THE WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 Mr. G. F. WATTS, R. A. 
 
 BY 
 
 M. H. SP1ELMANN 
 
 l S 8 6 
 

Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 
 
 https://archive.org/details/worldofgfwattsraOOspie 
 

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 Pall Mall Gazette “Extra.” No. 22. 
 
 ill rights reserved .] 
 
 THE 
 
 WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 Mr. G. F. WATTS, R.A. 
 
 With a Complete Catalogue of his Pictures. 
 
 With Fourteen Drawings of his Principal Works contributed by Mr. Watts, 
 a Portrait, and other Illustrations. 
 
 138 6 , 
 
 “PALL MALL GAZETTE” OFFICE, NORTHUMBERLAND STREET, STRAND, LONDON. 
 

 
THE WORKS OF 
 
 Mr. George F. Watts, R.A. 
 
 with A 
 
 Complete Catalogue of his Pictures , 
 
 FOURTEEN DRAWINGS CONTRIBUTED BY HIMSELF, 
 
 AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 All rights reserved .] iftall (B^cttc “eytra.” No. 22. 
 
 EXPLANATORY. 
 
 B EFORE proceeding to give some account of the life- 
 work of Mr. G. F. Watts, R.A., we are constrained 
 to offer some explanation of the origin of this handbook, 
 and to show how Mr. Watts, who has so courteously and 
 generously assisted us in its preparation by contributing 
 drawings of some of his 
 principal pictures, touching 
 them up with his own hand, 
 and by giving us all the 
 information in his power of 
 which we stood in need, 
 has been prevailed upon 
 to thus apparently break 
 through his constant and 
 inflexible rule of declining 
 in any way to come “before 
 the public.” 
 
 Mr. Watts has always 
 been distinguished from 
 all our other painters, with 
 the exception perhaps of 
 Mr. Ford Madox Brown, 
 by his desire to carry on 
 his work in private, neither 
 seeking the applause of the 
 public nor the eulogistic 
 periods of the critic, and 
 only so far emerging from 
 his artistic retirement as 
 the circumstances of life 
 required. But the public, 
 asserting its legitimate 
 right, would not permit 
 him to retain his works 
 solely for the pleasure of 
 those who chose, and who 
 were able, to visit them in 
 his own gallery at Little 
 Holland House ; and it 
 claimed the privilege of seeing them 
 how and where it liked. Recognizing, 
 perhaps, with Dr. Johnson, that 
 “modesty is a weakness if it suppresses virtue and 
 hides it from the world,” Mr. Watts has from 
 time to time allowed himself to be persuaded to lend his 
 pictures for exhibition en bloc at the Grosvenor Gallery, at 
 Cardiff, at New York, and at Birmingham, on condition that 
 all arrangements be made between the borrowers and 
 
 his frame-maker, that he should not be called upon to 
 act in any way, and that no personal reference should 
 be made or introduced. The appreciation of the public 
 of the cherished objects and aims of his lifetime cannot, 
 of course, be indifferent to a man who has literally 
 
 worked for the public far 
 more than for himself ; 
 but his instinctive dread of 
 appearing to thrust himself 
 forward into their notice, 
 as might naturally be 
 expected, has had the effect 
 of making him withdraw 
 himself too much, and has 
 caused him to regard all 
 applications for information 
 respecting his work and 
 methods with a certain 
 amount of suspicion or dis- 
 quietude. When, after the 
 reading by Mr. Horsley, 
 R.A., of his now famous 
 paper on the subject of 
 “ The Nude in Art,” a re- 
 presentative of the Pall 
 Mall Gazeltc called upon 
 Mr. Watts, as the fore- 
 most painter of the nude 
 in England, in order to 
 ascertain his very pro- 
 nounced views with refer- 
 ence to it, the latter 
 incidentally remarked that 
 he intended, as a “ patriotic 
 Englishman,” leaving all, 
 or nearly all, his works to 
 the nation. This statement, 
 which has indeed been 
 made before, but never in 
 so widely circulated a journal, nor in 
 quite so public a manner, at once 
 attracted a considerable amount of 
 attention throughout the country, and the 
 
 numerous expressions of satisfaction and curiosity, 
 together with the simultaneous announcement on 
 the part of the Corporation of Birmingham of 
 the intention to inaugurate their new art galleries 
 with loan collections of the works of Mr. Watts and Mr. 
 
TALL MALL GAZETTE 11 EXTRA. 
 
 Burne-Jones, induced us to publish this description of his 
 pictures. While not putting any difficulty in the waYi 
 Mr. Watts at first was very loth to offer any such assist- 
 ance as might be construed into a desire for display, and 
 it was only on our earnest representation that it was in the 
 interests of the public that we desired to set forth the 
 objects and achievements of his art, and that no reference 
 of a purely personal character should be made — save in 
 so far as was rendered necessary for the explanation of 
 his works and the indication of the time of their execution, 
 and so forth — that he concluded to help us ; and that he 
 has done so to such good purpose that we are now enabled 
 to set before our readers illustrations of some of his most 
 famous pictures (most of them included in the Birming- 
 ham loan collection) drawn for us in chalk and touched 
 by himself, and conveying in most instances, not only the 
 composition of the works, but also that most difficult 
 element to render, the spirit of them. And we take this 
 opportunity of offering to him our sincere thanks for the 
 trouble he has taken in the interest of the art-loving 
 public, well knowing to what extent in acceding to our 
 request he has gone against his own feelings in the 
 matter. 
 
 MR. G. F. WATTS, R.A. 
 
 G eorge Frederick watts, among ail our 
 
 living English masters the only absolutely self- 
 taught one, was born in London in 1 8 1 8. His strong 
 instinctive love for the Fine Arts, which from the first 
 
 pointed in the direction he has consistently followed 
 
 ever since, early decided him to adopt them as his profes- 
 sion, and for this purpose he entered the so-called “ school ” 
 of the Royal Academy to learn drawing. He left there, 
 however, after an attendance of a few weeks, despairing 
 to gain any instruction where nothing was taught — for the 
 Royal Academy schools at that time were very different 
 from what they are now — and, having an especial bent 
 towards the plastic art, he entered the studio of the 
 celebrated but unfortunate sculptor, William Behnes. 
 Here it was his habit to watch the artist at 
 
 work, but no other sort of instruction was imparted 
 
 to him, as has erroneously been stated elsewhere. 
 “ I received no teaching,” said Mr. Watts to the writer ; 
 “ I visited no painter’s studio or atelie r. Disappointed 
 as to the Royal Academy, it became my habit to haunt 
 the studio of Behnes, but I never studied under him in 
 the ordinary acceptation of the term.” The Elgin 
 marbles — those supremely beautiful Parthenon fragments 
 which Lord Elgin, at a cost of ,£35,000, lodged in the 
 British Museum, amid the execrations of a violent 
 minority — from the first delighted him, and the study 
 of these perfect examples of the school of Phidias — some 
 of them, in all probability, from the chisel of Phidias him- 
 self — is the origin of and may be traced in all Mr. Watts’s 
 greatest performances. Under the influence of these 
 mighty works of art the youth worked on until the year 
 1837, when he contributed to the Royal Academy exhibi- 
 tion “ A Wounded Heron” and two portraits of young 
 ladies. These created adistinct impression, and he followed 
 them up with pictures illustrative of scenes from Shak- 
 speare and Boccaccio, and more portraits, all of which 
 attracted still further notice and gave rise to hopes for 
 his future success. For this he had not long to wait. In 
 1843, when the question of the decoration of the new 
 Palace of Westminster was before the Royal Commission 
 appointed for the purpose, nine prizes of ,£300, ,£200, and 
 ,£100 were offered to the competitors. They were pro- 
 ductive of no less than a hundred and forty cartoons, 
 
 ranging in length from ten to fifteen feet, which were opened 
 and exhibited in Westminster Abbey in July of the same 
 year. One of the first prizes was awarded to Mr. Watts’s 
 “ Caractacus led in Triumph through the Streets of Rome,” 
 which ultimately, to the discredit of the Commissioners, 
 was sold by auction for a nominal sum to a Bond-street 
 dealer, who cut it up and sold it in separate pieces. Some 
 of these are now in the possession of Sir YValter James. 
 With the money thus acquired Mr. Watts was enabled 
 to go to Rome, where he was hosp tably received 
 and entertained by the British Ambassador, in whose 
 house he met many of the most celebrated men 
 of the time, of some of whom he painted por- 
 traits. Here he would gaze at the works of 
 the Venetian school, whose exquisite colour naturally 
 awakened his enthusiastic admiration ; but, contrary 
 to the usual practice, and with curious independence 
 of spirit, he reftained from making any copies or studies, 
 properly so called ; feeling, no doubt, with Eupompus of 
 Sicyon, that Nature and not an artist should be his 
 master. In Italy he spent four years, and when he 
 returned to England he brought with him several works 
 painted more or less under the influence of the great 
 Venetian masters, among which'were the colossal pictures 
 “ Echo ” and “ King Alfred inciting the Saxons to prevent 
 the Landing of the Danes.” The latter he sent in to a 
 second competition at Westminster, and he again won a 
 first prize (this time of ,£500), and he was further entrusted 
 with a commission for the picture “St. George overcomes 
 the Dragon,” since gravely described, with official acumen, 
 as “St. George welcomes the Dragon.” This work, which 
 was begun in 1848, was not completed until 1853, and it 
 may now be seen in the Upper Waiting Hall, beside the 
 Central Hall of the Palace. 
 
 Frescoes and Fresco-painting: their 
 Public Use. 
 
 A T that time, as now, Mr. Watts was most strongly 
 imbued with the love of fresco-painting, with 
 an implicit belief in the great good and advantage that 
 would accrue to the English people in respect to their art 
 education were it to be extensively adopted in our public 
 buildings. It was his ambition to assist in the great 
 work, and with a view to it his vast pictures of “ Echo ” 
 and “ King Alfred” were laid out on fresco plan, as well 
 as “Aristides and the Shepherd,” “Satan,” ‘ Hyperion,” 
 and others. 
 
 But the whole history of art in this country has tended 
 to show that it is no easy task to get the authorities to 
 recognize its claims, however generous and disinterested 
 the offers of artists or connoisseurs might be : a deplorable 
 fact of which Mr. Watts could not have been ignorant. 
 It is true that between 1708 and 1727 Sir James Thornhill 
 was engaged in decorating the interior of the dome of 
 St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Great Hall at Blenheim, the 
 Great Hall at Greenwich, Hampton Court Palace, and 
 other places, with mural paintings, but that was less the 
 outcome of a desire for artistic decoration than a special 
 personal mark of favour bestowed upon a favourite by 
 the Sovereign. But those halcyon days of the fresco 
 painter were of short duration, and subsequent events 
 ever since that time up to quite recently have only served 
 to show how little genuine appreciation there is among 
 the English people for this — perhaps the noblest — form of 
 art. Time after time have the offers of competent artists to 
 decorateour public hallsorinstitutionswith mural paintings, 
 either gratuitously or for a nominal sum, been allowed to 
 go unaccepted or entirely unnoticed. Hogarth it was 
 
Love and Death. 
 {See p. 21.) 
 
4 
 
 PALL MALL GAZETTE “ EXTRA : 1 
 
 who first set the example of making personal sacrifices of 
 time and skill for the embellishment of our buildings, by 
 the gift to the Foundling Hospital of his “ March to 
 Finchley ” and other pictures, a lead immediately followed 
 by many contemporary painters. Then James Barr)', the 
 patriotic but impetuous Irishman, and whilom Royal 
 Academician, projected the memorable scheme of deco- 
 rating St. Paul’s with a series of paintings which should 
 be at once an ornament to the Cathedral and an 
 encouragement to the art of England — a project in 
 which he was cordially supported by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
 West, Sir Nathaniel Dance Holland, Bart, (then plain 
 Nathaniel Dance), Cipriani, and Angelica Kauffman. 
 They all offered to paint appropriate subjects on a fitting 
 scale, and their suggestion was enthusiastically endorsed 
 by Dr. Newton, the Dean. But the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, and especially the Bishop of London, Dr. 
 Terrick, like a modern Erostratus, resolutely set their 
 faces against the plan, the latter declaring that “ he would 
 never suffer the doors of the metropolitan church to be 
 opened for the introduction of Popery and so the noble 
 offer proved abortive. After this the ardent, indomitable 
 Barry offered single-handed to decorate the great room 
 of the Society of Arts, in the Adelphi, with a series of six 
 paintings representing the “ Progress of Human Know- 
 ledge.” The society accepted his overtures, and in three 
 years he had completed the pictures, some of which were 
 42 ft. long ; and their exhibition for his benefit brought 
 him ^503 2 s. as his remuneration ! Later on poor 
 Haydon projected many noble schemes which, 
 though the artist was not entrusted with the con- 
 duct of them, nor in any other way benefited, ultimately 
 resulted in the Westminster competitions, whereby many 
 artists capable of executing frescoes were discovered. 
 Among these may be mentioned the since famous names 
 of Cope, Noel Paton, Tenniel, John Cross, Poole, William 
 Linton, Millais, Armitage, and Horsley. 
 
 Although acquainted with these facts in the history of 
 the discouragement of fresco-painting in England, Mr. 
 Watts set about his self-imposed task to revive mural 
 painting, and, persuaded that every blank wall in our 
 finer buildings might be utilized to the greatest public 
 advantage, he offered to paint the north wall in the New 
 Hall of Lincoln’s Inn without fee or reward. His sug- 
 gestion was accepted with alacrity, and in December, 
 1859, he had finished what is perhaps the greatest work 
 of his life. This is the fresco “ The School of Legisla- 
 ture,” as it was named at the time, but what he now 
 prefers to entitle “Justice : a Hemicycle of Lawgivers.” 
 
 This great picture, which contains no fewer than thirty- 
 three figures (those in the foreground measuring over ten 
 feet in height), was on a much larger scale than had ever 
 before been seen in this country, being forty feet high 
 and forty-five feet long. It was painted in colour, not 
 monochrome, and represented all the great lawgivers of 
 the world, from Moses down to Edward I., at the same 
 time demonstrating to some extent the path by which 
 their decrees descended to our own and other nations. 
 (See page 28). As in point of size this fresco was 
 the largest, so in arrangement it was the most ambi- 
 tious of any England had hitherto seen, and in conse- 
 quence of its plan comparison was naturally, though 
 unnecessarily, drawn between it and the great “ School 
 of Athens ” by Raphael. The appreciation of the society 
 for whom it was painted of the nobility of its design and 
 the excellence of its execution was given expression to 
 by the presentation to the artist of a purse of ^500 and 
 a testimonial cup. Since its completion, however, the 
 ravages of time have unfortunately been at work, and 
 portions of the picture have sadly perished, though 
 
 whether owing to the foulness of our Lonclpn climate, or 
 to faults in the colours used, or of the wall itself, cannot 
 be determined. It is understood that the question of its 
 restoration either bv means of mosaic or oil painting is 
 at present under consideration. 
 
