Studio: international art (10.1897)

Portraits of British Artists

Richard Evans almost amounts to a portrait by
Lawrence of himself, for it is carefully copied
from a portrait, painted by Lawrence for the
Royal Academy, and is the handiwork of a man
whose long service as assistant to Lawrence ren-
dered him a thorough practitioner in the style of
that painter. A hand with palette and brushes was
added by Evans to distinguish this portrait from
that belonging to the Royal Academy, the tran-
script being so faithful as to render this distinction
necessary.

In the screen-room, or Room XXI., will be found
a few autograph portraits of artists on a smaller
or slighter scale. A small oil-painting of Wilkie
by himself is deserving of careful examination.
There are miniatures of Gillray, the caricaturist,
by himself, and of Richard Cosway, the dandified
miniature-painter, also by his own hand. A draw-
ing of Sir Francis Chantrey by himself, done at
an early age, shows the future sculptor at a period
when his particular vocation in art was not yet
clearly marked out. A small drawing by himself
of William Henry Hunt presents features familiar
to all students of water-colour painting. One of
the most unusual portraits is a drawing by him-
self of John Constable, the great landscape

painter, done in pencil, with highly tinted rosy
cheeks.

Perhaps, however, the most interesting picture
in this section is the early portrait of Dante Gabriel
Rossetti by himself, drawn about 1846, when he
was a student in the Royal Academy. In a
recently published memoir his brother, Sir William
M. Rossetti, quotes a description of the artist-poet's
appearance at this date, given by Mr. Holman
Hunt, his friend and contemporary Pre-Raphaelite.
He is described as "a young man of decidedly
foreign aspect, about five feet seven and a quarter
in height, with long brown hair touching his
shoulders, not taking care to walk erect, but rolling
carelessly as he slouched along, pouting with parted
lips, staring with dreaming eyes—the pupils not
reaching the bottom lids—grey eyes, not looking
directly at any point, but gazing listlessly about;
the openings large and oval, the lower orbits dark
coloured. His nose was aquiline but delicate,
with a depression from the frontal sinus shaping
the bridge; the nostrils full, the brow rounded and
prominent, and the line of the jaw angular and
marked, while still uncovered with beard. The
shoulders were not square, but yet fairly masculine
in shape." Such was Rossetti at this date, but the