ARTISTS' RECEPTION.
The evening of February 4th, 1864, will long be remembered as the occasion of one of the most delightful receptions ever given in the Tenth-street Studio Building. The Committee deserve great praise for the successful manner in which they filled without crowding the pleasant exhibition-room and the many interesting studios. Their task was certainly not an easy one, and merits imitation by all managers of social entertainments.
Want of space must for the present prevent any description of the fine works exhibited; suffice it to say that the Committee—Whittredge, McEntee, Thompson, as well as Gifford, Eastman Johnson, Bierstadt, Beard, the Weirs, Hazeltine, William Hart, Dana, Leutze, Gignoux, Shattuck, Brown, Suydam, etc., were all worthily represented. New York has reason to be proud of her artists.
Amusing incidents were not wanting. As we stood before Beard's 'Watchers' (an impressive representation of a company of crows watching the last struggles of a dying deer), we heard a lady ask her attendant the meaning of the picture and of its name. The reply was, 'Why—do you not see? Those birds are owls, and they are asleep, and the deer is asleep too, and so they are all watchers!' 'Ah!' returned the lady, as if this lucid explanation had flooded the subject with light. We were accompanied by a very bright young girl, who, desirous of visiting the studio of Mr. Church, and disappointed at learning that it had not been opened to the guests of the building, exclaimed, 'Heart of the Andes, indeed! Where is his own?' No lover of the true and the beautiful could have resisted the pleading of those earnest blue eyes. We also overheard that 'the Tenth-street boys hold their heads mighty high!' Long may they continue to do so, and long may success of every kind crown their efforts, whether as artists or as conscientious, patriotic men!