 Immediately following up his success at Lincoln’s Inn, 
 Mr. Watts, by way of practical demonstration of his 
 opinion that by the decoration of our railway stations 
 and streets important results to the art taste and edu- 
 cation of the public might be attained, generously 
 offered to cover the interior of the great hall at Euston 
 with a series of mural paintings representing the “ Pro- 
 gress of Cosmos” entirely without remuneration, on 
 condition that while he provided the time and execution, 
 and even the expense of models and so forth, the com- 
 pany should furnish him with the requisite scaffolding 
 and colours. This offer the railway directors, 
 true to their anti-art instincts, and in emulation of 
 Dr. Terrick, though for dissimilar reasons, promptly 
 rejected, their architect at the same time expressing great 
 alarm at the proposed art invasion. The study of the 
 design for the first panel has since been finished in oils, 
 and will be found among the pictures at present exhibited 
 at Birmingham. It can hardly be wondered at, there- 
 fore, that Mr. Watts should feel with some bitterness 
 that his attempt to create an appreciation of the higher 
 art has been to a great extent without satisfactory result, 
 and that, disappointed in the assistance he looked for 
 from public bodies and others in high places, he should 
 have been so completely discouraged in his design to paint 
 frescoes extensively and gratuitously for the public weal as 
 to be led altogether to abandon it. 
 
 Still, his faith in fresco-painting was so great, and his 
 practice of it considered so satisfactory, that private indi- 
 viduals were glad to employ his brush, and in the 
 course of the ensuing years he executed a fresco in 
 the church of St. James-the-Less, near Vauxhall 
 Bridge, and a large decorative work for the Marquis of 
 Lansdowne, at his seat at Bowood, in Wiltshire, repre- 
 senting “ Achilles, Briseis, and Thetis.” Simultaneously 
 Mr. Armitage was painting frescoes in a church at 
 Islington, and Mr. Leighton (the present P.R.A.) one in 
 Hampshire. But it is places of popular daily resort that 
 Mr. Watts would see artistically decorated, and not only 
 churches and palaces ; so that the fine works of Sir 
 Frederick Leighton at South Kensington Museum, and of 
 Mr. Madox Brown in the Manchester Town Hall, are 
 movements in this direction. 
 
 “ Every means of stimulating, cultivating, and popu- 
 larizing the noblest expressions of art,” said Mr. Watts in 
 his evidence before the Royal Commission held in 1863 
 to inquire into the position of the Royal Academy, 
 “ should be pressed into service ; until the people at 
 large grow to care about it, it can never take root in 
 England, and this they can never do until it shall 
 be presented to them habitually ; but a people who 
 care more for Handel’s music than that of any 
 other composer would not long be insensible to 
 similar impressions conveyed in a different but very 
 analogous form. An important and practical method of 
 encouragement would be to provide a space whereon the 
 student might exercise his strength, in the shape of some 
 public wall. I insist upon mural painting for three 
 reasons — first, because it is an exercise of art which de- 
 mands the absolute knowledge only to be obtained by 
 honest study, the value of which no one can doubt, what- 
 ever branch of art the student might choose to follow 
 afterwards ; secondly, because the practice would bring 
 out that quality and nobility deficient in the English 
 school, but not in the English character, and which being 
 
Love and Life, ] 
 
 {See j >. 21.) 
 
6 
 
 PALL MALL GAZETTE “ EXTRA: 
 
 latent might, therefore, be brought out ; and, thirdly, for 
 the sake of its action upon the public mind. For public 
 improvement it is necessary that works of sterling but 
 simple excellence should be scattered abroad as widely 
 as possible. At present the public never see anything 
 beautiful, except in exhibition rooms, when the novelty 
 of sight-seeing naturally disturbs the intellectual percep- 
 tions. As I believe the love of beauty to be inherent in 
 the human mind, there must be some unfortunate influence 
 at work ; to counteract this should be the object of a fine- 
 art institution, and I feel assured, if really good things 
 were scattered among the people, it would not be long 
 before satisfactory results exhibited themselves.'" And to 
 these opinions he still holds. 
 
 In 1867, Mr. Watts received a compliment from the 
 Royal Academy which that body has never paid to 
 any other artist before or since. Without requiring 
 him to inscribe his name as a candidate for Academic 
 honours, and, moreover, entirely without his know- 
 ledge or consent, they elected him successively Asso- 
 ciate and full Member, an honour which the artist, 
 impelled by his disinclination for personal notice, 
 and by his desire to work away from the public gaze, at 
 first declined, though he was afterwards prevailed upon to 
 accept it. In the same year he presented to the City Hall 
 of Manchester his “ Good Samaritan.” This picture had 
 been inspired by Thomas Wright, the Manchester 
 philanthropist, whose noble efforts had sent a thrill 
 throughout the country, and had awakened the deep and 
 sympathetic interest of the artist. Mr. Watts painted 
 this work in 1850, dedicated it to Mr. Wright, and pre- 
 sented it, after its exhibition at the Royal Academy, to 
 the city of Manchester in token of his admiration ; thus 
 furnishing another example of his endeavour to establish 
 a direct connection between art and other great efforts. 
 “ I have always striven,” says Mr. Watts, “ to give to art 
 an aim which it certainly has not at present, and to 
 establish such a connection. Its chief end and object 
 at the present time, it seems to me, is to be amusing — in 
 which it certainly succeeds. But my desire, so far as 
 lies in my power, is to make it carry out its proper 
 mission, to urge men to higher things and thoughts.” 
 
 By this time Mr. Watts was recognized as one of the 
 first historical painters of the day, and certainly the finest 
 portrait painter. Always strongly imaginative and fanci- 
 ful from the beginning, he later became more philosophical 
 in the mental qualities of his works, and public recog- 
 nition has increased with every succeeding year. It is 
 unnecessary here to follow out the changes which come 
 over his art — changes rather of intensity than of direc- 
 tion — nor to enumerate chronologically his many works. 
 These matters are dealt with, with as much accuracy as 
 Mr. Watts’s somewhat erratic procedure in painting will 
 permit, in another section, while the difficulties attending 
 such compilation are referred to in the note preceding the 
 catalogue of his works. 
 
 The guiding principle, the ruling consideration, in 
 Mr. Watts’s art life has been the remembrance that while 
 England is nobly represented by her Literature and 
 Poetry, which are second to those of no other country, 
 by her Painting she is not, either in the number or capa- 
 city of her best executants ; and it is his life’s purpose, 
 “ with whatever power and ability 1 may possess ” as 
 with characteristic modesty he expresses it, and with a 
 singleness of purpose and self-abnegation we may look 
 for in vain elsewhere, to raise the desire for all that is 
 great in art (outside the details of execution) in the hearts 
 of the people and to satisfy that desire so far as in him 
 
 lies, and, above all, to set an example to olhers by which 
 they may be induced to follow him “more worthily 
 perhaps, but certainly not more earnestly.” 
 
 For this reason it is that Mr. Watts has never exhi- 
 bited in public merely for reputation or applause. The 
 desire of the sitters who have given him commissions to 
 have their portraits appear in the public galleries has of 
 course had to be consulted, for it was those commissions 
 which have enabled the artist to carry out his more 
 imaginative works, which he intends to present to the 
 nation, while a further consideration lay in the fact that 
 total abstention from public exhibition would have been 
 offensive to the institution which elected him, and, more- 
 over, would have laid him open to the charge by the 
 publ c tor whom he was working that his modesty was 
 tainted with affectation. He has always lived a retired 
 life, neither seeking nor caring for popularity nor public 
 approval, save what his art may genuinely have awakened 
 in the popular mind ; going so far as at one time — in 
 1858 — to exhibit under the pseudonym of “ F. W. 
 George.” This superiority to all worldly considerations, 
 and this modesty, which La Bruyere aptly declares “ is 
 to merit as shadows to figures in a picture — giving it 
 strength and beauty,” form one of the most notable 
 features of Mr. Watts’s character. When elected to the 
 Royal Academy, as has already been set forth, he at 
 first declined the honour conferred upon him, as he 
 has done in a somewhat similar case in a later day ; 
 but, eventually recognizing the fact that the compli- 
 ment should be regarded more as an encouragement 
 and incentive to others, he finally accepted this solid 
 testimony of the Royal Academy’s appreciation. In the 
 same way did Mr. Watts decline the public banquet 
 offered him by Sir Coutts Lindsay, and later, though not 
 quite, for the same reasons, the recently proffered baro- 
 netcy. With respect to the latter, he did not consider 
 himself justified in accepting a rank which it was beyond 
 his present means to keep up fittingly in the way the 
 world requires ; for Mr. Watts does not consider himsclt 
 by any means a man of independent fortune, and such 
 extra work as he would have been obliged to undertake 
 would have hindered his present freedom to paint upon 
 his pictures just as and when he likes. But the com- 
 pliment thus paid to his art, as he has himself 
 admitted, has given him the liveliest satisfaction, as 
 it proves that his artistic aims, that the noble direc- 
 tion he has sought to give to painting, and that his 
 efforts to make it appeal to man’s higher intelligence 
 (and all this quite apart from his own success in 
 execution), have been understood and approved in those 
 very quarters where approval and understanding is most 
 gratifying and most valued. He does not consider that 
 in declining the title he has made a sacrifice, nor does he 
 see anything in his action that calls for comment. “ The 
 fact of my being made a baronet,” he said, “ would make 
 me paint neither better nor worse, nor affect in any way 
 the quality of my works ; so where is the use of it ? The 
 compliment to art remains ; and Sir John Millais, by 
 accepting the honour, which he was in a better position 
 to do, has done duty for both, so far as Art is concerned. 
 Had a peerage been offered to me, my action, of course, 
 would have been the same.” 
 
 Mr. Watts has now completely retired from accepting 
 commissions, that he may the better be able to turn his 
 undivided attention to his many unfinished pictures, pre- 
 cisely as the spirit moves him to paint upon them, and 
 accordingly as he feels in harmony with each special 
 subject. 
 

 II. E. Cardinal Manning. 
 
 ( See p. 20 .) 
 
10 
 
 PALL MALL GAZETTE “EXTRA? 
 
 Mr. Watts’s Art. 
 
 A RT has two distinct functions — a greater and a less : 
 the first to teach, the second to delight or amuse. 
 And not less distinct than are these two functions arc, 
 unfortunately, the relative characteristics of ancient and 
 modern art. For while almost all ancient art seeks to 
 teach, to inspire worship, and to elevate the mind through 
 the beauty and treatment of its productions, almost all 
 modern art seeks but to please the eye, to tickle the 
 fancy, and to interest the perceptive faculties alone, with- 
 out even an attempt to awaken an echo in the minds or 
 hearts of the beholder. Greek art in its sublimest 
 period— that is, during the age of Pericles, when 
 Phidias dominated the art world down to the reign of 
 the Rhodian school — had manifestly but this one 
 object, and was inspired by this one idea. And if 
 in his attempt to revive this great function of art as 
 opposed to that of mere amusement, Mr. Watts has 
 laid himself open to the dubious charge that none of his 
 compositions are absolutely original in their invention, or, 
 going still further, that his ideas, as depicted upon his 
 canvases, are some of them rifacimenti of allegories 
 lately out of all fashion, is it not better that, standing 
 alone as he does, holding up the banner of idealism in a 
 realistic generation, he should remain true to his con- 
 viction that the business of a great painter is to 
 attempt great themes (even if philosophers have thought 
 of them before), and not to exalt little ones, and that 
 it is better to fail in depicting the beauty of the 
 sublime than to succeed in showing the poetry of mud ? 
 But, as a matter of fact, in allegory, as is everything 
 else, there is nothing new under the sun, but new 
 versions and new renderings may always be imagined 
 by the artist, and it is here that Mr. Watts excels. 
 
 Professor Ruskin’s Criticism of Mr. Watts’s Art 
 
 Mr. Ruskin, in his second lecture on “ The Art of 
 England,” wherein he brackets Mr. Watts with Mr. Burne- 
 Jones as representative of the “ Mythic school of paint- 
 ing,” says that the deeply interesting function of the 
 modern painter of mythology is to realize for us the 
 visions described by the wisest of men as embodying their 
 most pious thoughts and their most exalted doctrines ; 
 bringing the resources of accomplished art to unveil the 
 hidden splendour of old imagination, and showing us 
 that the forms of gods and angels which appeared in 
 fancy to the prophets and saints of antiquity were indeed 
 more natural and beautiful than the black and red shadows 
 on a Greek vase, or the dogmatic outlines of a Byzantine 
 fresco. “As the dramatic painters seek to show you the 
 substantial truth of persons, so the mythic school 
 
 seeks to teach you the spiritual truth of myths 
 
 The great artist Mr. Watts has been partly restrained 
 and partly oppressed by the very earnestness and 
 extent of the study through which he has sought 
 ro make his work on all sides perfect. His constant 
 reference to the highest examples of Greek art in form, 
 and his sensitiveness to the qualities at once of tenderness 
 and breadth in pencil and chalk drawing, have virtually 
 ranked him among the painters of the great Athenian 
 days, of whom Plato wrote : — ‘ You know how the 
 anciently accurate toil of a painter seems never to reach a 
 term that satisfies him ; but he must either further touch 
 or soften the touches laid already, and never seems to 
 reach a point where he has not yet some power to do 
 more, so as to make the things he has drawn more beau- 
 tiful, and more apparent.’” And he concludes by praying 
 his hearers “ to observe, for the sum of what is to be 
 noted respecting the four of whom I have thus far 
 
 ventured to speak — Mr. Rossetti, Mr. Hunt, Mr. Jones, 
 and Mr. Watts— that they are in the most solemn 
 sense, Hero- worshippers ; and that, whetever may be 
 their faults or shortcomings, their aim has always been 
 the brightest and the noblest possible. The more you 
 can admire them, and the longer you can read, the more 
 your minds and hearts will be filled with the best know- 
 ledge accessible in history and the loftiest associations 
 conveyable by the passionate and reverent skill, of which 
 1 have told you in ‘The Laws of Fesole, that ‘all great 
 Art is Praise.’” 
 
 It has already been stated that those changes which 
 have occurred in Mr. Watts’s style from the very begin- 
 ning have rather been of intensity than direction. From 
 the first day when he put brush to canvas he has painted 
 with the same object, and, as regards execution, under 
 the influence of Phidias. This may readily be verified by 
 noting his relative values of flesh and drapery, his ex- 
 treme simplicity of line, and his avoidance of acade- 
 mical display. Again, his sympathy, nurtured perhaps 
 by the example of Behnes, may be seen in the 
 sculpturesque quality of most of his imaginative w'ork, 
 which is generally monumental in design and purpose, 
 and sometimes in execution. Some of Mr. Watts's pic- 
 tures are doubtless not up to the level of others, either in 
 depth of thought or in mechanical rendering : no man 
 can always paint equally well. But the great feature of 
 his art is his persistent unity of aim and nobility of senti- 
 ment and purpose, his constant striving after a high ideal. 
 
