PICTURE, RECORD PRICE FOR
Frans Hals was the hero of the evening at the Yerkes sale at Mendelssohn Hall, April 7, 1910. His “Portrait of a Woman” brought the highest price of the evening, $137,000, the highest price ever given for a picture at a sale in America and $8,000 more than the record-breaking price of the evening before, $129,000, which was paid for a wonderful Turner.
The dear old Dutch woman whose portrait Frans Hals painted more than 400 years ago could never have dreamed, if her practical soul was given to anything in the nature of visions, of ever being worth, in any form, so very many thousand dollars. She was the calmest-looking person in the hall when the curtains were drawn aside and she was revealed sitting quietly in her big chair, a wide ruff around her plump throat, a close cap encircling her placid face, one hand at her waist as she sat primly for her portrait, the other at her side clasping her Bible.—New York Times.
(2369)
Pictures—See [Piety].
PICTURES, INFLUENCE OF
It pays to spend thought on the pictures we put on our walls. A charming woman once said:
“My earliest impression is a picture that hung on the wall over my bed and which I had to look at the last thing every night before I went to sleep. It was that of a white horse upon the back of which was crouched the body of a fierce tiger, with his teeth and claws embedded in the flesh of the horse. The blood ran down from the wounds and the whole thing was frightful to me. I went to sleep every night afraid and very uncomfortable. This picture is as vivid to me to-day as tho I was looking at the real thing, and will never be erased.”
If that had been the picture of “The Guardian Angel,” or “The Evening Prayer,” or some one of the many that are pleasing and that teach some beautiful lesson, that woman would have had a happier remembrance, and would be better both physically and morally.—Religious Telescope.
(2370)