Old lamps for new

by E. V. Lucas

Sir John Day had eight Mauves in oil and seven in water-colour. The first oil, “Troupeau de Moutons sous Bois,” he bought in 1888, immediately after the artist’s death. It was a picture of which Mauve was very fond; Sir John Day gave £150 for it. At the sale it began at 500 guineas, and after fierce competition it was secured by Mr. Reinhart, of Chicago, for 2700 guineas. Pictures with sheep in them, it has been said, always find buyers; but when the sheep are painted as these are, not with the brio of Jacque, but so quietly and lovingly...!

Mauve, like all the greatest painters, took what he found around him and made it beautiful. He was one of the artists of whom the Creator must be most proud, in whom He must take most delight, for his whole life was given up to the demonstration of how beautiful everything is—and never with the faintest whisper of the words, “and how skilful am I!” Never. Anton Mauve stands with the greatest in his sincerity, his genius, and his self-effacement. American collectors have always appreciated him, while his village of Laren, in Holland, has long been a settlement of American painters.

Our first thrill was with the Matthew Maris; the next was with J. F. Millet’s “Goose Maiden”—one of the most lovely pieces of colour that can ever have leaned against Christie’s historic post. The merest trifle in size—12¼ by 9½ inches—an old master—a jewel of paint—from the moment it was born. Millet was no less a great colourist than a great draughtsman and a great lover of the earth, and here, in this tiny canvas, all his virtues meet. Sir John Day paid heavily for it in his time, but its new owner paid more heavily still. The bidding began at 500 guineas and mounted by hundreds to 5000.

After the Millet the most beautiful picture was a little landscape by Rousseau, the painter who left his studio at Barbizon to the villagers as a chapel. “River Scene: with a man fishing from a punt” was the description; but that omitted the wonder of the work—the evening light and stillness. It literally hushed the room. This picture is now in the National Gallery, for all to see. A week later (observe what it is to have the Christie habit) I saw another Rousseau with a richer but not more beautiful afternoon light in it, and some trees painted as only Rousseau could paint them, which brought 4600 guineas. (If forests can think, if villages have thoughts, what must be the reflection of Fontainebleau and Barbizon when they receive the news of these Christie contests!)

And so the day finished, some £75,000 having changed hands in three hours—a large sum for a little paint. A little paint, do I say? That is true; but a new world, too—a world of wistful beauty. And that, of course, cannot be appraised: it is dear at a five-pound note, if you do not want it—if your taste is unlike Sir John Day’s; it is cheap at all you have, if you desire it sufficiently.

A Georgian Town

This little town may be said to consist of three things—a long, narrow, and not very straight High Street, an almost equally long and equally diverging street parallel with it, and the quay. Both the High Street and its parallel neighbour might as easily have been straight as not; but it is very much to their advantage to curve a little, for not only are curves more beautiful, but they remind one of the street’s human origin, since before there can be a High Street there must be a path, and every one knows that no one can walk straight for more than a very few paces. Blindfold a man and tell him to walk across a field, and he will unconsciously bear to the left, I believe; and he will oscillate too.

Between the High Street and its neighbour there could not well be a greater difference; for the High Street is all bustle and business, and its neighbour is all quietude and residential repose. But they have this in common, that both are Georgian and red. The High Street, it is true, has thrown out a few plate-glass shop-fronts in keeping with twentieth-century enterprise, and a few new facades are there too; but the character of the street is still Georgian none the less. Its residential neighbour has made no concessions; it is eighteenth century still. Old shipowners and merchants—yes, and maybe old smugglers too—who lived there when George III was King would yet be quite at home were they to revisit it under George V. Hence I like this street the better. I like its window-frames, flush with the wall, such as builders may no longer give us; I like its square dormer windows, its fanlights over the door, its steps, its knockers, its blinds; its town-hall, with a flight of steps on each side, which, after describing an elegant curve, meet at the imposing door on the first floor; and, more than anything, I like its almshouses, which are five hundred years old.—So much for the little street, where Miss Greenaway might have made studies.

No need for me to say that the houses no longer harbour the class of resident for which they were intended; you know that as well as I do. Successful business men have ceased to live in the hearts of towns. Either because they genuinely want more room and air, or because a visible token of success is a pleasant thing to have, they now build houses on the outskirts, and the humbler folk inhabit the old houses at a reduced rent. The town has scores of these villas dotted about just outside its walls. From a balloon the centuries could be divided accurately—sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth in the centre; then a fringe of early nineteenth, then an outer fringe of later nineteenth; and then the latest addition of all, the twentieth-century villas, spick-and-span, and surrounded with greenery. Meanwhile, behind the Kate Greenaway shutters in the town’s core the managers and clerks and shop-assistants and their families are happy—and long may they be so!