Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-01-05
ART NOTES.

ART NOTES.
Two famous portraits by Rembrandt, said
to be likenesses of the painters friends,
DIR. TULIP and wife, have been imported to
America.
The collections of Baron Adolphe Roths-
child in his hotel on the Rue de Monceau
at Paris are to be published in superbly
illustrated catalogue.
A nymph struggling with satyr, carved
in Carrara marble. has been found at Rome
by the excavators under the orders of the
municipality. The group is sGreco-Roman
and half the size of life.
The young St. George sculptured by
Donatello, which has hitherto been seen
at disadvantage in one of the churches OF
Florence, has been removed to the museum
at the Bargello, and its place is occupied
by a bronze copy.
Roll is to paint huge picture as men,
orial OF the fete at Versailles last May,
when the celebration in honor of the
French Republic began. Geroex is to
paint the distribution of medals at the
| Palais de PIpdustrie in September.
w. H Bartlett, of London, is at work on
large canvas containing the portraits OF
many of the best known members of the
Savage Club. The background is the old
club at the Savoy, whence the Savages
, have migrated to new quarters on Adelphi
| Terrace.
A memorial of the loan collection Of
paintings and sculptures at the interna-
tionaI exhibition held in Glasgow in 1855
has appeared in that city under the title
"a Century of Artists" There are histor-
ical and biographical notes by w. Z. Hen
ley. French, Belgian and Dutch pictures
as we'll as English, are reproduced, and
the letter press and binding are sumptu-
Gus.
An autograph letter from Landseer to
his sister, IN 1852, has an expression that
is somewhat peculiar, coming from favor
ite of Queen Victoria. He writes that he
is Gin dread of being asked to Belmoral.' u
An English critic suggests that he must
have been a Socialist at heart, but Others
may believe that he was unnerved at the
prospect of having to praise her Majesty's
water-colors.
The portrait of Robert Burns, lately
discovered, is said to be genuine Rae
burn, and to show the poet in full length
with various accessories not found in the
portrait by Nasmyth and the engraving
by Beugo 1t was known that Raeburn
painted Burns, but all trace of the picture
had been lost. harrington Nash, its
! owner, has taken it to Edinburgh, where
the Art Congress is holding session.
NJ. Fremiet has made one slight change
in his new and larger statue of Joan OF
Arc, which he prepared for the Place des
Pyranlides in Paris to take the place Of
the old one, but which now goes to Phila-
delrhia instead Instead of banging the
tale of the horse, he ties it like that OF
the steed on which Colleoni sits high
above the roofs of Venice. The statue is
about to be cast in Paris. One replica
only will be made for the town of Nancy
A superb work to register about two
hundred of the finest paintings and sculp-
lures in the French sections of the fine
arts of the late exposition will be pub
lished by order of the Commission of Fine
| Arts, under the supervision OF NJ. Anton
Proust. There will be ten etehings and
fifty photographers, with hundred or
more reproductions by other methods.
The large volume will be a souvenir of the
centenary so far as the arts are concerned
A physician of Allegheny City, PennsyI-
vania, has invented a machine for carving
planks of wood according to various pat
terms. The planks run through the ma
chine as they are for producing planed,
tongued and grooved boards, but by means
of knives skillfully adjusted, which run
across the fiberEof the wood, very intricate
designs are carved continuously from end
to end The results are pleasing to those
who like geometrical exactness in carvings
but will not charm people who want an in
dividual touch. The invention may dc
something to introduce taste for carvings
in wood, owing to the cheapness with
which they can be turned out. The hand
caryer's turn will come when people begin
to rebel against the exactness of machine
work.
The Curator of the Wiltshire Museum
of Archaeology and Natural History at De
vizes writes to the English press to say
that during the last fifteen years the IA
nous old mystery Stonehenge has been
harmed by tourists and picnic parties. He
asks that the stones be protected. There
is bureau for the protection of public
monuments of the British Isles, but little
can be done by it unless the residents neal
the monuments are on the alert. A curate
at Drumcliffe, near Sligo tells of a geolog
ical tourist who was furious because he
was stopped in the act of taking off speci
men of the stone on which the Cross o.
| Drumcliffe is carved, as he wished to com
pare it with stone from quarries at Other
points. But the tourists who indulge ii
horseplay are the worst, for they throw
down and break old pillar stones and
crosses when they can, deriving some ex
quisite sense of pleasantly from the act
Stonehenge is the most perfected specimen
of the architecture Of the men of the Stone
Age which is known.
Professor G.. Frederick Wright, D. D..
who recently argued in his volume, "The
Ice Age" that life, and especially human
life, is comparatively recent on the earth
has been comforted by a small carving of g
man which was brought from a depth Of
300 feet by A. NJ. Kurtz, an educated man
who was in charge of the borer for an ar
tesian well at Nampa, Idaho Territory. Il
is carved in pumice stone, and has become
reddish in color on the outside by deposit
of oxide Of iron. Professor Wright reports
''The high degree of art displayed in the
image is noteworthy. 1t is not the work
of boy or novice. The proportion:
are perfect, and there is pose of the body
that is remarkable, and which different
ates it from anything that has been found
among the relics of the mound builders
The borer which brought this relic of ante
diluvian art to the surface passed through
a layer of volcanic lava and deposits made
previous to the lava by lake. Professor
| Wright is not at all dismayed by the ex-
treme antiquity of the object, but suggests
at is by no means impossible that we have
in the Nampa image one of the plaything'
of the near relatives of Tubal Cain" (D
IE,Anyone can make the hand-grenade fire
extinguishers, and at small fraction o
the prices charged in the market. Any Light
quart bottle viii serve to hold the solution
which is composed of one pound of common