 “ 1 hope that, whatever faults or shortcomings there may 
 be in my works,” said Mr. Watts, “ there is nothing mean 
 or undignified in them, in their subject or treatment. 
 Nor is there. Every composition, whether depicting some 
 tragic event, some aspect of relentless fate, or some phase 
 of moral philosophy (which usually provide the keynote 
 for his more important works), or whether the conception 
 is of a brighter or more poetic kind, contains some 
 embodiment of noble thoughts, some attempt to 
 elevate the mind of the spectator. Yet the artist’s 
 pictures are not sermons, be their subjects drawn 
 from the Bible or mythology ; they are something 
 more. Those who seek for sermons will assuredly 
 find them there, and they can make “ illuminated 
 texts ” of them, if they arc so minded, and nail them to 
 their hearts ; but those who do not want them will find 
 other charms— thought and harmony of colour and line — 
 to delight them. ... 
 
 To properly understand and enjoy Mr. W atts’s pictures, 
 then, the spectator must bear in mind that they are not 
 intended merely to delight the eye, although their scheme 
 of colour and beauty ot line almost invaiiably ha\ e that 
 result ; their intended cfiect upon the contemplative 
 beholder is to turn his eyes inward to his own heart, and 
 so, by making him follow' out the artist s meaning, moral, 
 intellectual, or metaphysical, as the case may be, to appeal 
 to his higher powers ot sensibility and intellectuality ; and 
 precisely in the degree in which he is enabled to comply 
 with these conditions will Ire be able to appreciate and 
 judge of them. 
 
 It has been objected that seme of the symbolical works 
 are not sufficiently and immediately intelligible ; such, 
 for instance, as “ Dedicated to all the Churches ’ and 
 “The Genius of Greek Poetry.” This is perfectly true, 
 but it is not a common fault with Mr. Watts- — if it be a 
 fault at all. Mr. Ruskin holds in “Sesame and Lilies that 
 no author having a great moral to teach cares to set it so 
 plainly forth that all may' read it without trouble at a 
 glance, and then, already forgetful, pass en to their 
 
THE WORKS OF AIR. G. F. WATTS, R.A. 
 
 1 1 
 
 next occupation : he prefers rather to envelop his idea to 
 the extent that those who care to fathom his meaning 
 shall have it impressed upon the mind by the very effort 
 of trying" to understand it. If this is true of books, why 
 not, too, of pictures ? A work painted only for sensual 
 delight should unquestionably carry its title upon its 
 face ; but if it once be granted that a picture is a proper 
 vehicle for philosophical teaching or intellectual refine- 
 ment, then no objection can be made to an imaginative 
 subject being treated in the manner which seems best to 
 the imaginative artist 
 
 Mr. Watts v. Modern Realism. 
 
 M R. WATTS has been consistent throughout his life 
 in regard to style ever since he began to paint 
 ( merely becoming broader in touch and generalizing 
 more in treatment), and utterly uninfluenced and 
 unaffected by the “mediaeval,' “ pre-Raphaelite,” 
 “ testhetic,” and “ realistic movements which have 
 arisen during the past half-century. His aim and his 
 means to arrive at it he has kept steadily before him, and 
 he has never swerved in his pursuance of them. He is, 
 even in the opinion of those who differ from him in his 
 “ mysticism,” a healthy protest against the modern 
 realistic school, whose principle is that the more closely 
 they copy what they think is Nature, and the more they 
 insist upon minor truths, the more artistic, necessarily, 
 are their productions — in other words, that the exterior 
 of “ nature,” as it strikes them, is art. There could be no 
 greater mistake than this. 
 
 “Nature and Realism,” said Mr. Watts, “are very 
 different. Nature we rarely see, except in the country, 
 where man’s hand has not been lifted against the land- 
 scape. The men and women we see walking about are 
 no more Nature than a well-ordered garden is nature. 
 The artist must learn to understand the real form, and 
 endeavour to see nature through it. A Dutch garden, as 
 I said, is hardly further removed from real nature than 
 are the people and things we see around us every day. 
 If the painter wants to paint a Dutch garden, by all 
 means let him, and let him do it properly — but not under 
 the impression that he is painting nature. For myself, 
 I don’t like, and I don’t affect, Dutch gardens. Things 
 are seen under very different conditions where man’s 
 hand has been, and when under those conditions the 
 faithful representation of them may be ‘ realistic,’ but it 
 cannot be ‘ natural.’ ” 
 
 A careful analysis of Mr. Watts’s art, then, shows us 
 that it contains qualities of the Pagan and Christian art 
 tinged with a touch of German mysticism. It is like 
 Kaulbach’s, but more mysterious. It is like Burne- 
 Jones’s, but more direct in the lessons it teaches. It is 
 like Rossetti’s in artistic sentiment, but less sensuous. It 
 is like Blake’s, we might almost say, but less gloomy and 
 hysterical, while containing technical qualities which 
 Blake never aspired to. It is like Noel Paton’s at its 
 best, but more comprehensive. In short, Mr. Watts is 
 artist, poet, and moralist in one, whose technique, it 
 must be confessed, sometimes, though rarely, falls short 
 of his lessons. 
 
 “ What constitutes him a great painter?” one of our 
 greatest living artists has written respecting him. “ First 
 his style, next his colour, lastly his powers as a portrait 
 painter, and, I might add, as a sculptor, though a curious 
 way of making a painter ; but it does make him a greater 
 painter for all that. As a portrait-painter I must class 
 him above Millais, for there is a certain style and 
 
 dignity about his portraits that Millais never 
 reaches to. His ‘ Joachim,’ for instance, and still more 
 his ‘ Cardinal Manning’ ! — this being simply one of the 
 finest portraits in the world. Then, again, in the collec- 
 tion of Mr. Rickards in Manchester, there is the full- 
 length portrait of Miss May Prinscp — a young lady in a 
 grey ‘ulster’ — which is a triumph of female portrait- 
 painting; and ‘Ariadne’ — a small half-length figure 
 — as fine as a fine Etty ; while his ‘ Endymion,’ a 
 beautiful work, shows imagination of a very elevated 
 kind.” 
 
 In judging of Mr. Watts’s work, the spectator must bear 
 in mind that it includes three separate and totally distinct 
 divisions: i. The Realistic , as in his portraits, where 
 absolute resemblance is essential, however much character 
 may be added to the face ; 2. The Typical, as in 
 “ Orpheus and Eurydice,” “ Experientia Docet,” or 
 “ Mammon,” wherein the figures represent types of 
 humanity, pure and simple ; and 3. The Symbolical, as in 
 “ Dedicated to all the Churches,” or “ Time, Death, and 
 Judgment,” wherein the figures are intended as abstractions 
 only. With this explanation the mental, intellectual, and 
 emotional qualities of his work, so rarely dealt in by 
 modern artists, will be better understood, his intentions 
 rendered clearer, and the extent of his success better 
 determinable. 
 
 Of late years, like Turner, Mr. Watts has turned his 
 attention especially to the exercise of colour, and still 
 more to atmospheric qualities. His “ Uldra” (a Scandi- 
 navian fairy, who was only to be seen in the rainbow of 
 the fountains) is his best-known “ atmospheric ” figure- 
 painting, while the new picture of “ The Three 
 Goddesses” is another striking example of the same 
 kind. In landscape he has given us “The Island of 
 Cos,” “ The Carrara Mountains,” and “ Rain passing 
 away,” all of them particularly distinguished for the 
 quality of atmosphere. 
 
 Mr. Watts as a Portrait-painter. 
 
 T HE chief and decidedly prominent qualities of por- 
 traits of the accepted modern school, according to 
 the correct views of a recent writer, are solidity, truthful 
 effect of light, and accurate imitation of the physical 
 aspect of the sitter. The first impression — and, in fact, 
 the only impression — which the best of the realistic por- 
 traits gives the spectator is that of unqualified and un- 
 compromising truth, but truth of surface alone. What 
 is commonly accepted as character is but accurate 
 drawing ; the so-called personality is oftenest but a 
 mannerism of the artist, and the much-praised solidity 
 and effect of reality are but the simplest tricks of the 
 painter’s skill. 
 
 That all this is perfectly true few will be in- 
 clined to deny, and it is exactly the dissimilarity 
 of his method to that referred to above which 
 places Mr. Watts, as we have already seen, at the 
 head of our portrait-painters. Portrait-painting, in his 
 opinion, is the best and severest school an artist can work 
 in if he wishes to cultivate idealism from a firm basis. 
 As practised by him, it affords an excellent example of 
 what may be called the romance of his method. The 
 object which he seeks to attain is not to paint a slavishly 
 faithful representation of his model’s features, rendering 
 all the lights and shadows that played upon them as he 
 saw them in the searching light of his studio — the 
 wrinkle on the cheek, or the wart upon the nose. His 
 first aim is rather, while obtaining absolute resemblance 
 of feature and expression, to indicate the man’s character, 
 
Dedicated to all tiie Churches: the Spirit of Christianity. 
 
 ee p. 21 . 
 
THE WORKS OF MR. G. F. WATTS, R.A. 
 
 >3 
 
 his habit of thought, his disposition, his very walk of life, 
 as they showed themselves upon his face as he sat alone 
 by his own fireside, unconscious of the artist and for- 
 getful of the public gaze. By thus truly making the face 
 the window of the mind, beyond what any other artist 
 has attempted before, he has not only led to a reforma- 
 tion of portrait-painting in England, but he has reju- 
 venized what was in this country a sadly declining 
 branch of pictorial art. 
 
 The kind of “ realism ” by which Mr. Watts arrives at 
 his results is so different from that which the unhealthy 
 (artistically speaking) modern French school has usurped 
 the title of, that the artist’s quality has come, for dis- 
 tinction’s sake, to be called by the paradoxical term 
 “ ideal realism,” and so finally to be confounded with 
 ‘ idealism,” pure and simple. On this point Mr. Watts’s 
 views, given in response to the writer’s questions, are of 
 special interest and value. 
 
 “ It is a mistake,” he says, “ to consider that my por- 
 traiture is in the ordinary sense ‘ ideal ;’ it is intended, 
 on the contrary, to be very real, and to make it so my 
 endeavour is to paint the mental as well as the physical 
 likeness. I always try', as the chief essential, to sink 
 myself altogether in the portraits I paint. Some artists, 
 in every portrait they produce, will always paint, say, 
 the nose with the same touch, and the shadow it throws 
 w ith the same colour, so that by thus identifying them- 
 selves with that manner their portraits can always be 
 recognized at a glance, and people can say, “ There is a 
 portrait by So-and-so.” It seems to me that this cannot 
 be right ; it has always been my first care to avoid all 
 danger of it, and I think you will find no two portraits of 
 mine in which the noses are painted in the same manner 
 or the modelling of the nostrils is precisely similar. How 
 far I may have succeeded in my object 1 do not pretend 
 to say, but that has always been my endeavour, for I 
 have wished to oblige the beholder, in looking at the 
 portrait, to think wholly of the face in front of him and 
 nothing of the man who painted it. And it is my opinion 
 that the artist who paints portraits in this way need have 
 no fear of the pitfall of mannerism either in treat- 
 ment or touch. In my imaginative work I consider 
 myself perfectly free as to detail so long as I do not violate 
 any law ; but not so, of course, in portrait-painting, when, 
 while giving my mental faculties full play so as to seize 
 my sitter's intellectual characteristics, I observe equally 
 the physical minutiae. To assist myself I converse with 
 him, note his turn of thought, his disposition, and 1 try 
 to find out by inquiry or otherwise (if he is not a public 
 man, or is otherwise unknown to me) his character and 
 so forth, and having made myself master of these details* 
 I set myself to place them upon the canvas, and so repro- 
 duce not only his face, but his character and nature.” 
 Portrait-painting Mr. Watts has always from the begin- 
 ning of his career looked to as his “ base for supplies and 
 having always as many commissions on hand as he chose 
 to accept he was at liberty to turn to the more con- 
 genial occupation of painting imaginative subjects. It 
 certainly was fortunate for him that his portraiture 
 was recognized from the commencement, as for many 
 years “ ideal ” work would hardly have provided him 
 with the wherewithal to live. In this way he has 
 always escaped from portrait painting as far as circum- 
 stances would permit in order to carry out his ideas, and 
 when accepting commissions he has always been eclectic 
 in his choice of his subject, only undertaking a portrait 
 when he considered the appearance or expression of the 
 sitter suitable to his art. 
 
 All the great imaginative painters of old have painted 
 portraits, and to this occupation some of them have 
 
 referred the initial idea of their greatest works. In a 
 similar manner was “ Love and Death ” — in some respects 
 Mr. Watts’s masterpiece— projected and thought out. 
 “ The idea of this picture,” writes Mrs. Barrington, a 
 disciple of the artist, “ first came to the artist’s mind about 
 fifteen years ago. He was then painting the portrait of a 
 man who, while still young, and showing every promise of 
 becoming one of the most distinguished men of his time, 
 was attacked by a lingering and fatal illness. The portrait 
 was continued at intervals. At each sitting the artist felt 
 the disease had progressed a stage nearer the end. 
 Everything that love could do opposed it in vain. Out of 
 sympathy for those who had striven so hard and so fruit- 
 lessly to keep death at bay arose the idea of the subject 
 of this picture, ‘ Love and Death ’ ” — one of the series of 
 pictures in which the artist, while seeking to impress us 
 with the inevitability and irresistibleness of death, robs it 
 of all the horrors and dread with which painters love to 
 surround it. 
 
 It is commonly considered that Mr. Watts is, generally 
 speaking, more successful with his male than with his 
 female or children’s portraits, doubtless, though it may be 
 ungallant to say so, on account of the greater degree of 
 character and mind to depict. There is little doubt but 
 that his flesh-painting in his later female portraits is 
 hardly so pleasing as in his earlier ones, while the full- 
 length portraits are sometimes wanting in elegance or 
 grace. But notable exceptions must be mentioned in the 
 cases of “ Mrs. Percy Wyndham,” “ Mrs. Fred. Myers,” 
 and “ Miss May Prinsep ” (already referred to), each of 
 which, in its way, is a triumph of female portraiture. 
 
 Though by preference a slow worker, as becomes a 
 conscientious painter, Mr. Watts is on occasion one of the 
 most rapid the age has seen. General Garibaldi’s portrait, 
 for example, was painted in a four hours’ sitting ; Mr. 
 Leslie Stephen’s took but two hours ; while the late Lord 
 Shrewsbury’s, which was painted in order to show a friend 
 how a head in oil painting should be begun, was dashed 
 off in the space of a single hour ! This occasional 
 hurry is a natural consequence of Mr. Watts’s desire to 
 paint the greatest men of our time, with a view to pre- 
 senting the whole series eventually to the National 
 Portrait Gallery, to - which intention we shall again refer, 
 for these greatest men with few exceptions have little time 
 nowadays to pass sitting in an armchair in a painter’s 
 studio. It may be remembered that Mr. Watts’s portraits 
 of Mr. Gladstone and Lord Tennyson were selected for 
 the Great Exhibition of 1862, when the Athenceum spoke 
 of them in terms of high praise. “ There can be no 
 challenge,” was its verdict, “for their extraordinary merit 
 and beauty. We rarely see such true art.” Yet the still 
 greater success of the “ Cardinal Manning” portrait has, it 
 will be interesting to know, inspired Mr. Gladstone with 
 a desire to be painted again as soon as he has leisure ; and 
 we may look with eager curiosity for the result. 
 
