plate alone can a veritable "artist's proof" be printed. For this reason he never prints more than thirty-five impressions of any plate- and seldom so many. Then he destroys the copper, so that we may consider any proof of his to be a choice rarity from the very day of its birth. For this reason his work appeals to the true connoisseurs a very restricted class. HENRI FANTIN-LATOUR Reprinted, by permission, from "The Century D URING his yearly visits to Paris, it was the good fortune of the writer to be party to a peculiar bargain or stipulation made between himself and the eminent Dutch painter and etcher, the Jonkheer Charles Storm van's Gravesande. This agreement was, that neither of the two should make his first visit to the yearly Salon unless accompanied by the other. To spend a whole day among the new pictures with this Dutch nobleman as guide and mentor might almost be called a liberal education. He is endowed with the faculty (rare among artists) of discerning what is good in the works of his contemporaries, and he has a catholicity of taste which enables him to enjoy good pictures of widely different kinds. During these visits he was always willing to be led here or there, so as to give his opinion on this or that picture; but on one point he was immovable. "First," he would say, "I must see what Fantin-Latour exhibits; after that you may take me where you please." On the occasion of one of these visits M. Fantin's contribution was his now famous painting entitled "Around the Piano." Some five or six of the great musicians of Paris are seen grouped about a piano. They have not the slightest air of posing for their portraits, but are all intently listening to the music which one of them is playing. Some years ago the authorities of the Paris École des Beaux-Arts organized a memorable Retrospective Exhibition of French Portraits, and there the place of honor was accorded to a large picture by Fantin-Latour. It represents an admirably composed group of eminent persons, mostly artists. In this painting the more distant figures are partly concealed by those in front of them, and in the nearest foreground is seen the fulllength figure of Whistler, which dominates the whole picture. It is strange that so distinguished a painter, pastelist, and designer of lithographs as FantinLatour should be still comparatively unknown in the United States, for in Europe he ranks as a master; and it does not often happen that Americans are slow in discerning original work of genuine power. Our early recognition of such painters as Millet and Corot, and such writers as Carlyle and Herbert Spencer, may demonstrate this. Yet, all the world over, the great original artist or writer finds himself at a temporary disadvantage as compared with what may be called the first-rate second-rate man. In Paris Fantin-Latour lived and worked quietly, and for long years in the small Rue des Beaux-Arts, on "the other side" of the river |