International studio (20.1903)

I'ORTRAIT OF DON NERI CORSIN1 BY

germinate and bear such fruit as the quality or
quantity of the inspiration dictates. He has often
said to a beginner, " Hardly anything can be taught,
but there is everything to be learnt."
The motto which has always expressed Mr. Watts'
artistic aspirations is, " The utmost for the highest,"
and he has always lived up to it. In a day when
the only form of art which is financially successful
is portrait painting, and with a very decided gift
for that special line, he has preferred to devote
himself to the dictates of his fancy and only to
paint the portraits of people who have interested
him personally or whose portraits would prove a
prec ous heritage to the nation. His object has
always been to paint the pictures which came to
him in his own way, and to satisfy his inner vision
before anything else, leaving the result on the knees
of the gods.
BEATRICE ERSKINE.

XHIBITION OF
DRAWINGS BY
THE OLD MAS-
TERS AT THE
BRITISH MUSEUM. BY
LAURENCE BINYON.
THE exhibition now Riling the
walls of the single gallery of the
British Museum allotted to the
Print Room consists of drawings
acquired for the nation during the
last six or seven years. The sole
exceptions are ten German draw-
ings which have been in the
Museum since 1753, as part of
Sir Hans Sloane's bequest: but
as it is only quite recently that
these particular examples have
been taken from the famous old
black-bound album in which the
Sloane Durers originally were,
and that their authorship has been
identified, these are equally new
to the public. The exhibition
has been on view for some time,
but some quite recent additions
and substitutions have brought it
up to date.
There are 161 drawings by
foreign masters in the exhibition,
. F. WATTS of the British school. These
are, of course, only a selection
from the total amount acquired
since 1893, but the majority, and all the more
important ones, are shown. In this article I shall
treat only of the foreign schools.
The aim of the department is to provide for
students, in historical sequence, as representative a
series as possible of the work of the masters of the
past down to recent years. Naturally the repre-
sentation in the present show is not complete ; yet
all the great schools are represented, and most of
the supreme names in draughtsmanship—Michael
Angelo, Leonardo, Del Sarto, Correggio, Rubens,
Vandyck, Rembrandt, Watteau, Claude, Millet,
Delacroix. Durer and Holbein are absent, since
the fine collections of their work already in the
Museum have not been supplemented since the
splendid acquisitions of the Malcolm Collection in
1893 ; and Titian is represented only by a school-
piece, unless a fine drawing of uncertain attribution
is to be put down to his hand.


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