Childhood's joys and childhood's sorrows, its beauty, and even its little frailties—in fact, everything connected with the dawn of life, has its own especial charm. It is, perhaps, not given to all of us to detect with a sympathetic eye the picturesque in a very naughty young person, who hits at every moment on a fresh idea to make his fellow-creatures uncomfortable: nor is the spectacle of children in their best-loved state of dirty happiness too pleasing to the average observer. But the artist's eye sees things differently. Happily so; his imaginative brain sees the humour of the little self-assertions, and the pathetic side of the joy of living even in the gutter. Yet, after all is said, it remains, of course, a certain truth that there are many aspects of child-life which can only in reality be fully understood by mothers.
The subject of our first picture—"Asleep," by the French painter, F. Charderon—is a little masterpiece of its kind. There may be prettier children than this one, but the natural and unconscious grace of the little warm and rosy body is infinitely charming.
Charming, too, is the face in the medallion in the heading of this article—the face of a child-angel, which seems to watch over the figure of the human child asleep below. It is taken from a painting by Bernardo Strozzi.
"FLOWER OF THE HEATH."
From the Painting by Schwentzen.
By permission of the Berlin Photographic Co.
The picture reproduced above, entitled "Flower of the Heath," by the German painter, Schwentzen, is another delightful study. It is that of a child wandering alone over a flowery plain—or not quite alone, for she is accompanied by a shaggy terrier, who carries in his mouth a basket, from which protrudes a bottle. That bottle, as often happens with accessories of a picture which may seem quite unimportant at first sight, is not there for nothing. It tells, or at least elucidates, the story of the picture. The little girl has been the bearer of her father's dinner, and is returning through the flowering heather, filling her apron with blossoms as she goes. The whole picture—sunny landscape, flowers, dog, and child—is full of delicate power and subtle charm.
The three child-heads in the medallions above given must not be passed without a word of notice. The upper one is by Gainsborough, and a more winsome and delightful little face it is impossible to imagine. That on the right is from the same picture—the two children being named respectively Habbenal and Ganderetta. The head in the medallion on the left-hand side is from the portrait of James, the young Earl of Salisbury, by Kneller.