PORTRAIT OF MRS. SIDDONS
By Sir Thomas Lawrence
THE PARSON’S DAUGHTER
By George Romney
ENGLISH MASTERS
Naturally the English pictures loom large in the National Gallery, though many of them in recent years have been transferred to the Tate Gallery. Here one sees Hogarth in his series “Marriage a la Mode” and in several portraits. He was the beginner in the school and one of its best painters. He, of course, had not the court and society following of Sir Joshua Reynolds who came after, with many full-length portraits of nobility painted to look a trifle nobler than reality. He was a famous master, and never did a better group than the “Lady Cockburn (co´-burn) Children.” He signed his name on the edge of the dress at the bottom, and told Lady Cockburn, with a courtier’s bow, that he could not neglect the opportunity to go down to posterity on the hem of her ladyship’s garment. The saying pleased him quite as much as his painting, for he repeated it to Mrs. Siddons when painting her portrait. It is not known whether the ladies compared notes, but if they did it probably resulted in a bad quarter of an hour for Sir Joshua.
THE AVENUE AT MIDDELHARNIS, HOLLAND
By Meindert Hobbema