Fayette County herald. [volume] (Washington [Washington Court House], Fayette County, O. [Ohio]) 1860-1???, 1878-07-11

4
MEDALS AND COINS THAT TELL A HISTORY.
The SALOON OF HISTORICAL PORTRAITS IN
MARBLE. MCMAHON AND CoNRABERT.
The BRITISH FINE ART SECTION. SOME
PICTURES BY DISTINGUISHED ENGLIsH
ARTIST. BUST OF BARONESS BURDETT
CoULTs.
From our regular correspondent.
PAR1s, June %, 1878.
A visitor to the exhibition, who has
only week to spend there, will find him
self embarrassed as to the sections he
ought most particularly to inspect Let
hin1s unless he has some special object
connected with mill or farm, or handi-
craft, roam as much as he can in fresh
fields and pastures new. Let him go in
the early days of his visit to the Fine Art
Department, which runs straight through
the center of the building from the yesti-
bule Of Honor to the Vestibule OF Manual
Industry, parallel to the Military School.
He will in his course get the best thoughts
and feelings of each nation that exhibits.
A room hung round with historical tapis-
tries is the first in the way. It has to the
right collection of theatrical accessories
and scene shifting appointments, and to
the left, q display of coins and medals
struck from the French mint. They
speak to reflective mind of the instabili-
ty of royal and imperial grandeur in this
country. We see a medal of Josephine
and Napolean, Emperor and Empress.
and with date three years later, of Ma
pOleon and Marie Louise. Another medal
represents the King of Rome with his
mother as Empress regent; then Louis
the XVIII; Charles the X; Louis Phil
lippi; then the Republic of 48, with lib
erty, equality, fraternity forming her
escort; followed by medals bear
ing the prOfiles of Louis Napoleon's pre-
cedent of Louis Napoleon Emperor, of
Louis Napoleon and Eugene de Montijo,
and of baby who is now the Chislehurst
Pretender. Theirs had no medal struck
to celebrate the defeat of the commune,
the successful negotiation of his gigantic
loan, or the passing of the constitution.
Mcmahon, SO far, has not given sitting
to the artist of the mint. The Marshall's
likeness, however, is in the next hall /:
EFThe Saloon of historical portraits in mar
ble." 1t is fiattered but in the main true.
That coarse energetic brute, PeIlissier.
who had the virtue not to take orders from
the Emperor, in the Crimea, is to the left.
Canrapert, the 4th of December here. is
to the right. In the many busts and stat
ues that predominant in this hall, the re-
dictionary energy of the Fine Art Depart
ment betrays itself. The Marquis C. who has
it in charge, has not however had the au-
dacity to set up the images of Louis Ma
poleon and his wife though they were
both very positive historical facts. To the
left of this hall there is room where the
costumes of Provincial France are gath
cred. We leave it to enter the British
Fine Art section, comprising eight rooms,
any one of which is larger than the space
allotted to British art at Philadelphia
These rooms have comfortable seats, mats
on the floors, civil attendants, and rail-
ing round the room, on which visitors
and this is an immense boon-can lean.
while studying pictures low down, or
jOtting down impressions in their note
books. Oil paintings stand at the head of
the eighty-ive classes. The French who
are honored as umpires in all questions of
art think highly of the English school
which does well when it follows nature,
but very badly when it follows British
art traditions. England's greatest artist,
Millais, sends ten pictures. The portrait
of EIlers Bischaffsheim is that of hard
woman of the world, in a trundelled up
Dolly Warden train of brown silk brocade,
dotted over with colored bouquets, and a
petticoat of warm tinge. The coloring is
pleasant and the subject not agreeable
In the portraits of English ladies, gener-
ally, there is an absence of that delight
ful thing, to express which 1 must bor-
row French term, Ia bonnie grace. ''Hearts
are trumps," represents three GRUMPY
young women sitting in a luxurious
greenhouse playing dummy whist. They
are tired, suppose, of the tedious game,
and of fu1lness of bread, and of idleness.
1 was told that they were daughters of a
knighted manufacturer of artillery of
heavy calIibre. The wealth of the world
flows in upon them and takes away their
appetite for the enjoyment of ordinary
and extraordinary pleasures. Their lilac
silk dresses and pink ribbons, the bouIe
table at which they drag through their
game, the ferns and other hot house
plants, are all faithfully and ably done.
A dominant quality of Millais is sincerity
He represents things as they strike him
and his eye has great power to see and
to discern. That prim old F'Yeoman of
| the Guard'' is wonderfully well rendered.
But it is not a picture for a small collec-
ton. The scarlet color of the coat is toe
obtrusive. sfThe Sisters,'' another OF
Mf1fais pictures, lent by an English gen
tleman, are good, simple, rosy-cheeked
ruddy-lipped, little girls. What breath
of fresh air from the Highlands is not
that Scotch landscape, "O'er the hills and
far away" crag, copse, moor, and misty
hills in the distance, spanned by a rain
bow, present the finest combination o.
wild scenery ever saw on canvass. And
that heart of oak F'The Northwest pass
agep' The germs of an epic poem are
there. The old seaman, whose parlor is
done up like the cabin of a ship, will hav'
it that none but the English will ever fine
the northwest passage; about an attemp
to discover which, by the French, hi
fair, slim, daughter is reading to hin
in a newspaper. There are two classes il
which the English are unrivalled-cu
and engraved flint-glass and water-colo
paintings. The highest art is displaye
in both. Their drawings in black anG
white are also admirable, their wash and
: lithOgraph and galvanoplastic engraving
: too, are highly meritorious, and, in spit
a of fOggy climate, their photographs ar
frst-rate. In sculpture the English hol
good position. "Baroness Burdet