International studio (25.1905)

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dearest hobbies. Years
have been spent in the
study of this single branch,
and the skill essential to
proper colouring and ap-
plying of gold and silver
represents a great amount
of patient effort.
MR. WILLIAM CLAUSEN
has had on view at his
galleries in New York re-
cently, something like a
dozen portraits by Annie
Barrows Shepley, and an
exhibition of the results of
Mr. Louis Akin's work in
the Southwest in the study
of the Indians and the life
in general in that part of the country. This
artist is to return to the desert very soon and will
devote his efforts entirely to Western work. There
have also been on view at these galleries recently
the latest paintings of Messrs. Reynolds and Gifford
Beal.
THE THIRTY-FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT of the
Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, just
issued, calls attention to the changes in the Board,
and the succession of Sir Caspar Purdon Clarke to
the directorship. Next in importance to the choice
of director, the more complete organization of the
museum into a greater number of departments,
with competent curators, is already receiving
careful attention. The collections have not hereto-
fore been systematically developed under any com-
prehensive plan. In some departments the museum
is lamentably deficient, in others, perhaps abnor-
mally extended, in many inadequately represented.
This condition, which is thoroughly recognized by
the Trustees, is largely the consequence of having
had to rely in the past for expansion upon gifts.
A situation has now been attained in which more
careful discrimination can be exercised, and gifts
not reaching acknowledged standards may be
rigorously excluded, so that at last a comprehen-
sive scientific plan may be followed. This work
necessitates a large increase in the annual resources,
and an assurance that the increase may be regularly
counted upon. The administration expenses of the
current year exceed by about $50,000 the appropria-
tion given by the city, a deficiency which must be
supplied from private sources. Except for the
Rogers fund, the museum's sources of income


'HOW SIR LAUNCELOT FOUGHT AND SLEW THE DRAGON"
PANEL BY LAWRIE AND ATKINS

applicable to purchases are insignificant. It is
manifest that the enlargement of the staff and other
work incident to the expansion, will result in a large
increase in administration expenses. A substantial
part should come from the city, but some must
undoubtedly come from private sources. It is most
earnestly to be hoped that the generosity of the
citizens of New York will not be found wanting,
and particularly that museum members, of whom
the list is creditably long, will, as many of them can,
contribute to a greater degree than ever before
from their art treasures and means.
THE REVIVAL of interest in color prints, popular
down into the middle half of the nineteenth century
and then for some time neglected, which has been
attested lately by the prices brought by choice
examples at recent sales, in some cases twenty times
the original figure, has interested Mr. A. Miller,
who announces that he has obtained a large collec-
tion of these prints while on a trip abroad. Many
of the original plates are still in existence and fine
proofs are being reissued, so that examples are now
procurable similar to those printed one hundred
years ago and on old paper. In some of the old
processes the colours were painted on the copper
plates in exact imitation of the originals, so that the
impressions taken were in themselves virtually
paintings. Among the prints which Mr. Miller is
now showing at 259 Fifth Avenue, are examples
after Sir Joshua Reynolds, by C. F. Bartolozzi,
C. G. Grozier, Eugene Tily and J. R. Smith. Other
artists represented are Sir Peter Lely, George
Romney, George Moreland, F. Wheatley. In addi-
tion, large plates of more recent date printed in

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