Forty years of 'Spy'

by Sir Leslie Ward

THE HON. MRS ADRIAN POLLOCK.

Ouless, the eminent portrait painter, like Millais, was a Jersey man, and both were highly successful students in their respective days at the R.A. Schools.

The painter of "The Doctor," now Sir Luke Fildes, exhibited a very beautiful portrait of his wife, which established him as a portrait painter at once, and it is unnecessary to say how many fine portraits he has painted since.

Lord Leighton showed what refinement meant in his delineation of a beautiful woman's head, and although his method of painting was scarcely adapted to portraits, he showed great force in a head of Richard Burton, the traveller.

When I was drawing Leighton for the Graphic years ago, he amused me by saying:—

"Every one has his prototype, and some people resemble animals. What do I remind you of?"

When Lord Leighton compared his own head with that of a ram, I saw the resemblance at once: his hair curled like horns upon his forehead, and the general contour of his features was certainly reminiscent of that animal.

I must not forget the late Sir L. Alma Tadema, another subject painter, but one who did not often encroach upon the sphere of portraiture. When he did, I often traced a certain resemblance in his painting of the flesh to the marble he so perfectly expressed in his subject pictures.