When Dan Smith was at the beginning of his career as an illustrator he was employed by an important lithographing house. One day, while making a large picture of Antony and Cleopatra in the barge scene, which was to be used by Kyrle Bellew and Mrs. James Brown Potter as a poster for their joint starring tour, Whistler, accompanied by a friend, visited the studio:
Whistler examined, with evident interest and approval, the canvas upon which the youthful artist was at work, holding his glass to his eyes; then, looking quizzically over it, remarked to his friend, "What a mercantile wretch it is!"
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Whistler presented a copy of his edition of The Gentle Art of Making
Enemies to "Theodore Watts, the Worldling."
Asked why he started the unlucky school in the Latin Quarter, he answered:
"It was for Carmen Rossi [long his model], poor little Carmen, who is a mere child and has no money, and is saddled with the usual Italian burden of a large, disreputable family—banditti brothers, a trifling husband, and all the rest of it."
"Carmen" was then thirty years old; weight, one hundred and ninety pounds. But she once had been his child-model.
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A Scotch student in the class had worked out the face of an old peasant woman illuminated by a candle. "How beautifully you have painted the candle!" Whistler commended. "Good morning, gentlemen!"
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