 For the long series of portraits which Mr. Watts has 
 painted of eminent persons, with the aforesaid intention, 
 and to which, to his great regret, he was unable, from force 
 of circumstances, to add that of General Gordon, it was the 
 artist’s custom to ask for sittings, candidly avowing his 
 purpose. That he has met with few rebuffs is scarcely sur- 
 prising : few could resist so flattering an offer. Yet some 
 men entertain a strong and sometimes a superstitious 
 objection to having their portraits painted. Says Isaac 
 D’Israeli : — “ Marville justly reprehends the fastidious 
 feelings of those ingenious men who have resisted the 
 solicitations of the artist, to sit for their portraits. In 
 them it is sometimes as much pride as it is vanity in 
 those who are less difficult in this respect. Of Gray, 
 Fielding, and Akenside we have na heads for which 
 
14 
 
 PALL MALL GAZETTE “ EXTRA: 
 
 they sat ; a circumstance regretted by their admirers: 
 and by physiognomists.” But here D’Israeli is wrong ; 
 Akenside did sit for his portrait to Pond in 1754, and 
 it was engraved in mezzotint by Fisher in 1772. 
 
 Mr. Watts’s Methods of Painting. 
 
 A NY one who sees any of Mr. Watts’s later work for 
 the first time cannot fail to remark, from their 
 general dissimilarity of execution, or method of painting, 
 from the ordinary run of modern pictures, that he has 
 certain distinctive, and perhaps exceptional, characteris- 
 tics in his handling of his pigments. The “ body” of the 
 colours is perhaps the most noticeable. This is owing to 
 his using his colours extremely “ stiff” — that is, with very 
 little oil or medium : a method he adopts from a twofold 
 motive. In the first place, it is because of his horror of 
 “smear.” “Until after the time of Vandyke — though I 
 might almost say of Rubens,” said Mr. Watts, “you 
 never find the ‘ smear ’ — the characteristic of so much of 
 the French work. You will never see a trace of it in my 
 pictures, or, if you do, you may be sure that it is because 
 my work has been rubbed out with the intention of 
 re-painting.” In the second place, it is because the 
 less oil or medium there is used in the mixing of 
 colours the less chance there is of those colours changing 
 in course of time, either from the action of air or 
 light, or from chemical change in combination. It is 
 important to note that whenever any change has been 
 noticed — in the course of years — the pictures have always 
 become brighter and more luminous : the result of the 
 artist always painting on a light ground, and never 
 allowing himself to forget- the influence of that ground, 
 and of his rule never, when it can be avoided, to mix 
 transparent colours with white or to lay light colours 
 over dark. Then, again, his habit is never to apply one 
 colour over another, if possible, but side by side, the 
 -effect being the same at a little distance, and the result, 
 as regards lasting powers, extremely advantageous. 
 This may be proved by a study of his earlier works, 
 which, almost without exception, will be found brighter 
 and lighter than his later ones. He is very particular about 
 the colours he uses ; he has them ground at home and kept 
 dry in jars ready for use when wanted, when they are 
 mixed for him with the appointed quantity of linseed 
 oil, diluted as required with essential ’oil. In painting 
 his pictures he does not draw an outline to paint up 
 to ; the paint he applies makes its own outline, clear 
 and defined, however delicate it may be, and his com- 
 plete knowledge of drawing tells him when the proper 
 outline is reached. 
 
 His determination not to sell his pictures, but to 
 keep them by him for years and paint upon each as 
 he feels inclined, enables him to wait after apply- 
 ing any colour until it has become thoroughly dry and 
 hardened before applying another, either to correct, or 
 modify, or soften it. Thus not only is there no mois- 
 ture beneath his last-placed colour to turn it dark, or 
 otherwise change it with time, but, as has already 
 been pointed out, the tendency is for the substratum 
 of colour to shine through, and thus inevitably to brighten 
 the picture. 
 
 Rarely, if ever, docs Mr. Watts make studies 
 for a picture, save of mere details, as he considers 
 that tlie mechanical act of copying from and trans- 
 ferring a sketch must necessarily hamper the artist, tending 
 to interfere with whatever insoiration and freedom of 
 imagination he may posess. For that reason he prefers 
 to make h s study on the canvas itself, having previously 
 
 thought out his idea before putting his brush to it, and 
 then he works it out and develops it as lie proceeds. 
 “I think my subject well over,” he said. “If, after I 
 have worked it out in my mind, my idea does not on 
 examination prove to be too thin, or otherwise deficient, I 
 decide upon it, and by constant thinking on it I make it 
 so entirely a portion of my own thought that I can always 
 return to it with vigour, even years after I began to realize 
 it upon canvas. That is how I am able to come back to 
 my pictures year after year.” 
 
 The theory that the colours should always bear a direct 
 but subordinate relation to the subject has ever been held 
 and rigorously carried out by Mr. Watts. If the subject 
 be solemn, low tones and sombre colouring are employed ; 
 if of a lighter character, stronger and brighter colours are 
 used ; but never absolutely brilliant, the artist’s objection 
 to anything glaring being too strong to permit of it. 
 
 The delicacy and minuteness of Mr. Watts’s early 
 work gave way in time, as we have seen, to greater breadth 
 and greater rapidity of execution, though for practice 
 he returned temporarily to it, and the change brought 
 with it a more sober scheme of colour. All this was 
 perhaps the result of his antipathy for the tricks of the 
 realists, which must naturally jar fearfully upon one of 
 his broad and lofty temperament. “ There is nothing I 
 dislike so much,” he has said, “ as the appearance of 
 dexterity which is the feature of the present French 
 school. Such a display of skilfulness is born of vanity 
 in the artist, and only serves to distract the spectator’s 
 attention from the main subject.” Skilful execution 
 Mr. Watts has never tried to attract public attention 
 with ; he has never aspired to paint grapes, like Zeuxis, 
 that the birds might come and peck at them, nor a 
 curtain, like Parrhasius, that the public might ask him to 
 draw it aside. Such manual skill, such cleverness of 
 imitative execution, may. command the admiration of the 
 unthinking, but it will never serve to hide the artist’s 
 want of thought and purpose from the wise. Mr. Edmund 
 Gosse has drawn a humorous picture of these same dis- 
 ciples of the “ French school” possessed of all the 
 manipulation you like, but devoid of invention or imagina- 
 tion. “Any one who has been a little behind the scenes,” 
 he continues, “ knows how these 1 realists ’ will pirouette 
 upon their stools before an empty canvas half a year, 
 praying for one little idea — even somebody else’s old idea 
 — to descend upon them and give their skilful hands 
 something to exercise that skill upon.” Under these 
 circumstances, and with this dislike of mere manual 
 dexterity, it is not surprising that Mr. Watts has drifted 
 from the minutiae and details of accessory into a broader 
 style, for absolute finish and close imitation of nature not 
 only do not lie within his purpose to delineate ; but it is 
 his distinct purpose to avoid them. 
 
 His treatment of drapery calls for special notice. It 
 will be observed that in many pictures the drapery is 
 made to fall into far more minute folds than would be the 
 case in nature — that is, in short, “ crinkly.” In this, as 
 in all Mr. Watts does, there is an intention. The object 
 here, by gaining many curves, and lights and shadows 
 playing together over them, is to contrast the drapery 
 with the fine chaste lines of the figure and the even 
 surface of the flesh-painting ; “ to distinguish it from 
 the simplicity of character and form and dignity of the 
 human structure.” These are the special characteristics 
 of the Parthenon frieze, the handiwork of the “ sublime 
 Phidias,” the artist of all others, as we have already 
 stated, that Mr. Watts has followed. 
 
 Mr. Watts’s custom of returning to re-paint those works 
 which he sees he can improve by so doing makes us 
 reckon many of them now unfinished, though completed 
 
THE WORKS OF MR. G. F. WATTS, R.A. 
 
 IS 
 
 and exhibited many years ago. In the artist’s own opinion 
 lie has but two imaginative works that he considers 
 “ finished ” ! They are “ Paolo and Francesca ” and 
 “ Orpheus and Eurydice.” The former is his only W'ork 
 which is entirely an illustration of another man’s ideas ; 
 the others, such as “ Orpheus and Eurydice,” “ Fata 
 Morgana,” “Britomart and her Nurse,” though all actually 
 creations of the great poets, are not illustrative of scenes 
 imagined by them, but are continuations and imaginings 
 suggested by them, and invested with some new realization, 
 some new charm. And thus you may see independent 
 thought at whatever picture you look, and after passing 
 them all caiefully in review you feel bound to admit that, 
 though there may be much among his work of which you 
 do not approve or for which you have no sympathy, there 
 is nothing here from which you would turn as being 
 unworthy of the painter of “ Love and Death.” 
 
 Use of the Artist’s Model ; and the Nude in 
 Art. 
 
 ERNEST CHESNEAU, in his “English School 
 , of Painting” — a book that, with all its faults of 
 error and disproportion, is distinguished by its good taste, 
 ts perception, and the general soundness of its judgment, 
 and on that account, doubtless, selected as a standard prize 
 book in the Schools of Art — declares that Mr. Watts is 
 the only painter of the English school who has treated 
 the female nude simply from the point of view of style, 
 and with no other object than to realize its purely plastic 
 beauty ; and that the artist who produced “ The Three 
 Goddesses ” (the smaller picture) and “ Orpheus and 
 Eurydice” is the only Englishman who has an appre- 
 ciation of the nude in art combined with the ability to 
 portray it. Considering how diametrically opposite in 
 method and intention are the art of the French 
 school and Mr. Watts’s art, it is not surprising to find 
 that the kindly French critic, regarding the subject 
 from the “ Latin ” point of view, decries as a 
 fault exactly what the artist considers the greatest 
 virtue, and what, beyond everything, he seeks to attain — 
 preponderance of subject. As a matter of fact, Mr. Watts 
 never paints the nude merely as an exercise in flesh 
 painting, but only as a means to bring some lofty thought 
 or purpose the better home to the beholder. Nor is there 
 the slightest affinity between the nude figure of the 
 b rench school, as seen annually at the Salon, and that 
 of Mr. Watts ; his figures have been rightly described as 
 being always “ clothed in the perfect garment of purity.” 
 When Mr. Horsley’s vigorous but ill-advised protest 
 against the study of the nude in our art schools, in his 
 paper on “ Art Schools and Art Practice in their Relation 
 to a Moral and Religious Life ” — to which we have already 
 referred — created a flutter of excitement and amusement 
 in the art dovecots, the present writer inquired of Mr. 
 Watts his views upon the subject ; and the artist, while 
 anxious to avoid anything of a personal nature, spoke 
 as follows, with some indignation and considerable 
 emphasis : — 
 
 “ I may tell you at once that I have never known a 
 girl suffer morally or physically in consequence of her 
 sitting as an artist’s model, and it is not only a mis- 
 take, but also an insult to such a girl, to say that she 
 does. The willingness or otherwise of a woman to sit 
 for the figure depends entirely upon the individual 
 characteristics of the person. I have known many 
 women of an irreproachable character and good position 
 to whom it was not at all repugnant, while, on the 
 other hand, I have known of others of no - character at 
 all who could not be induced to sit. It is altogether 
 
 a matter of personal peculiarity. These * profes- 
 sionals ’ generally belong to a family of models, 
 who have been brought up to it from their 
 
 earliest childhood, and so are accustomed to it all 
 their lives, and of course they see nothing in it. 
 But to consider that sitting for the nude is a debasing 
 proceeding is simply absurd, unless the model is taken 
 irom that class of women to come into contact with 
 whom is under almost any circumstances debasing in 
 itself ; and this, of course, is what all artists are careful 
 to avoid. In saying this, I speak not for myself alone, 
 but also for Sir Frederick Leighton and others of my 
 profession. The very many girls I have known have 
 been extremely well-conducted women, who, generally 
 speaking, have eventually married respectably and brought 
 up respectable families. I have never known them under 
 any other circumstances. 
 
 “ Of course it is only right that, as at the Academy, young 
 men should not be admitted before they are twenty-one \ 
 but it is absurd to suppose that any ‘ degradation ’ is 
 caused to the student by seeing the nude model that he is 
 to draw from ; the sight of a nude woman in the schools 
 is not half so impure as the undressing that fashionable 
 women subject themselves to when they go out to parties. 
 Of ‘ degradation ’ there is absolutely nothing so far as I 
 know. But let those who would do away with the study 
 of the nude mark this, and weigh it well. If you put a stop 
 to the use of professional models, you will simply force the 
 student — whom you may not, and, indeed, you cannot, 
 prevent from going to nature to study, and, if you admit 
 that there is any good in art and poetry at all, you dare 
 not so prevent him — 1 say you will force him to employ 
 women without character, as being the only willing 
 subjects you leave him, and in all probability you thereby 
 lead him into dangerous liaisons. To abolish the model 
 is to abolish all true art, for the painting of the human 
 figure is beyond compare the highest walk of it. Mr. 
 Horsley’s excessive tenderness is like that of the French 
 governess who objected to her pupils taking a bath, 
 because, she said, ‘ although you may be alone in the 
 room, still le bon Dicu vous voit .’ 
 
 “ Now, this is exceedingly important, and I would most 
 earnestly call your attention to it. One of the great 
 missions of art — the greatest, indeed — is to serve the 
 same grand and noble end as poetry by holding in 
 check that natural and ever-increasing tendency to 
 hypocrisy which is consequent upon and constantly 
 nurtured by civilization. My aim is now, and will be to 
 the end, not so much to paint pictures which are delightful 
 to the eye, but pictures which will go to the intelli- 
 gence and to the imagination, and kindle there 
 what is good and noble, and which will appeal to the 
 heart. And in doing this I am forced to paint the 
 nude. See this picture of ‘ Mammon.’ The creature 
 crushes under one foot the undraped figure of the boy, 
 and his heavy hand he lays coarsely and brutally upon 
 the girl’s head. Now, why have I painted these little 
 victims naked? Because they are types of humanity, 
 and had they been clothed the force of my meaning and 
 teaching would be altogether gone — they would cease 
 to be types. And can anybody consider that those 
 figures are indecent because they are naked? Is there 
 any father who would besitate for an instant to bring 
 his young daughters before it on the ground of its 
 pruriency, or because I painted them from living 
 models ? Look, again, at this draped figure — a draped 
 angel of death, upon which I have done my best to 
 bestow a dignified bearing. Now, with all my experience, 
 and with whatever knowledge of the human figure I may 
 possess, I should not have been able to render it correctly 
 
Mammon: dedicated to his Worshippers, 
 (See p . 21 J 
 

 Cain. 
 
