Studio: international art (10.1897)

Studio- Talk

thus permits of good vistas,
much on the plan of the
Royal Academy. The
building when completed
will certainly form the most
capacious and admirably
designed gallery "south of
the line," as the favourite
Australian phrase runs.

The pictures for which
the Gallery is to be built,
with rare exceptions, are
entirely modern, chiefly
English, but with select
examples of the French,
German and Netherland
schools, extending in a few
cases to Italy, Russia, and
Spain, and one or two
examples from the brushes

"la serre" by manet 0f Australian artists. The

(By permission of Herr Spemtuiri\ ,, ,. , „ ... ,

rare collection of British

water-colours with which the

Gallery started, and which

those who have the means of seeing for themselves it has always steadily increased, would be a credit to
all that is being done outside the Fatherland—to any gallery in Europe. They certainly do honour to
preserve us henceforth from the Chauvinism which, the aged father of art in Sydney, the guiding spirit
till now, has proved so formidable an obstacle in of the collection, and the director of the Gallery,
the path of artistic progress. the venerable Elias Levi-Montefiore, who died two

G. G. years ago. _

As showing the rapid increase of the Sydney

SYDNEY, N.S.W.—In the matter of National Collection it may be noted that when it
good taste and judicious selection was opened it contained 44 oil-paintings and 33
Sydney has long taken the lead among water-colours, of the value of ^11,300, with sculp-
Australian National Galleries. It now ture and various works to the total value of
promises further to outrival them all ^14,000. It now comprises over 250 oil-paint-
in the matter of a splendid building for its collec- ings, nearly 200 water-colours, about 250 works in
tion of pictures. A grant of ^12,000 has already black-and-white, 100 pieces of statuary, marbles,
been made as one instalment of the ,£60,000 to be bronzes, and so forth, and other miscellaneous
expended on the new building during the next works of art to the total value of upwards of
three years. The amended designs of the Govern- ,£100,000.
merit architect have been approved by the gover-
nor, and the work is now being put in hand. Among its chief treasures are such notable works

as Leighton's Wedded, Millais' Captive, Fildes'
Widower, Colin Hunter's Salmon Fishers, Vicat
The new Palace of Art will be 105 yards long Cole's Arundel, Seymour Lucas's Gordon Riots and
a'id from 40 to 50 yards deep, broken up internally his Armada, Jacomb Hood's Triumph of Spring,
into twenty-five large and small rooms of varied Stanhope Forbes' Ever-shifting Home, Marcus
size to permit of the classification of works accord- Stone's Stealing the Keys, and Poynter's Queen of
Ing to their different countries, and the proper Sheba. The last new pictures purchased, and now
balancing of them in proportion to their scale. on the water, are Arthur Barrington's Bribe, The
Every room opens into the neighbouring one, and Judgment of Paris by Maurice Greiffenhagen, and

137