"I am terrified when I think of the future that awaits Breslau; it fills me with wonder and sadness. In her compositions there is nothing womanish, commonplace, or disproportioned. She will attract attention at the Salon, for, in addition to her treatment of it, the subject itself will not be a common one."
The above prophecy has been generously fulfilled. Mlle. Breslau is indeed a poet in her ability to picture youth and its sweet intimacies, and she does this so easily. With a touch she reveals the grace of one and the affectations of another subject of her brush, and skilfully renders the varying emotions in the faces of her pictures. Pleasure and suffering, the fleeting thought of the child, the agitation of the young girl are all depicted with rare truthfulness.
Brewster, Ada Augusta.
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Brickdale, Miss Eleanor Fortescue.
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Bricci or Brizio, Plautilla. Very little is known of this Roman artist of the seventeenth century, but that little marks her as an unusually gifted woman, since she was a practical architect and a painter of pictures. She was associated with her brother in some architectural works in and near Rome, and was the only woman of her time in this profession.
She is believed to have erected a small palace near the Porta San Pancrazio, unaided by her brother, and is credited with having designed in the Church of San Luigi de' Francesi the third chapel on the left aisle, dedicated to St. Louis, and with having also painted the altar-piece in this chapel.
Bridges, Fidelia. Associate of the National Academy of Design in 1878, when but three other women were thus honored. Born in Salem, Massachusetts. Studied with W. T. Richards in Philadelphia, and later in Europe during one year. She exhibited her pictures from 1869 in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. Her subjects were landscapes and flowers. In 1871 she first painted in water-colors, which suited many of her pictures better than oils. She was elected a member of the Water-Color Society in 1875. To the Philadelphia Exposition, 1876, she sent a "Kingfisher and Catkins," a "Flock of Snow Birds," and the "Corner of a Rye-Field." Of the last a writer in the Art Journal said: "Miss Bridges' 'Edge of a Rye-Field,' with a foreground of roses and weeds, is a close study, and shows that she is as happy in the handling of oil colors as in those mixed with water."
Another critic wrote: "Her works are like little lyric poems, and she dwells with loving touches on each of her buds, 'like blossoms atilt' among the leaves."