Omaha daily bee., 1899-10-22
BEAUTY PRESERVED IN OIL.
How Four Noted Art Models of New
York PreserNc Their Chnrms.

How Four Noted Art Models of New
York Preserve Their Charms.
New York is getting to be a great place
for the artists model, great a place al
most as Rome.
Beauty that is something more than skin
deep is possessed by a group of four fair
women who are the models for some Of the
most noted artists in New York City. Age
cannot withcr nor custom stale the value and
charm OF their good locks either, for their
lovely features have been translated on doz-
ems of the most valuable canvases in public
buildings or private houses, and those who
make special plgrmages to the great Wal
dorf Astoria hotel to see the ceiling of the
big ballroom from the brush of Mr., Blash-
| field are enjoying in oils the best interpreta-
tion given Of the ethereal lovelness of Grace
De Forest. This blonde, blue-eyed GIRL with
a complexion like milk and roses and the
| round yet slender arms that artists love, is
| considered the most perfect model in New
| York for coloring and for the impersonations
| OF spring, the spirits of dance. music, the
| wind, etc. Her Madonna-like brows and
eyes have been celebrated in the big picture
of Christmas bells by Mr.. Blashfeld, where
| crowds of angels cluster about lofty church
| belfry.
When Edward Simmons undertook to
| auOIH tHt Walls anu tclluSS VI ItueIlCh
Vanderbilt's stately country house he made
| Urcilla Hodges famous by posing and paint
ing her as the Aurora in the groups OF myth
| illogical figures. He wished an Aurora with
d-gold hair, young, lovely and smiling
| face and fine shoulders, and this young
woman, an American by BIRTH as are all OF
the most beautiful models fitted exactly into
| the place.
| 1t is her remarkable hair inherited from
an English mother, and her smiling, red
Tipped mouth that had made her admired
amCng the painters, though she approaches
perfect beauty more nearly in all her fea-
lures than any woman who sits in the stu
dos and winter and summer her engage
ments-well paid, too-keep her busy the
year through
Now and then at the picture shows there
slips through the crowd slim, dark eyed
| woman, who critically examines the last
pastel picture by j. Wells Champney.
Sometimes 1t is her own face in its entirety
she observes but Oftener it is her own lus-
trous, dark eyes that look at her out OF
the frame. for Jane Marbury is Mr.. Champ
ney's favorite model. Chatrain and Carolus
| Durand have both made those eyes immortal
on their canvases; Benjamin Constant put
them into a picture of an Oriental slave
woman which he sold TO Queen Victoria
|
more reason to be vain than many women
who are more beautiful in detail.
Stella Archer is the society model par ex
Celence and, robed in satin and lace, baZ,
ing with jewels and languidly waving hel
fan, she is busy early and late playing al
important part in the illustrations that fl
the magazines. c. d. Gibson made the dis
covery that no other woman had just the
pair OF broad yet gracious shoulders he
needed for his American girl but Stella
Archer. Nearly every week she gives hin
a sitting, runs over to Delaware to pose fol
Howard Pyle as an eighteenth century lady
and yet can convert herself into
splendid model fer Smedley, while she wa
always the fashionable creature in brocall
and faultloss coiffure that made Wenzell'l
pictures so fascinating.
II goes without saying that by their ma
tive beauty these four young girls who's
every hour daily and often many hours OF
sunday are filled with engagement
earn most comfortable living, and il
their profession they have reached tha
point OF fame and value among the artist
that they can afford to ask good prices an
let artists seek them out not, as is tn