Studio: international art (38.1906)

Reviews and Notices

Beautiful Women in History and Art. By
Mrs. Steuart Erskine. (London : George Bell
& Sons.) £2 2r. net.—With its numerous fine
photogravure reproductions of famous portraits
and effective headpieces to chapters, this delight-
ful volume will be welcomed by all who are
interested in the share taken by the women it com-
memorates in the political and social life of
their day. True, some would deny the claim to
beauty of certain of the heroines selected, but in
nothing is difference of taste more forcibly
illustrated than in the judgment passed on feminine
charms. Beginning with the Court of Henry
VIII., Mrs. Erskine groups together Margaret
Tudor, Queen of Scotland; Mary Tudor, Queen
of France; and four of the wives of the “ great
widower,” leaving out Anne of Cleves and
Katherine Parr, though they too had found favour
in the eyes of the king, who was supposed to be
an excellent judge of female attractions. With
Mary Stuart, whose beautiful portrait in the Bodleian
Library is reproduced, and Lady Jane Grey, whose
pathetic likeness by Lucas van Horn is given, are
classed the lovely Margaret Seton, of whom by the
way very little is known, and the less fascinating
Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury, and Mary,
Countess of Pembroke. Next are passed in review
the later Stuarts, including the fairest of them all,
the daughter of Charles I. and Henrietta Maria,
who became Duchess of Orleans and was wooed
in vain by the Grand Monarque. Perhaps the
most interesting of the chapters in the second half
of the book, which has not one dull page, are that
on the heroines of the French Revolution, with
the fine miniatures of Charlotte Corday, Madame
Roland, and Madame Recamier, and that on Peg
Woffington, to whom considerable space is given;
but some of the shorter essays, such as those on
the beautiful and virtuous Dora Farren, and the fair
but frail Nell Gwyn and Dora Bland, are excellent
impressionist sketches, lightly touching off the
characteristics of each subject.

The Architectural Association Sketch Book.
Edited by W. G. B. Lewis and Theodore Fyfe.
Third Series, Vol. IX. (London : The Architec-
tural Association.)—As useful as its predecessors,
this new number of the well-known Sketch Book
contains plans and drawings of a great variety of
typical buildings and details of buildings in
England, Scotland, France, and Italy, by well-
known experts, including Laurence Gotch, Edward
Wylie, Harold Hillyer, Herbert Hall, Arthur
Wilson, and Alan MacNaughten. With its pre-
decessors, the series forms a charming collection

of beautiful architectural designs, the value of
which, to the student, it is impossible to over-
estimate.

Album der Erzeugnisse der ehemaligen Wiirttem-
bergischen Manufaktur Alt-Ludwigsburg. (Stutt-
gart : Otto Wanner-Brandt.) Bound, 45 Mk.—
This volume, with its excellent phototype, reproduc-
tions of more than nine hundred objects, forms a
pictorial record of a recent exhibition of the pro-
ductions of the once important porcelain factory at
Ludwigsburg. In his historical introduction to the
album, Prof. Berthold Pfeiffer gives an interesting
account of the vicissitudes through which the
factory passed, from its establishment as a State
institution in 1758 till its abandonment as such in
1802, and of the unsuccessful attempts thereafter
made to re-establish it on a firm basis. The student
and collector alike will welcome this volume.

Four dainty little volumes comprise the latest
additions to Messrs. J. C. & E. C. Jack’s “Told
to the Children ” series of story books with coloured
pictures (is. 6d. each net), viz., Gullivers Travels,
The Rose and the Ring, Stories from Hans Andersen,
and Tanglewood Tales. Two volumes of Messrs.
Jack’s new series, “The Children’s Heroes,” have
reached us—The Story of foan of Arc, by Andrew
Lang, and The Story of Capt. Cook, by John Lang.
This series, which, like the others, is provided with
pleasing coloured pictures, and is in other respects
uniform with it, has for its aim to tell, in language
which children can understand, the story of those
whose lives have been distinguished by great deeds.

The second edition of Mr. Lewis F. Day’s
deservedly popular book of Alphabets Old and
New (Batsford, 3s. 6d. net) contains sundry im-
provements on the first edition, including a number
of entirely new examples which have been added
to make the work more thoroughly comprehensive.

In the second notice of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition,
published in our March number, we mentioned a pendant
and chain called The Briar Rose as having been “designed
by William Morris and completed by Miss M. Awdry.”
Miss Awdry informs us that the design was entirely her own,
and that its execution was merely comp'eted, in one or two
particulars of secondary importance, by Mr. Morris, a young
Birmingham student.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

“ The Values of Old English Silver and Sheffield Plate, from
the XVth to the XIXth Centuries.” By J. W.
Caldicott. Edited by J. Starkie Gardner, F.S.A.

Illustiated. 4’i-. net. (Bemrose.)

“Greece.” Painted by John Fulhylove, R.I. Described
by the Rev. J. A. M'Clymont, M.A., D.D. 2or. net.
(A. & C. Black.)

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