 (See p. 24 J 
 
i8 
 
 PALL MALL GAZETTE “EXTRA? 
 
 had I not drawn it on the canvas as a nude figure and 
 from a nude model. Had I not done so, this figure — 
 whatever merit it may have at present — might have been 
 ridiculous, possibly grotesque. Art and poetry have their 
 great mission, and great art, like great poetiy, must 
 necessarily have that in it which you do not have in 
 everyday life, or you might as well sweep them away 
 altogether, leaving us only with the pretty picture of the 
 dressed-up baby and the jingling words to a song, while the 
 soul remains untouched, and the commonplace reigns 
 around. No man is purer than Tennyson, and no one, 1 
 presume, would think of accusing him of obscenity ; and 
 yet he has written things in his finest poetry that you 
 would not speak in a drawing-room. And so might there 
 be things that you would not call attention to in a picture, 
 while all the time it is recognized as absolutely right that 
 they should be there. 
 
 “The greatest art, as I have said before, is that which deals 
 with types , and which appeals to the imagination, and 
 not merely to the eye. We do not want to merely closely 
 copy nature, whether the subject be children playing with 
 flowers, or portraiture, or any other pictorial representa- 
 tion of the kind. The photographic lens will accomplish 
 that better and far more accurately than 1 or any other 
 artist can ever hope to do. But it is the soul that a man 
 puts upon the canvas for the delight and improvement of 
 his fellow-men that the lens cannot accomplish, and this 
 cannot be done without full and proper, and, I may say, 
 the only study ; for the expression of that art would only 
 become ridiculous and grotesque if the structure were not 
 properly and truthfully placed before the spectator. 
 
 “ To emasculate art by suppressing the study and 
 representation of the nude — which, I repeat, is abso- 
 lutely the highest form of pictorial art — is simple pru- 
 dery, not delicacy ; with the only result of setting narrow 
 limits to our art and putting blinkers on our imagination, 
 and such an emasculated art must fail to rise to the 
 higher sensibility. To resume, then, I can say from 
 my own very long experience, (i) that I have never 
 seen the slightest signs of any ‘ degradation ’ what- 
 ever in any model 1 have ever employed. I have 
 always found them quite modest in their manner, 
 and I have always treated them as I would treat any lady 
 
 in the land ; and as far as I 
 know all artists do the same ; 
 (2) I most distinctly state 
 that I have never seen the 
 least approach to or hint 
 of any indecent remark, 
 improper conduct, ribaldry, 
 or immorality from any 
 member of any life school 
 — but then I must admit 
 that it never occurred to 
 me to suspect or watch for 
 any ; and (3) I would say 
 that only a bad or singu- 
 larly constituted mind 
 would consider that the 
 undraping of the figure for 
 the purpose of art robbed 
 a woman of her modesty 
 or destroyed her respecta- 
 bility. 
 
 “ At the same time,” he 
 went on to say, “ I do not 
 think that the model is put 
 to the proper use : that is 
 Study from the Nude, to say, to the most judicious 
 By Mr. G. F. Watts. one for the student ; at 
 
 least, in my own branch of art. In ‘domestic’ painting 
 drawing from the model may perhaps be necessary, but 
 in ideal work the model must only serve as a useful, but 
 still subordinate, adjunct. In the art schools the living 
 figure should constantly be present, and put into various 
 attitudes, so that agreement or difference between nature 
 and the antique might be studied ; the action of the 
 
 Study from the Nude. 
 By Mr. G. F. Watts. 
 
 limbs and the use of the muscles from the living 
 model should be demonstrated in combination with the 
 antique. The model is but the grammar of the higher 
 language of art. I find it useful for me to have my 
 grammar near me when I want to be sure as to the 
 play of a joint or a muscle, or the fall of the light. Then 
 
 Study from the Nude. 
 
 By Mr. G. F. Watts. 
 
 I make pencil sketches of the joint, or muscle, or limb 
 I am occupied upon, sometimes to the number of 
 twenty or thirty, and these little scraps give me all the 
 
Experientja Docet : the First Oyster, 
 
 (.See /. 24.) 
 
20 
 
 PALL MALL GAZETTE “EXTRA:’ 
 
 information I require. Thus the model is not my master 
 but my servant ; and 1 put it to what I conceive to be 
 the proper use. It is merely a guide to remind me of the 
 truths of nature. For the purpose of studying outline, 
 the use of the model is necessary and proper ; but it is 
 impossible to learn much about the human form by merely 
 drawing the figure in a set position. Nor will it help you 
 to catch the transient, fleeting expression of any of the 
 passions ; for this higher form of expression, of poetic 
 imagination, is no more to be found in the model than 
 in any person you may chance to meet in the street ; and 
 even if it were it could not be so sustained at the point of 
 nature as to be of any real use to the artist. That must 
 come from within the painter himself.” 
 
 Mr. Watts’s Gifts to the Nation. 
 
 F 'OLLOWING the great'example ofTurner, Mr. Watts 
 has decided to bequeath nearly all his works to the 
 nation, though, with 
 characteristic modes- 
 ty, he makes no such 
 stipulations as did the 
 great English master 
 of landscape. 
 
 “All my portraits 
 which have any 
 national interest,” said 
 Mr. Watts, “ I shall 
 undoubtedly give to 
 the National Portrait 
 Gallery, as 1 have 
 already given three. 
 
 About the other pic- 
 tures I am quite un- J 
 decided. I shall cer- 
 tainly not give them i 
 to the National Gal- % 
 lery, for that would be 
 a presumption of l 
 which I am not capable 
 and could not be guilty. 
 
 I would rather give 
 them, I think, to some 
 public officer upon 
 trust, so that he might 
 judge of them and 
 apportion them to dif- 
 ferent institutions as 
 he might think best (Z 
 and most beneficial, | 
 all of which he would ] 
 be better able to do 1 
 than I. Personally, ; 
 
 I have no special wish 
 in the matter. 1 give 
 them because I think 
 that some good, how- 
 ever small, may come 
 of my doing so ; for I 
 firmly believe that no 
 good, great or small, can 
 good fruit, sooner or later, 
 pletely thrown away. 
 
 Master Henry Prinsep. 
 ( SceJ >. 24) 
 
 ever be done without bearing 
 No good thing is ever ccm- 
 And that is why I believe that an 
 artist should only think of the future : it is always just 
 in the main.” 
 
 Of his works Mr. Watts has determined to present 
 “ Love and Death ” to America ; “ Cain ” to the Royal 
 Academy, where it will join the companion picture, bear- 
 
 ing the same title, which he deposited there as his 
 diploma work; and “Time, Death, and Judgment” to 
 the National Art Gallery of Canada. Those other pic- 
 tures which partake of the imaginative character, which 
 point a moral either by means of allegory, symbol, or other- 
 wise, which appeal to the beholder’s intellect, and which, 
 so to speak, form Mr. Watts’s series of great moral essays, 
 those pictures he will leave to the nation. A noble and 
 patriotic bequest indeed, and, as it seems to us, worthy of 
 the man for whom worldly rank had no attraction, and 
 whose sole object through life has been to ennoble and 
 elevate in his country the end and aim of art. The three 
 portraits which Mr. Watts has already given to the 
 National Portrait Gallery are those of Lord Lyons, Lord 
 Stratford de Redcliffe, and Lord Lyndhurst. Among those 
 of eminent persons which are included in the Little 
 Holland House Gallery— as will be seen on reference 
 to the catalogue at the end of this short essay — 
 arc — Duke of Argyll, Matthew Arnold, Robert Brown- 
 ing, Philip Calderon, 
 Thomas Carlyle, the 
 Right Hon. Sir David 
 Dundas, Garibaldi, the 
 Right Hon. W. E. 
 Gladstone, Sir John 
 Peter Grant, Joachim, 
 Prince de Joinville, 
 Lord Lawrence, Sir 
 Frederick Leighton, 
 Lord Lytton, Cardinal 
 Manning, John Stuart 
 Mill (his only por- 
 trait), William Morris, 
 W. Lothrop Motley,, 
 Sir Anthony Panizzi, 
 Marquis of Salisbury, 
 Earl of Shaftesbury, 
 Viscount Sherbrooke, 
 (late) Earl of Shrews- 
 bury and Talbot, 
 Lord Tennyson, 
 
 Prince of Wales, and, 
 finally, a portrait of 
 himself. 
 
 In ~ quitting this 
 portion of our subject 
 we cannot do better 
 than to lay before the 
 reader a portion of the 
 letter addressed by 
 Mr. Watts to the pre- 
 sident of the Metro- 
 politan Museum of 
 New York, on the 
 occasion of the exhi- 
 bition of his works in 
 that city : — “ I have, 
 it is true,” writes Mr. 
 Watts, “felt very 
 strongly that art, 
 losing its great mis- 
 employed in the service of 
 
 Jl 
 
 sions, being no longer 
 religion or the State, is in danger of losing its character 
 as a great intellectual utterance ; and in working my 
 efforts have been actuated by a desire to establish 
 correspondence between them and noble poetry and 
 great literature ; but I can by no means claim for them 
 more than evidence of that aim. By setting aside con- 
 siderations of exhibition and money-making, 1 have 
 
THE WORKS OF MR. G. F. WATTS, R.A. 
 
 21 
 
 found myself able to carry on my work in a very inde- 
 pendent manner, and have bad a considerable number 
 of compositions in hand at the same time, working now 
 upon one, now upon another, according to mood or 
 convenience ; and, keeping my pictures constantly 
 around me, it has happened that I have often obliterated 
 finished work in order to make some improvement which 
 has remained uncompleted ; the result of this habit being 
 that most of my pictures are extremely incomplete. This 
 is of comparatively little consequence in my own gallery, 
 but I cannot think it right to call the attention of the 
 public to things in thi s state ; and I feel most strongly 
 that to justify the presumption of coming before the 
 American public, the works ought at least to have the 
 merit of completion. I must add that my work can in no 
 degree be considered as representing any section of the 
 English school, and can have no interest from that point 
 of view.” 
 
 Descriptive Notes on the Pictures. 
 
 “ Love and Death." (For origin of this work 
 see p. 13.) This picture, though once completed, has 
 been in part re-painted, and must now be regarded 
 as unfinished. The artist is at work upon a replica, 
 introducing several alterations. The draped figure 
 — how different in appearance and dignity to the 
 usual ghastly skeleton ! — whose face is purposely con- 
 cealed from us, represents Death, who, with uplifted 
 arm indicative at once of sovereignty and of the 
 inevitable, moves forward with solemn, irresistible might 
 to enter the house which Love guards. Love struggles 
 to resist the dreadful visitor, but, as the shadow of Death 
 passes across his sun-tinged body, he is forced aside, 
 and his bright-coloured wings crushed and broken 
 against the portals by the advance of the calm, unheed- 
 ing spirit, while the roses fall withering from the wall. 
 
 Mr. Henry Norman’s sonnet well expresses the spirit 
 of the picture : — 
 
 Love and Death. 
 
 With outstretched arm and holiow, sightless eyes, 
 
 The Great Marauder stands belore the gate 
 Where Love doth as a patient sentry wait — 
 
 Love, from whose presence every sorrow flies, 
 
 Love, at whose feet men cast whate’er they prize. 
 
 With lifted hand he strikes, and passes straight 
 The threshold oi Life’s house. Alas, prostrate 
 Amorg his flowers the gentle guardian lies. 
 
 Although I boldly cried, “ We are but men, 
 
 And since a thousand ills our path beset, 
 
 And all but one thy bitter-sweets repel. 
 
 Take courage, Love, and speed thy shafts again 
 Although we die,” — I shall not soon forget 
 That dreadful vision and brave sentinel. 
 
 The scheme of colour, in wonderful harmony with the 
 beautiful poetry of the subject, has probably given the 
 artist more anxious thought than all the other qualities 
 of the picture put together. He has promised to bequeath 
 it to America. (For engraving see p. 3.) 
 
 '‘''Love and Lije .” (See p. 5.) A companion picture 
 
 to the above. The artist has likewise painted a replica 
 of this, and both canvases were exhibited simultaneously 
 last year — the more highly finished one at New' York,, 
 and the second one, more beautiful perhaps in tone, at 
 the Grosvenor Gallery. 
 
 This emblematic picture depicts Love, with protecting, 
 half-outstretched wings, at once supporting and leading 
 Life up the rocky, painful path to the blue hills beyond. 
 Life is represented as a frail, slender female form, unable 
 to climb the difficult and dangerous path without the- 
 assistance of unselfish, charitable, sympathetic Love, to 
 whom she looks with touching faith for encouragement 
 and support. This poetic allegory, which is perhaps a 
 little thin in comparison with that of “ Love and Death,” 
 is far richer in atmospheric qualities, and the pearly,, 
 opalescent hue which pervades the picture makes it 
 one of Mr. Watts’s most notable works. 
 
 “ The Court of Deaths (See p. 7.) Till lately known 
 as “ The Angel of Death” and “The Throne of Death.” 
 This design, now finally determined on by Mr. Watts, 
 differs in some respects from that exhibited at Birmingham. 
 The Angel of Death, endowed with wings (so that any 
 resemblance to a Madonna may be prevented), cradles 
 in her lap a new-born babe. Her throne is composed of 
 architectural ruins, denoting the perishability of all 
 things human. All classes come to yield the inevitable 
 homage. The soldier honourably, though reluctantly, 
 surrenders his sword ; the peer his coronet ; the cripple, 
 the slave, the young girl and old age all come to receive 
 Death’s discharge. The child, unconscious and playful, 
 peeps from beneath her robe ; while the lion, typical of 
 brute force, also crouches at her feet. Two guardian 
 angels flank the mysterious portal, wherein blazes a 
 dazzling light. This fine, imaginative work, which Mr. 
 Watts considers his greatest and most complete design,, 
 is intended for the. chapel of a pauper cemetery. 
 
 “ Cardinal Mannings (See p. 8.) Painted in 1882, in 
 Mr. Watts’s most brilliant style. It has been ranked, 
 among the finest examples of portraiture in the world. 
 
 “ TJ:e Idle Child of Fancy S (See p. 9.) This new 
 and pleasing picture is still unfinished. The “Love” 
 which here so laughingly dominates the world is not 
 intended to represent the more serious, deep-seated 
 passion, but merely the light-hearted, sportive youngster. 
 Hence the alteration from the original title of “ Love 
 conquers the World.” 
 
 “ Dedicated to all the Churches : the Spirit of Chris- 
 tianity .” (See p. 12.) The subject was inspired by the 
 recent squabbling among the various sects. The Spirit, 
 depicted as belonging to neither sex, gathers together 
 under the shadow of her robe all shades of religious 
 creed with loving sympathy and tenderness. One of Mr. 
 Watts’s richest harmonies of colours. It is the artist’s 
 purpose to paint a companion picture, “ The Spirit of 
 Judaism,” which he conceives to be hard, stern, and 
 unrelenting. 
 
