Studio: international art (85.1923)

ETTY'S PICTURES IN LORD LEVERHULME’S COLLECTION

“ THE LAKE.” OIL PAINTING
BY WILLIAM ETTY, R.A.

ceremonial conduct of the teapot and the
kettle, which were regarded as sacred
vessels and none but he dare touch, was of
a piece with his invariable procedure in
the Life School with his siped millboard
and his white chalk outline, then the Indian
ink, before the colours. I remember old
Solomon Hart, R.A., telling of these things
over our home tea-cups, when in my
youth I would entice his reminiscences of
the famous painters he had known. Of
Etty he told many interesting things : one,
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which seemed to me to have a bearing on
Etty's own pictures, was that, when acting
as Visitor in the Life Class he would
arrange draperies and other accessories in
pictorial relation with particular features
of the model, a practice disapproved by his
fellow Academicians as encouraging the
students toward picture-making rather
than concentrating exclusively on the figure
study. But with Etty picture-making would
seem to have been an excuse for his con-
stant study and painting of the nude, in