"Do you not put your paintings out into the garden?"
"Oh! I understand now. I thought, at first, that you were perhaps again using a term that you are accustomed to yourself. Yes; I certainly do put the canvases into the garden that they may dry in the open air while I am painting, but I should be sorry to see them 'mellowed.'"
"Why do you call Mr. Irving 'an arrangement in black'?" (Laughter.)
Mr. Baron Huddleston: "It is the picture and not Mr. Irving that is the arrangement."
A discussion ensued as to the inspection of the pictures, and incidentally Baron Huddleston remarked that a critic must be competent to form an opinion, and bold enough to express that opinion in strong terms if necessary.
The Attorney-General complained that no answer was given to a written application by the defendant's solicitors for leave to inspect the pictures which the plaintiff had been called upon to produce at the trial. The Witness replied that Mr. Arthur Severn had been to his studio to inspect the paintings, on behalf of the defendant, for the purpose of passing his final judgment upon them and settling that question for ever.
Cross-examination continued: "What was the subject of the nocturne in blue and silver belonging to Mr. Grahame?"
"A moonlight effect on the river near old Battersea Bridge."
"What has become of the nocturne in black and gold?"
"I believe it is before you." (Laughter.)