 “ Mammon: dedicated to his Worshippers.” (See p. 16.) 
 One of this year’s pictures. The god’s lace, expressive of all 
 that is vulgar, avaricious, cruel, and insolent, is flanked 
 with ass’s ears, and his gorgeous but ill-fitting golden 
 draperies, which fall awkwardly about his coarse limbs,, 
 clearly show the discomfort of them. The two poor 
 creatures who accept their degradation so submissively 
 and unresistingly are excellent examples of the value of 
 the nude in art for the indication of types of humanity — 
 
Orpheus and Eurydice, 
 
 ( Seep . 24.) 
 
24 
 
 PALL MALL GAZETTE “ EXTRA: 
 
 elements of no particular class. Were these figures 
 draped the pictures would lose much of its meaning and 
 half its force. 
 
 “ Cain .” (See p. 17.) Companion to the diploma 
 picture at the Royal Academy, to w hose gallery this also 
 will be ultimately presented. The last of an intended 
 series to illustrate the life of Cain. The First Murderer 
 is here shown as an aged pilgrim, broken by his long 
 journey. He has returned to die upon Abel’s altar, and, 
 as he sinks upon it in repentance and contrition, the 
 black cloud of his curse is removed from him by his 
 accompanying angel, and the light of heaven once more 
 shines upon him. 
 
 This is a notable example of the manner in which 
 Mr. Watts employs Bible history in his semi-religious 
 paintings ; regarding it as an inexhaustible storehouse 
 of great subjects for ideal treatment. 
 
 “ Expcrientia Docet." (Sec p. 19.) Also called 
 
 “ B. C ,” and “ The Birth of Experience.” A piece of 
 
 humour entirely out of Mr. Watts’s usual course, painted 
 in response to a friendly challenge, wherein he was 
 charged with having “ no sense of humour.” The picture 
 illustrates a primaeval man and woman seated on the sea- 
 shore, the former of whom has swallowed the first oyster. 
 The expression on the woman’s face is inimitable. Anent 
 this picture Mr. Watts says : ‘'It is wrong in principle. The 
 size and character of a picture should always be influenced 
 by the subject, and that which is a mere trifle should not 
 be too large or serious in treatment. To the charge of 
 both these faults this picture is open : it should have 
 been slighter in execution and smaller in size. But it is 
 not to be regarded in the light of a serious effort.” 
 
 “ Orpheus and Eurydice." (See p. 22.) One of the 
 artist’s two finished important works. The husband and 
 wife have reached the last ledge before arriving at the 
 confines of the earth, when, forgetful of the decree, 
 Orpheus looks back. The lily falls from Eurydicc’s hand 
 and she sinks back to Hades, from which his passionate, 
 despairing embrace cannot snatch her : — 
 
 Neque ilium, 
 
 rrensnntem nequiflqiam umbras, et m.ilta volentem 
 
 Dicere, prasterea vidit. 
 
 The picture has been nearly repainted since it was exhi- 
 bited in Paris, when it was considered too sombre in 
 tone. 
 
 “ Time , Death, and Judgment .” (See p. 23.) This pic- 
 ture Mr. Watts has promised to present to the National 
 Art Gallery of Canada, which was opened in 1880 by 
 the Marquis of Lome. The work is unfinished. A 
 replica of it, also in an unfinished state, exists. Time 
 is represented as the type of unchanging youth and 
 vigour, with stony blue eyes, unheeding, undelaying. 
 Hand in hand he advances with Death, who, in a fold of 
 her drapery, bears plucked flowers and buds and withered 
 leaves. Behind them floats Judgment, armed with the 
 avenging fiery sword and the scales— the attributes of 
 Eternal Law— ready to deal out to man the consequences 
 of his actions. The golden sun sets large behind the head 
 of Time, and the crescent moon is seen beside the form 
 of Death. These colossal figures are treated with great 
 breadth and vigour, in a sculpturesque spirit, and convey 
 to the spectator the impression of immutability and firm- 
 
 ness. This design has been carried out. in mosaic in St. 
 Jude’s Church, Whitechapel. 
 
 “ Miss Dorothy Tennant .” (See page 25.) Mr. 
 
 Watts exhibited this picture at the Royal Academy of 
 1877. The lady holding the squirrel — is the little animal 
 intended as a symbol of its mistress’s disposition ? — is 
 not so brilliantly painted as the portrait of Mrs. F. H. 
 Myers, nor so nobly conceived as that of Mrs. Percy 
 Wyndham, perhaps, but it is in the artist’s best manner 
 — strong, solid, and full of character, and to this extent 
 an excellent specimen of his female portraiture. 
 
 “ Master Henry Pri/tsep.” (See page 20.) The 
 
 original picture from which this engraving of a singularly 
 beautiful head is reproduced is a portrait of Mr. Henry 
 Prinsep when a lad. Of the members of this family, all 
 of them old and intimate friends of the artist, Mr. Watts 
 has painted no less than six pictures. The original draw- 
 ing is of great delicacy ; indeed, many of Mr. Watts’s most 
 charming, but necessarily least known, works are done in 
 chalk or pencil. 
 
 “ Fata Morgana." (See p. 26.) The personification of 
 Fortune or Opportun.ty in Bojardo’s “Orlando Innamo- 
 rato,” a fairy subject of the omnipotent Demogorgon. 
 She has a lock of hair on her forehead by which she 
 can alone be captured, and as she glides mockingly along 
 she leads her pursuers across rock, stream, and dale, 
 desert and meadow, typical of Life. 
 
 “ A Knight in Armour." (See page 27). This is a 
 fine — perhaps the finest exampleof M r. Watts’s rendering 
 of armour, “the painting of which,” writes an eminent 
 critic, “ would have delighted Giorgione himself.” But it 
 is not the brilliant brush work, nor the flesh painting, nor 
 the arranging or carrying out the subject which most 
 strikes the spectator ; as in all the artist’s best work, it is 
 the feeling which compels our admiration. 
 
 “ Justice : a Hcmicycle of Lawgivers:' (See pp.4 and 28.) 
 The history of the execution of this great work has already 
 been given elsewhere, as well as several particulars of its 
 dimensions, and so forth. As Mr. Watts considers this 
 in some respects his magnum opus , and as it is fast 
 perishing, we give a transcript of it on page 38. The 
 three figures at the top represent Justice, Mercy, and 
 Religion. Below, in the middle, and looking up towards 
 Justice, sits Moses. To his left are Sesostris, Zoroaster, 
 Pythagoras, Confucius, and Menu, in the order named ; 
 .and to his right, Lycurgus, Minos, Draco, Solon, 
 Numa Pompilius, and Scrvius Tullius. On the 
 next step, in the middle, stands Justinian, with 
 Theodora, and at his feet two scribes arc transcribing the 
 Code and Pandects. At his right stand Charlemagne, Attila, 
 Alfred the Great, Ina, and a Druid beneath, at whose 
 feet reclines Edward 1 . of England. From Justinian two 
 Churchmen arc receiving the laws and delivering them to 
 the representatives of the barbaric nations. Between and 
 above the latter Mahommed stands alone, while in the 
 right-hand corner arc the Earls of Pembroke and 
 Salisbury, and Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, in his robes. It may be interesting to know 
 that many of these faces are portraits of Mr. Watts’s 
 friends. Thus, Minos is Lord Tennyson ; Ina is Mr. 
 Holman Hunt ; Edward I. is Mr. Newton, of the British 
 Museum ; the monk next Mahommed is Mr. James Spud- 
 ding ; the Earl of Pembroke is Mr. Armitagc, R.A. ; and 
 Justinian is Sir William Vernon Harcourt. 
 
THE WORKS OF MR. G. F. WATTS , R.A. 
 
 -i 
 
 At Little Holland House. 
 
 F OR many years Mr. 
 
 Watts has lived at 
 Little Holland House, in the 
 Melbury-road — long before 
 Melbury-road was marked 
 out or thought of in the 
 western march of bricks 
 and mortar. The existing 
 fine red brick house, too, is 
 of comparatively recent 
 date. The earlier building, 
 but a gunshot from the 
 great Holland House, is 
 now spoken of as “ Old 
 Little Holland House its 
 walls were covered with 
 frescoes from Mr. Watts’s 
 hand, but they all perished 
 in the general demo- 
 lition. When the owner 
 erected his present abode 
 and lofty picture gallery, 
 important of 
 his works when 
 the various ex- 
 hibitions or 
 institutions, 
 whose borrow- 
 ing powers ap- 
 pear unlimited, 
 do not crave 
 the loan of 
 them. But there 
 is not nearly 
 sufficient room 
 here for the 
 display of all 
 his works, not 
 even with the 
 addition of the 
 “ ante - room ” 
 which connects 
 the gallery with 
 the house. So 
 many of them 
 arc often 
 
 packed away 
 in the “ Iron 
 House ” — itself 
 a studio of no 
 mean propor- 
 tions — which 
 stands in the 
 garden beyond. 
 
 Passing from 
 the inner hall 
 towards this 
 supplementary 
 out - of - door 
 studio, the pri- 
 vileged visi- 
 tor is taken 
 through a build- 
 ing of a semi- 
 temporary cha- 
 racter used by 
 
 I IN p k-am, 
 
 1 n q J . , t, 
 
 - 4i( 
 
 he added to it a large 
 where hang the most 
 
 Mr. Watts for his huge 
 sculptural undertakings. 
 Here was modelled his 
 colossal equestrian statue 
 of “ Hugh Lupus,” now 
 at Eaton Hall, and here 
 now stands his still more 
 colossal group of “ Physi- 
 cal Energy,” or “ Active 
 Force,” rapidly approach- 
 ing completion. This 
 powerful imaginative work, 
 it is expected, will be 
 finished by next year, 
 when it will be placed at 
 the disposal of the public 
 if they choose to sub- 
 scribe the necessary funds 
 for the casting of it in 
 bronze — yet another ex- 
 ample of the artist’s patriotic endeavours in the 
 interest of art and of the public. Of Mr. Watts’s 
 
 house itself, 
 of the beautiful 
 works of art 
 which adorn 
 its walls, of 
 the owner and 
 his ways, we 
 do not feel 
 ourselves at 
 liberty to speak, 
 for we cannot 
 invade the 
 privacy of one 
 whose only 
 stipulation is 
 for privacy, 
 and to whose 
 courtesy we 
 are indebted 
 for so much 
 that this hand- 
 book contains. 
 Suffice it to 
 say that Mr. 
 Watts has gene- 
 rously thrown 
 open his gallery 
 to the public 
 every Saturday 
 and Sunday 
 afternoon, and 
 that those 
 whose desire 
 for a closer ac- 
 quaintance with 
 his works may 
 lead them to 
 take advantage 
 of his permis- 
 sion will always 
 find there suffi- 
 cient works for 
 study and en- 
 joyment. 
 
 Miss Dorothy Tennant. 
 {See /. 24 .) 
 
Tata A 
 
 &ee p. 24 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
A Knight in Armour, 
 
 {See p.~j2\. 
 
Justice: a IIemicycle oe Lawgivers. 
 
 (See //. 4 and 24 ) 
 
PALL MALL GAZETTE “ EXTRA.' 
 
 29 
 
 CATALOGUE OF THE WORKS OF MR. G. F. WATTS, R.A. 
 
 N OTE. — The following list of Mr. Watts’s works is 
 as complete as we could make it with the materials 
 and in the time at our disposal. Considerable difficulty 
 has been experienced in tracing some of the portraits 
 which have from time to time been exhibited under such 
 vague and general titles as “ A Portrait,” “ A Study,” 
 “ Portrait of a Lady,” and so forth. Some confusion 
 has also arisen in regard to the dates of a few of the 
 pictures ; these sometimes appear contradictory owing 
 to the artist having occasionally exhibited the works, or 
 studies of them, before completion, or re-exhibited 
 after re-painting. In such cases it has been impossible to 
 determine the dates of pictures the different authorities 
 being at variance, and the artist himself, who has 
 most courteously, at our earnest request, rendered us what 
 assistance we were in want of, has been equally at a 
 loss. It is not thought, however, that these inaccuracies, 
 which are neither many nor important, or what few 
 omissions there may be, will seriously diminish the 
 utility or value of this catalogue. In consequence of 
 Mr. Watts having, from time to time, sent his works 
 for exhibition without attaching a title, names since 
 become popular have sometimes been bestowed upon 
 them as dictated by the taste of the cataloguer, but 
 failing to convey the artist’s meaning. Among these 
 
 we may cite “ My punishment is greater than I can 
 bear,” which should be “ Cain “ Midday Rest,” 
 which should be “ In the Suburbs “ Love conquers 
 the World,” which should be “ The Idle Child of Fancy 
 “ The Song of the Shirt,” which should be “ The 
 Seamstress and “ The Angel of Death,” which should 
 be “ The Court of Death.” 
 
 G. ( before title of picture) = Exhibited at the Grosvenor 
 
 Gallery, in the special 
 collection of Mr. Watts’s 
 works, 1882. 
 
 A. „ „ = Exhibited in the collection 
 
 at NewYork, 1885. 
 
 B. ,, ,, = Exhibited in the collection 
 
 at Birmingham, 1885. 
 
 G.G. [after title of picture), with date=Exhibited at the 
 
 Grosvenor Gallery. 
 
 R. A. „ „ „ = Exhibited at the 
 
 Royal Academy. 
 
 Date „ „ — Date of picture. 
 
 Title in italics = Picture property of Mr. Watts. 
 
 Name in parentheses = Owner of picture. 
 
 Achilles, Briseis, and Thetis 
 (early fresco). (Lord 
 Lansdowne.) 
 
 Adeline. R.A. 1850. 
 
 G. After the Transgression. 
 
 G. Airlie, Countess of. (Countess 
 
 of Airlie.) 
 
 G. Airlie, late Earl of. (Countess 
 
 of Airlie.) 
 
 “Alice.” G. G. 1884. 
 
 G. “ All the air a solemn still- 
 
 ness holds.” 1868. (C. H. 
 Rickards, Esq., of Man- 
 chester.) 
 
 Angel of Death. (See Court 
 of Death.) 
 
 G. Apple Blossom. (C. H. 
 
 Rickards, Esq.) 
 
 Ararat, Mount. G. G. 1885. 
 Ararat , Mount (small pic- 
 ture). 
 
 G. Arcadia. G. G. 1881. 
 
 G. A. B. Argyll , Duke of. i860. 
 
 A. Ariadne. (Lady Ashburton.) 
 
 G. Ariadne in Naxos. (C. H. 
 
 Rickards, Esq.) 
 
 G. B. Ariadne deserted byTheseus. 
 
 1863. (C. H. Rickards, 
 
 Esq.) 
 
 It. Arion saved by the Dolphm. 
 
 G. Aristides and the Shepherd. 
 
 G. B. Armour, Po> trait Study in. 
 
 Armstrong, Sir William. 
 R. A. 1879. 
 
