[Illustration: Grotesque representation of a Portrait Painter’s
Studio.]
During the progress of the excavations at Pompeii, a painting was found
in the Casa Carolina, which scarcely held together to be copied, and
fell in pieces upon the first rain. It is of grotesque character, and
represents a pigmy painter whose only covering is a tunic. He is at work
upon the portrait of another pigmy, clothed in a manner to indicate a
person of distinction. The artist is seated opposite to his sitter, at
an awful distance from the picture, which is placed upon an easel,
similar in construction to ours. By the side of the artist stands his
palette, which is a little table with four feet, and by it is a pot to
wash his pencils in. He therefore was working with gum, or some sort of
water-colours: but he did not confine himself to this branch of the art,
for to the right we see his colour-grinder, who prepares in a vessel
placed on some hot coals, colours mixed with wax and oil. Two amateurs
enter the studio, and appear to be conversing with respect to the
picture. On the noise occasioned by their entrance, a scholar seated in
the distance turns round to look at them. It is difficult to explain the
presence of the bird in the painting-room. The picture is not complete:
a second bird, and on the opposite side a child playing with a dog, had
perished before Mazois (an artist who has preserved some of the most
valuable remains at Pompeii) copied it. This picture is very curious, as
it shows how few things, in the mechanical practice of painting, have
been changed during 2000 years.
There is another picture preserved at Pompeii, representing a female
employed in making a copy of the bearded Bacchus. She is dressed in a
light green tunic, without sleeves, over which she wears a dark red
mantle. Beside her is a small box, such as we are told by Varro painters
used, divided into compartments, into which she dips her brush. She
mixes her tints on the palette, which she holds in her left hand.
[Illustration: Painting of a Female Artist.]
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_Union for Ill_.--When the Prince of Conde and Cardinal de Retz, two
leaders of opposite factions in France, were viewing the curious garden
of a hermit who was famous as a florist, they amused themselves by
keeping him attentive to their discourse while they trod to pieces his
best flowers on each side of the path. He soon discovered their plan,
and, shaking his grey locks, “Alas!” said he, “how much were it to be
wished that you could agree in plans to relieve your distressed country
with the same readiness which you show in joining to persecute a
helpless solitary.”
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_Command of Temper_.--Lopez d’Acunha, a gallant Spaniard, who lived in
1578, recorded in the Apophthegms of Juan Ruffo, seems to have had the
affections of his mind under rare command. He was called out from his
tent by a sudden alarm. His servants armed him in great haste, and
although he told them that his helmet pained him exceedingly, they
insisted that it could not be fitted better. The brave Lopez had not
leisure to contest the point: he rushed to the combat, fought with
success, and at his return, unlacing his casque, and throwing it down on
the ground together with his bloody ear, “There,” said he mildly to his
awkward valets, “was I not right when I told you how much you hurt me in
putting on my helmet?”
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