked! Her little
back garden studio was an oven in summer,
and 80 cold in winter that che had to paint
mutf1ed In cloak, hood and warm gloves
with the fingers shortened, but neither cold
nor heat, storm nor sun, social temptations
nor lotus. eating climate, robbed her of her
five or six hard working hours each day.
Aud withal, despite her advantages of po-
| sition and culture, despite the afectionate
ministry to her artist needs, l fear that
most Iebellous young American spirits
would have pronounced that nothing great,
hardly nything, ,corthy, as work, could be
accomplished by an English girl living in
as entire subjection to her parents as a
school girl mot an American one) and
hedged about by most upyielding hedge
| of prophecies and conventionalities. To
military reviews, encampments, soldiers
games etc, her father accompanied her ::
and that night after night, for weeks, he sa,
with her while che studied the evolutions of
the horses at Hengler's Circus testifes,
surely, quite as strongly to his devotion as
| to hers.
"In 1874 she sent her first picture to the
Roy al Academy Exhibition. The first news
of it was that the Hanging Committee
Of artists had gathered before it and
cheered it, with bats off. When the Ex-
hibition was fairy opened the crush be
fore the picture was so great that policemen
had to be stationed there to see that ladies
and gentlemen " moved on" But the great
triumph to the artist had been on the ''pri-
vate view day, when sEe had gone, with
her sister, to the Burlington Galleries, an
aimost unknown little English girl, and left
them famous Eoglish artist. Artists and
literary men, old army officers, high digni-
taries of Church and State, all ranks of the
nobility, pressed around her in enthusiastic
admiration of her work " whatever the
| future may hold" she wrote to her father,
"there can never come another day like
this to me-" The picture was Withdrawn
from the Exhibition at Queen Victoria's re-
quest, that it might be shown 20 the Car,
then in England; but the triumph that
touched the artist most deeply was the pc
tition from Florence Nighting gale, then con-
fined to her bed, that 1t might be brought
to her bedside, since she was so keenly in
terested in all Crimean "reminiscences. Il
have omitted TO cay that this first famous
picture was, " Calling the Roll After Battle
in the Crimea.'O The pictures owner
it was a commissioner Manchester art
lover, coded it to her Majesty at her re-
quest. A firm of picture dealers paid Miss
Thompson 900 for the right to engrave
the picture and exhibit it throughout Eng
land; and Agnew, the king of picture deal
hnr