 G. A. B. Arnold, Matthew. 1880. 
 R. A. 1881. 
 
 G. Ass and Foal. (C. H. 
 
 Rickards, Esq.) 
 
 G. Aurora. (A. A. Ionides, Esq.) 
 
 G. 
 
 Baby, Study of a. (A. Ion- 
 ides, Esq.) 
 
 G. 
 
 Bacchanal, A. 
 
 Baldock, Miss. R. A. 1S81. 
 Baring, the Hon. Mary. 
 G. G. 1883. 
 
 B. 
 
 Barlow, Mr. Samuel. 
 
 G. 
 
 Beanlands, Rev. Charles, 
 M.D. G. G. 1880. 
 
 G. 
 
 Beaumont, Lady Margaret, 
 
 and Daughter. 1862. (W. 
 B. Beaumont, Esq., M.P.) 
 
 Beauty, Ambitious Power, 
 and Wisdom. (The Three 
 Goddesses.) 1885. 
 
 G. 
 
 — ~ / j 
 
 Bentinck, late Lady Frede- 
 rick Cavendish. (Rt. Hon. 
 G. C. Bentinck.) 
 
 G. 
 
 Bentinck, Mrs. George Caven- 
 dish, and Children, i860. 
 (Rt. Hon. G. C. Bentinck.) 
 
 G. 
 
 Bentinck, Mrs. George Caven- 
 dish. (Rt. Hon. G. C. 
 Bentinck.) 
 
 G. 
 
 Bentinck, Miss Venetia 
 Cavendish. 1881. G. G. 
 1881. (Rt. Hon. G. C. 
 Bentinck.) 
 
 G. A. 
 
 Bianca. 1862. (C. H. 
 
 Rickards, Esq.) 
 
 Birth of Experience. (See 
 Experientia Docet.) 
 
 G. 
 
 Blanche. 1875. (C. H. 
 
 Rickards, Esq.) 
 
 Blondel. 1843. 
 
 Blumenthal, Jaques. R. A. 
 1878. 
 
 B. 
 
 Bo-peep. 
 
 G. 
 
 Bowman, W., F.R.S. 1865. 
 (W. Bowman, Esq.) 
 
 Brighton Downs. Study on, 
 G. G. 1883. 
 
 G. B. Brito mart and her Nurse 
 before the Magic Mirror. 
 
 1878. R. A. 1878. 
 B/'itoniait (small picture, 
 
 with variations). 
 
 Brodie, late Sir B. C., Bart. 
 G. G. 1882. 
 
 G.. Brooke, Rev. Stopford. (Rev. 
 
 Stopford Brooke.) 
 
 Browne, Rt. Rev. Ed. Harold. 
 R.A. 1875. 
 
 G. A. B. Browning, Robert. 
 Brunhilde. 1884. 
 
 Brunton, Miss. R.A. 1841. 
 G. Bull’s Head, Study of a. 1843. 
 
 (Miss Duff Gordon.) 
 
 G. Bonaparte, Prince Jerome. 
 
 1856. (Lady Holland.) 
 Bonaparte, Princess 
 Mathilde. 
 
 G. A. B. Burne-Jones, E. 1870. G.G. 
 
 1877. (Mrs. Burne-Jones.) 
 G. By the Sea. 1876. R.A. 1876. 
 
 (C. H. Rickards, Esq.) 
 
 G. Cadogan, Earl. 1877. R-A. 
 
 1879. (Countess Cadogan.) 
 Cain. 1872. (Diploma Pic- 
 ture in Royal Academy.) 
 
 G. A. B. Cain (study for above). 1872. 
 R.A. 1872. 
 
 Cain. 1885. 
 
 G. A. B. Calderon, Philip, R.A. 1872. 
 R.A. 1872. 
 
 Caractacus led in Triumph 
 through the Streets of 
 Rome. 1843. (Portions of 
 picture, Sir Walter James.) 
 
30 
 
 PALL MALL GAZETTE “ EXTRA:' 
 
 G. A. B. Carlyle, late Thomas. 1877. 
 G. Carrara Mountains from 
 
 Pisa. 1881. G.G. 1881. 
 
 G. Carver, Miss Mary. (C. H. 
 
 Rickards, Esq.) 
 
 Cessation of the Deluge. 
 
 G. Champneys , Airs. F. 
 
 Chaos (large picture). 
 
 A. B. Chaos (study for the above). 
 
 1882. 
 
 Charity. 1853. 
 
 Choosing. 1864. R. A. 1864. 
 (Eustace Smith, Esq., M.P.) 
 G. Clanwilliam, late Earl. 
 
 (Countess Clanwilliam.) 
 
 G. Cleveland, Duke of. 1873. 
 
 R. A. 1873. (Duchess of 
 Cleveland.) 
 
 G. Cockburn, late Sir Alex- 
 
 ander, Lord Chief Justice. 
 1875. (Trinity Hall, Cam- 
 bridge.) 
 
 Cockerell, F. P-. R. A. 1879. 
 Cockerell, S. Pepys. R. A. 
 1S81. 
 
 Cocks, Lady Isabella Somers. 
 R.A. 1871. 
 
 Condottiere, fifteenth ccn- 
 , tury. G. G. 1883. 
 
 G. Contadina , La. 
 
 Cookson, W. Strickland. 
 G. G. 1S7S. 
 
 G. B. Court of Death (otherwise 
 called “ Angel of Death.”) ’ 
 Court of Death (small 
 picture). 
 
 G. Cowper, Earl, K.G., Lord 
 
 Lieutenant of I reland. 1 877. 
 R. A. 1877. (Countess 
 Cowper.) 
 
 G. A. B. Creation of Eve. 
 
 Dalrymple, Miss Virginia. 
 R. A. 1872. 
 
 G. Daphne. 1870. G. G. 1S80. . 
 
 (Louis Huth, Esq.) 
 
 G. Daphne’s Bath. 1870. (C. H. 
 
 Rickards, Esq.) 
 
 B . Daughter of Herodias. 1 88 5 . 
 
 G. Davey, Horace, Q.C., M.P. 
 
 (Mrs. Davey.) 
 
 G. B. Deads Daughter , The. 
 
 R. A. 1880. 
 
 Death of Abel. (Diploma 
 Picture. See “ Cain.”) 
 
 A. B. Death on the Pale Horse. 
 
 1882. G. G. 1883. 
 
 G. B. Dedicated to all the Churches : 
 
 Spirit of Christianity. 
 1875. R. A. 1875. 
 Dedicated to all the Churches. 
 
 (Small picture.) 
 Denunciation of Eve. 
 
 G. Dilke, Sir Charles W. 1873. 
 
 (Sir C. Dilke, Bt., M.P.) 
 
 G. Donders, Professor (of 
 
 Utrecht). (W. Bowman, 
 Esq.) 
 
 G. Dorothy. 1880. G. G. 1879. 
 
 (G. Paine, Esq.) 
 
 A. B. 
 
 Dove that returned not 
 again any more. The. 1877. 
 R. A. 1877. G. G. 1882. 
 Dove returning to the Ark. 
 (See “ Return of,” &c.) 
 
 G. 
 
 Dundas, late Rt. Hon. Sir 
 David. 
 
 Dunlop, R. H. W. R. A. 
 1872. 
 
 Echo. 1847. 
 
 Echo. 1847. (Small picture ; 
 variation on the above.) 
 
 G. 
 
 Eden, Miss. 
 
 Egerton, The Hon. Mrs. 
 
 Seymour. R.A. 1867. 
 Ely, Bishop of (see 
 
 “ Browne”). 
 
 G. A. B. 
 
 Endymion. 1S73. G. G. 
 1881. (Late W. Graham, 
 Esq.) 
 
 Endymion. (Study for the 
 above.) 
 
 Enid and Geraint. G. G. 
 1879. 
 
 G. B. 
 
 Esau. 1S65. 
 
 G. B. 
 
 Eve. 
 
 G. 
 
 Eve of Peace, The. (C. H. 
 Rickards, Esq.) 
 
 G. 
 
 Eve Repentant. 
 
 G. A. 
 
 Eve Tempted. (A. Mac- 
 donald, Esq.) 
 
 G. 
 
 Evening at Freshwater, Isle 
 of Wight. 
 
 Exeter, Bishop of. R.A. 1880. 
 
 B. 
 
 Experientia Docet. 1883. 
 
 G. 
 
 Farm Buildings, Fresh- 
 water, Isle of Wight. 
 
 A. B. 
 
 Farringford. 
 
 G. A. B. 
 
 Fata Morgana. 1870. 
 
 Fata Morgana. (Another 
 version.) 1847. 
 
 G. 
 
 First Whisper of Love. 
 
 (Lord Aberdare.) 
 
 First Whisper of Love. 
 
 (Small picture.) 
 
 First Whisper of Love. 
 
 (Small picture.) 
 “Florence.” R.A. 1878. 
 
 (C. H. Rickards, Esq.) 
 
 G. 
 
 G. A. B. 
 
 Found Drowned. 
 
 G. 
 
 Found Drowned. (Small 
 picture.) (C. H. Rickards, 
 Esq.) 
 
 Fount, The. 1840. 
 
 G. 
 
 Freshwater, near, Isle of 
 Wight. (C. H. Rickards, 
 Esq.) 
 
 G. 
 
 Galahad, Sir. 1862. G- G. 
 1878. (Eustace Smith, 
 Esq., M.P.) 
 
 G. 
 
 Galahad, Sir. 1862. (Louis 
 Huth, Esq.) 
 
 G. 
 
 Ganymede. 
 
 Ganymede. (Study for the 
 above.) 
 
 G. B. 
 
 Garibaldi, General. 
 
 G. A. B. 
 
 Garvagh, Lady. 1874. 
 
 G. A. B. 
 
 Genius of Greek Poetry, 
 The. 1878. G. G. 1881. 
 
 (Mrs. Horace Davey.) 
 
 Genius of Northern Poetiy. 
 Gibbs, H. H. R. A. 1878. 
 G. • Girl at Prayer. (C. H. 
 Rickards, Esq.) 
 
 G. B. Gladstone , Rt. Hon. W. E., 
 
 M.P. 1865. G. G. 1879. 
 G. Goddesses, The • Three. 
 
 (Louis Huth, Esq.) 
 Goddesses , The Th/ee. (Small 
 picture.) 
 
 Goddesses , The Three. 1885. 
 
 (Large picture.) 
 
 Godiva , Lady. 1885. 
 
 Good Samaritan, The. R.A. 
 1850. 
 
 G. Grant , late Sir John Peter. 
 
 G. Grecian Myths. 
 
 Guiderius, Arviragus, and 
 Belarius, 1842. R.A. 1842. 
 G. Guizot, late Monsieur. 1848. 
 
 R. A. 1848. (Lady Hol- 
 land.) 
 
 Gurney, Miss Laura. R. A. 
 1885. (Mrs. Russell 
 Gurney.) 
 
 Gurney, Miss Rachel. G. G. 
 1 SS5. (Mrs. Russell 
 Gurney.) 
 
 G. Gurney, late Russell, Q.C. 
 
 (Mrs. Russell Gurney.) 
 
 A. B. Happy Warrior, The. 18S4. 
 
 G. G. 1884. 
 
 Haystacks, Landscape with. 
 G. Head of a Child. (Right 
 
 Hon. G. Cavendish Ben- 
 tinck.) 
 
 G. Hebe. (C. H. Rickards, 
 
 Esq.) 
 
 G. Hichens, Mrs. R. A. 1S79. 
 
 (A. Hichens, Esq.) 
 Hobart, late Lord. G. G. 
 1885. 
 
 Holland, Lady. R. A. 1S4S. 
 
 (Lady Holland.) 
 
 Hope. 1885. (Unfinished.) 
 G. Hyperion. 
 
 B. Idle Child of Fancy. 1885. 
 
 G. Infant Hercules tended by 
 
 Nymphs, The. 
 
 In the Suburbs (see Mid- 
 day Rest. 
 
 G. Ionides, Constantine A. R.A. 
 
 1 88 1. (Mrs. C. A. Ionides.) 
 G. Ionides, Mrs. C. A. (C. A. 
 
 Ionides, Esq.) 
 
 B.. Iris. 
 
 G. Irish Famine, The. 1850. 
 
 Isabella finding Lorenzo 
 Dead. 1840. R.A. 1S40. 
 Isabella. R.A. 1S59. ( 
 
 Isaiah, Subject from. (De- 
 sign for a F resco.) R. A. 
 1849. 
 
 G. Island of Cos, The. C. H. 
 
 Rickards, Esq.) 
 
 Jackson, Mrs. R.A. 1S50. 
 
 G. A. B. Joachim, Herr — A Lamp- 
 light Study. 1S67. R.A. 
 1867. 
 
 G. Joinville , Prince de. 
 
oo o a o > 
 
 CATALOGUE OF THE WORKS OF MR. G. F. WATTS, R.A. 
 
 3i 
 
 Jones, Rev. Harry. R. A. 
 
 1874. 
 
 Jonieles, Mdme. R.A. 1842. 
 Justice : a Hemicycle of 
 
 Lawgivers. 1859. (Fresco) 
 (Honourable Society of 
 Lincoln’s Inn.) 
 
 . B. “Katie? 1882. R. A. 1S83. 
 King Alfred inciting the 
 Saxons to resist the Land- 
 ing of the Danes. 1847. 
 (Commissioners ot H.M.’s 
 Works and Buildings.) 
 Knight, A. (see Armour , 
 Portrait Study in). 
 
 Lady playing the Piano. 
 1S60. 
 
 Landscape — Evening. 
 Landscape Study. 
 
 Landscape Study. 
 
 Landscape Study , with Hay- 
 stacks. 
 
 Langtry, Mrs. (see “Heads 
 Daughter?) 
 
 G. Laura — “ Ah rendi mi quel 
 
 cor che mi donasti.” 
 G. G. 1880. (W. Russell, 
 Esq.) 
 
 Lawley, Lady Constance. 
 R. A. 1878. 
 
 G. Lawn at Old Little Holland 
 
 House. 
 
 G. A. B. Lawrence, late Lord. 1867. 
 G. Lccky, W. E. 1878. R.A. 
 
 1878. 
 
 G. A. B. Leighton, F '., R.A. R. A. 
 
 1871 (for the Royal 
 Academy). 
 
 Leighton, Sir F. 1874. R.A. 
 1881. (Sir F. Leighton, 
 P.R.A.) 
 
 Le Strange, Mrs. R. A. 
 
 1874. 
 
 G. Lichtenstein, late Princess, 
 
 when a Child. (Lady 
 Holland.) 
 
 G. Liddell, Very Rev., Canon 
 
 of Christ Church. (Mrs. 
 Liddell.) 
 
 Lieven, Princess. 1856. 
 (Lady Holland.) 
 
