THE STUDIO.
From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry.
Passing down a glass corridor—from the roof of which the grapes hang in great and luscious clusters in the autumn—you reach the studio. It is a big, square room. Run your eyes round the walls, try to take in its thousand and one quaint treasures. You can see humour in every one of them—merriment oozes out of every single item. Stand before this almost colossal statue of Venus. She of the almost faultless waist and fashion-plate divine rests on a coal-box. Sit down on the sofa. It is the stuffed lid of another receptacle for fuel. Golf is one of the artist's hobbies, and he invariably plays with clergymen—excellent thing for the character. We light our cigars from a capital little match-stand modelled out of a golf-ball, and the next instant "Lika Joko" is juggling with three or four balls. A clever juggler, forsooth. And the battledore and shuttlecock? Excellent exercise. After a long spell of work, the battledore is seized and the shuttlecock bounces up to the glass roof. It went through the other day, hence play has been postponed owing to the numerous engagements of the local glazier. Fencing foils are in a corner; a quaint arrangement of helmets, masks, and huge weapons à la Waterloo suggests "scalping trophies." The china is curious—there is even an empty ginger jar—picked up in country places, of a rare and valuable old-fashioned type. He has the finest collection of old tinsel pictures of the Richard III. and Dick Turpin order in the kingdom, and values an old book full of tinsel patterns of the most exquisite design and workmanship. Old glass pictures are scattered about, "Lord Nelson's Funeral Car," and Joey Grimaldi grins at you from the far corner of the room.
SCALPING TROPHIES.
From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry.
All this and much more is characteristic of the humour of the famous caricaturist. We look at "Lika Joko's" skits and laugh; we take a delight in picking out from his ingenious pictorial mazes our own particular politician or favourite actor; we roar at "Lika Joko's" comicality, and only know him as a caricaturist. But there is another side to this studio picture—Mr. Harry Furniss's pencil is such that it can make you weep; so realistic, indeed, that when in his early days he was sent to sketch scenes of distress and misery, they were so terribly real and dramatic that the paper in question dared not publish them. No artist appreciates a "situation" better than he. I looked through portfolio after portfolio, drawer after drawer—full of character studies and work of a serious character done in all parts of the world. These have never been given to the public. Should they ever be published, Mr. Harry Furniss will at once be voted as serious and dramatic an artist as he is an eminently refined yet outrageously humorous caricaturist. He is a great reader—he once collected first editions. We begin to talk seriously, when he suddenly closes the portfolio with a bang, shuts up once more his hidden and unknown talents, and hastens to inform you that he is a member of the Thirteen Club—Irving and he were elected together—and believes in helping other people to salt, dining thirteen on the thirteenth, with thirteen courses, etc. Always passes under ladders, and swears by peacocks' feathers.
We stand before the great easel in the middle of the room—though not much work is done there. He prefers to work standing at a desk. He draws all his pictures very large; they are studies from life. It prevents the work from getting cramped. The same model has stood for all his principal people for the last ten years, and he has a wardrobe of artistic "props" big enough to fit out every member of the House of Commons. He is a perfect business man. His ledger is a model book. Every one of his pictures is numbered. In this book spaces are ruled off for—Subject, Publisher, When delivered, Published, Price, When paid, When drawing returned, Price of original, and What came of it. Humour by no means knocks system out of a man. Look at the score of pigeon-holes round the studio. As we are talking together now his secretary is "typing off" his illustrated weekly letter which finds a place in the St. James's Budget, New York World, Weekly Scotsman, Yorkshire Weekly Post, Liverpool Weekly Post, Nottinghamshire Guardian, South Wales Daily News, East Anglian Times, and in Australia, India, the Cape, etc. He writes children's books and illustrates them. His impressions of America are in course of preparation. There is his weekly Punch work; he is dodging about all over the country giving his unique "Humours of Parliament" entertainment, and he found time to make some special sketches for this little article.
From a Drawing by Mr. Furniss.
We sat down. Tea was brought in—he believes in two big breakfast cups every afternoon—and with "Bogie," the Irish deerhound—so called owing to his very solemn-looking countenance—close by, Mr. Furniss went back as far as he could possibly remember, to March 26th, 1854. That is the date of his birthday.