ANACHRONISMS IN PAINTING.
These are to be found in works of all ages. Thus we have Verrio’s Periwigged Spectators of Christ Healing the Sick; Abraham about to shoot Isaac with a pistol; Rubens’ Queen-mother, Cardinals, and Mercury; Velvet Brussels; Ethiopian King in a surplice, boots, and spurs; Belin’s Virgin and Child listening to a Violin; the Marriage of Christ with St. Catherine of Siena, with King David playing the Harp; Albert Durer’s flounced-petticoated Angel driving Adam and Eve from Paradise; Cigoli’s Simeon at the Circumcision, with “spectacles on nose;” the Virgin Mary helping herself to a cup of coffee from a chased coffee-pot; N. Poussin’s Rebecca at the Well, with Grecian architecture in the back-ground; Paul Veronese’s Benedictine Father and Swiss Soldiers; the red Lobsters in the Sea listening to the Preaching of St. Anthony of Padua; St. Jerome, with a clock by his side; and Poussin’s Deluge, with boats. In our time, West, the President of the Royal Academy, has represented Paris in a Roman instead of a Phrygian dress; and Wilkie has painted Oysters in the Chelsea Pensioners Reading the Gazette of the Battle of Waterloo—in June!