 G. Life’s Illusions. 1S49. R. A. 
 
 1849. (A. Seymour, Esq.) 
 G. Li l ford, Ladv 
 
 G. Lindsay, Col. the Hon. C. 
 
 R. A. 1879. (Col. the 
 Hon. C. Lindsay.) 
 
 G. A. B. Lindsay, I^adv, of Balcarres. 
 
 .18 77. G. G. ' 1877. 
 
 G. Little Red Riding Hood. 
 
 G. G. 1879. (C- FI. Rick- 
 ards, Esq.) 
 
 G. Little Red Riding Hood. 
 
 (W. Bowman, Esq.) 
 
 G. Lothian, late Marquis of. 
 
 1875. R. A. 1875. (Mar- 
 chioness of Lothian.) 
 
 G. Love and Death (small pic- 
 
 ture). (Lady Ashburton.) 
 
 G. A. B. 
 
 Love and Death (finished). 
 
 1883. G. G. 1877. 
 
 Love and Death (replica of 
 above). 1885. 
 
 A. B. 
 
 I.ove and Life. 
 
 I-ove and Life (replica). 
 G. G. 1885. 
 
 G. 
 
 “Lucy.” 1880. R. A. 18S0. 
 (Dr. Bond.) 
 
 G. 
 
 Lyndhurst, late Lord. 
 
 (National Portrait Gallery.) 
 Lyons, Loi'd. (National 
 
 Portrait Gallery). 
 
 A. B. 
 
 Lytton, Lord. 1884. G. G. 
 
 1884. 
 
 Macnamara, C., Surgeon to 
 Westminster Hospital, 
 R. A. 1876. (Native 
 Hospital, Calcutta.) 
 
 B. Magdalen. 
 
 Magdalen. (Small picture.) 
 B. Mammon. 1885. 
 
 A. B. .Manners, Mi s. 1881. 
 
 Manners, Mrs. 1881. (Study 
 for above.) 
 
 A. B. Manning, Cardinal. 1882. 
 
 G. G. 1882. 
 
 G. Martineau, Dr. 1874. R. A. 
 
 1874. (Manchester New 
 College.) 
 
 May. R. A. 1867. 
 
 A. B. Maynard, Miss. 1882. 
 
 G. B. Meeting of Jacob and Esau. 
 
 1868. 
 
 G. Mergreta. (C. FI. Rickards, 
 
 Esq.) 
 
 Messenger of Death. (Un- 
 finished.) 
 
 Mi csscngerof Death. (Smaller 
 picture.) 1885. 
 
 G. A. B. Midday Rest , The. 1864. 
 
 Midday Rest, The. (Smaller 
 picture.) 
 
 G. A. B. Mill, late John St naif . 1874. 
 R. A. 1874. 
 
 Millais, J. E., R. A. 1874. 
 R. A. 1871. 
 
 G. Mills, Sir C. H., Bart., M.P. 
 
 (Lady Louisa Mills.) 
 
 G, B. Mischief. G. G. 1878. 
 
 G. Montgomery, Miss. (C. H. 
 
 Rickards, Esq.) 
 
 G. A. B. Motris, William. G. G. 
 1880. 
 
 A. B. Motley, W. Lotlirop. 1859. 
 
 G. G. 1882. 
 
 G. A. B. Myers, Mrs. F. 1878. R. A. 
 1880. G. G. 1884. 
 
 “ My punishment is greater 
 than I can beax - .” (See 
 Cain.) 
 
 Needlewoman, The. (See 
 Seamstress .) 
 
 G. Noel, Lady Catherine, Lady 
 
 Victoria, and Hon. Roden. 
 1841. (Sir T. F. Buxton, 
 Bart.) 
 
 Norman, G. R.A. 1873. 
 
 G. B. Ophelia. 1880. G. G. 1878. 
 
 G. Orlando surprised by the 
 
 Witch. 
 
 G. A. B. Orpheus and Fury dice. 1869. 
 G. G. 1879. 
 
 G. Orpheus and Eurydice. 
 
 (Small picture.) 1869. 
 (Hon. Percy Wyndham.) 
 
 G. Orpheus and Eurydice. 
 
 (Design for large picture.) 
 (C. H. Rickards, Esq.) 
 Orpheus and Eurydice. 
 (Small picture, with varia- 
 tions.) 
 
 G. B. Panizzi, late Sir Anthony. 
 G. A. B. Paolo and Francesca. 1882. 
 G. G. 1879. 
 
 Paolo and Francesca. (Same 
 subject.) 1848. 
 
 Pattle, Miss Virginia. R. A. 
 1849. 
 
 G. Peasants oj the Roman Cam- 
 
 pagna. 
 
 G. Peasants of the Roman 
 
 Campagna. (Design for 
 larger picture.) (Lord 
 Aberdare.) 
 
 G. Pembroke, Countess of. 
 
 (Marchioness of Lothian.) 
 Percival, Rev. J. R. A. 1879. 
 G. Percival, Sir. (C. H. Rick- 
 
 ards, Esq.) 
 
 Pilgrimage, The. 
 
 G. Portrait, A. (C. FI. Rick- 
 
 ards, Esq.) 
 
 G. Portrait, A. (C. FI. Rick- 
 
 ards, Esq.) 
 
 G. Portrait of a Child with a 
 
 Cat. (C. FI. Rickax-ds, 
 Esq.) 
 
 G. Portrait Study, A. (C. H. 
 
 Rickards, Esq.) 
 
 G. Portrait , A Child's. 
 
 G. Portrait of a Lady in a Green 
 
 Gown. Landscape Back- 
 ground. 
 
 G. Portrait Study, A. 
 
 G. Portrait Study , A. 
 
 G. Prinsep, late E. Thoby. 
 
 (C. FI. Rickards, Esq.) 
 Prinsep, Miss Alice. R. A. 
 1861. 
 
 Prinsep, Miss Mary. R. A. 
 
 1 ^ 73 - 
 
 G. Prinsep, Mrs. 
 
 Prinsep , Mrs. (life size, full 
 length). 
 
 Prinsep, V. C., A.R.A. R. A. 
 1872. 
 
 G. Prodigal Son, The. 1873. 
 
 R. A. 1873. 
 
 G. Psyche. 1880. G. G. 1880. 
 
 (Chanti'ey Bequest, South 
 Kensington.) 
 
 B. Rain it Raineth every Day, 
 
 The. G. G. 1883. 
 
 B. Rain Passing Away. 1884. 
 
 G. G. 1884. 
 
 Rawlinson, Col, C.B. R. A. 
 1S51. 
 
PALL MALL GAZETTE “ EXTRA r 
 
 
 Red Cross Knight and L’na, 
 The. (See Una.) 
 
 G. 
 
 G. 
 
 Return of the Dove, The. (On 
 
 
 
 panel.) 1869. (See Dove.) 
 
 G. 
 
 
 (C. H. Rickards, Esq.) 
 
 G. 
 
 Reverie. G. G. 1881. (C. H. 
 Rickards, Esq.) 
 
 
 G. 
 
 Rickards, C. H. 186S. (C. H. 
 Rickards, Esq.) 
 
 
 G. A. 
 
 B. Rider on the Black Horse, 
 
 
 
 The. 1878. G. G. 1883. 
 (C. H. Rickards, Esq.) 
 
 G. 
 
 A. B. 
 
 Rider on the Red Horse, 
 
 
 
 The. 1882. G. G. 18S3. 
 
 G. 
 
 G. A. 
 
 B. Rider on the White Horse , 
 The. 1881. G. G. 1883- 
 
 
 G. 
 
 Ripon, Lord Bishop of. 
 
 G. 
 
 G. 
 
 
 1878. (Bishop of Ripon.) 
 
 
 Rome under the Ccesars. 1885. 
 
 G. 
 
 Rosebery, Countess of. 
 
 G. 
 
 
 1875. (Earl of Rosebery.) 
 
 r. 
 
 
 Ruins, The. 
 
 Ruskin, Mrs. J. R.A. 1851. 
 Russell, Lady Arthur. R. A. 
 
 1874- 
 
 G. 
 
 
 Russell, Lord John. R. A. 
 1852. 
 
 Russell, Francis Albert 
 
 
 Kollo. R. A. 1852. 
 
 G. 
 
 G. 
 
 Russell, Mrs. W. (W. 
 Russell, Esq.) 
 
 Sabine, Sir Ed., K.C.B., 
 
 
 F.R.S. R. A. 1875. 
 
 G. 
 
 
 (Officers Royal Artillery.) 
 
 G. 
 
 A. B. 
 
 Salisbury , Marquis of. 1 884. 
 G. G. 1884. 
 
 
 G. 
 
 Samson. (C. H. Rickards.) 
 
 G. 
 
 G. 
 
 Satan. 
 
 
 G. 
 
 Seamstress, The. (Or, 
 
 Needlewoman .) 
 
 
 
 G. 
 
 G. 
 
 Senior, late Mrs. Nassau. 
 (W. Senior, Esq.) 
 
 
 G. B. 
 
 Shaftesbury, late Earl of. 
 
 G. 
 
 G. A. 
 
 15 . Sherbrooke, Viscount. 
 
 
 G. A. 
 
 B. Shrewsbury and Talbot, late 
 Admiral Chetwynd , Earl 
 
 
 
 of. 1863. 
 
 G. 
 
 G. 
 
 Simpson, Mrs. (C. Simp- 
 
 
 
 son.) 
 
 G. 
 
 G. 
 
 Sisters, The. 1861. (Mrs. 
 Jackson and Mrs. Prinsep.) 
 
 
 G. 
 
 Somers, Countess. R. A. 
 
 
 
 1850. (Earl Somers.) 
 Somers, Countess. 
 
 A. 
 
 G. 
 
 Spottiswoode, late W., 
 F.R.S. 1873. R- A. 1873. 
 
 
 
 (Mrs. W. Spottiswoode.) 
 
 A. 
 
 
 1 PICTURES 
 
 
 Royal Academy 
 
 
 
 Grosvenor Gallery 
 
 
 
 New York 
 
 
 
 Birmingham 
 
 
 Stanley, late Arthur Pen- 
 rhyn, Dean of Westmin- 
 ster. 1867. R. A. 1867. 
 (University of Oxford.) 
 Stephen, Leslie. 1878. (Mrs. 
 
 Leslie Stephen.) 
 
 Stern, Alfred de. R. A. 
 
 G. 
 
 G. 
 
 G. 
 
 1882. 
 
 St. George overcomes the 
 Dragon. 1853. (Palace j 
 of Westminster.) 
 
 Stratford de Redclifte, late 
 Lord. G. G. 1881. (Na- 
 tional Portrait Gallery.) 
 Stratheden and Campbell, 
 late Lord, Lord Chancel- 
 lor. (Lord Stratheden 
 and Campbell.) 
 
 Study, A. (C. Ionides, Esq.) 
 Study for a Portrait. 1862. 
 Study of a Head. (C. H. 
 
 Rickards, Esq.) 
 
 Study of a Head in Profile. 
 1881. 
 
 Study with Peacock’s Fea- 
 thers. 1862. 
 
 Swinburne, Algernon 
 Charles. 
 
 Talbot , Colonel. 
 
 Talbot , Miss. 
 
 Tavistock, Marchioness of, 
 and Lady Somerset when 
 children. 1861. (Earl 
 Somers.) 
 
 Taylor, Sir Henry. 1852. 
 Tennant, Miss Dorothy. 
 1877. R. A. 1877. (Mrs. 
 Tennant.) 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred, Poet 
 Laureate. 1839. (Earl 
 Somers.) 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred, Poet 
 Laureate. 
 
 Thetis. 1866. 
 
 Thiers, late M. (Lady 
 Holland.) 
 
 Three Goddesses, The. (See 
 Goddesses.) 
 
 Time and Oblivion. R. A. 
 
 1864. (Earl Somers.) 
 
 Time, Death, and Judgment. 
 (Design for large picture.) 
 G. G. 1878. (C. H. 
 
 Rickards, Esq.) 
 
 Time , Death, and Judgment. • 
 (Great picture.) 
 
 Time , Death, and Judgment. 
 
 (Replica of above.) 
 
 Uldra. 1884. G. G. 1884. 1 
 
 G. 
 
 B. 
 
 G. A. 
 
 P>. 
 
 G. 
 
 G. 
 
 G. A. 
 
 G. 
 
 G. A. 
 
 G. 
 
 B. 
 
 G. 
 
 G. 
 
 Ulster Coat, The. (C. H. i 
 Rickards, Esq.) 
 
 Una and the Red Cross I 
 Knight. 1869. (S. Bar- 1 
 
 low, Esq.) 
 
 Under a Dry Arch. 
 
 Vertumnus and Pomona. , 
 1841. 
 
 1 'leads Daughter, The. I 
 
 View of the Carrara Moun- 
 tains from Pisa (study for 
 “ Cartara Mountains j 
 which see). (C. H. Rick- 
 
 “ Vi l lain, ^ll be bound. A? 
 1885. 
 
 “Virginia.” 1863. (C. H. 1 
 Rickards, Esq.) 
 
 Wales, Prince of . G.G. 1882. 
 
 Walker, FAV., M.A. (of Maa- 
 
 ' Chester Grammar School). 
 
 R. A. 1875. 
 
 Warrior, The. 
 
 “ Watchman, what of the 
 Night?” 1880. G. G. I 
 
 1880. (W. Agnew, Esq., . 
 
 M.P.) 
 
 Waterford, Louisa, Mar- j 
 chioncss of. 184S. (Miss .1 
 Duff Gordon.) 
 
 Watts, G. F., R.A. 1S64.I 
 (W. Bowman, Esq.) 
 
 Watts, G. F., R.A. R. A. j 
 1880. (Uffizzi Gallery, 
 Florence.) 
 
 Walls, C. R.A. (study j 
 for above). 
 
 Wensleydale, late Lord. I 
 (G. Howard, Esq., M.P.) 1 
 I>. “ When Poverty comes in at j 
 the doo ; , Love flies out at 
 the window .” 1879. 
 
 Whichelo, J. Esq. R. A. I 
 1840. 
 
 Wife of Pint us. 18S5. 
 
 Wife of Pygmalion, The. 
 1868. G. G. 1881. (Eus t *1 
 tace Smith, Esq., M.P.) 
 
 Williams, Miss M. R. A. 1 
 1881. . 
 
 Winchester, Bishop of (see 1 
 “Browne ”). 
 
 Window Seat, The. 1862. j 
 (C. H. Rickards, Esq.) 
 
 Wounded Heron, A. R.A.' 
 1837. ' 
 
 Wyndham, Hon. Mrs. Percy. 
 G. G.-1877. (Hon. Percy 
 Wyndham.) 
 
 IBITED FOR THE FIRST TIME. 
 
 1837 — 1885 1 15 
 
 1877 — 1885 50 
 
 (Special Exhibition, 1881-2) 105 
 
 1885 4 
 
 1885-6 10 
 
 Total 
 
 284 
 
 ^Printed and Published by Richard Lambert, at 2 , Northumberland-street, Strand, in the Parish of St. Martin’s-in- the- Fields. 
 



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