Size of the original print, 103 by 173 inches.

From the etching by Félix Bracquemond. When we remember that this etching was made before the days of instantaneous photography,
and then consider how perfectly Bracquemond has understood and portrayed the rapid flight of this flock of gulls, we are filled
with amazement that the human eye could see birds in flight and the hand record them so unerringly.

Angelica Kauffmann with one by Rembrandt. The former is undeniably "pretty" and the Rembrandt may be frankly ugly; but in greatness how the ugly picture towers above the pretty

one!

Bracquemond has won all the official honors of the Paris Salon, even to the supreme recompense of the Medal of Honor, and in Beraldi's twelve volumes, Les Graveurs du XIXème Siècle, the author devotes the whole of his third volume to the etchings of Bracquemond. Beraldi writes of him:

"He is one of the artists who have most powerfully contributed to the revival in France of original painter-etching. The art could not have found a stronger champion. Robust in mind as he is in body, persevering, confident in himself in spite of those difficulties which beset so many budding artists of talent, such obstacles only served to make him stronger. He never had a teacher, but formed his style all alone. Having borrowed a volume of an encyclopædia he learned from it the technics of the etching process and then proceeded to etch without further teaching. His first attempt dates from 1849."

Beraldi goes on to state that Bracquemond's method of etching was always simple and direct and that he never troubled himself by making use of tricks or artifices — either of etching or of printing.

Félix Buhot's work is in strong contrast to that of Bracquemond. Bracquemond was always

strong almost harsh in his work, while Buhot (without ever being weak) was delicate and refined, and made use of the whole gamut of the etcher's processes, aquafortis, dry-point, aquatint, roulette; in fact his processes were very complicated, although they never overpassed what is legitimate to a very accomplished technician.

Personally he was a typical embodiment of the Gallic spirit, both in its vivid brilliance and in its unrest; one in whom the lamp of life burned with an intensity quite foreign to the nature of the slower (and perhaps surer) mentality of the Anglo-Saxon race. His brain might be compared to a newly opened bottle of soda-water or of champagne. While he was at work etching a plate this mental effervescence manifested itself in the "symphonic margins" which are so characteristic of his work. He would fly off from the main composition to some slight but brilliant sketch in the margin of the copper. On this subject of his "symphonic margins" he once said to the present writer: "C'est une maladie, — je le sais."

Buhot was always the thorough gentleman. He was almost quixotic in this respect; but the refinement of his nature was very genuine and he was a highly educated and intellectual man. After his death in 1896 his etched work had the signal honor of being publicly exhibited for six months at the Luxembourg Gallery, Paris; and the distinguished Curator, Monsieur Bénédite, published a laudatory and sympathetic article

PORTRAIT OF FÉLIX BUHOT

Size of the original picture, 8 by 5 inches.

The original portrait is a photograph from life, around which the artist has drawn a "symphonic margin." The distance, showing two steeples, represents Buhot's native town, Valognes, Normandy.

WESTMINSTER CLOCK TOWER

Size of the original print, 11 by 15 inches.

From the etchings by Félix Buhot. These two plates are usually accounted Buhot's masterpieces. They are among the surest and most completely satisfying of all his works, and, in the Westminster Clock Tower, especially, he has portrayed wonderfully the smoky but mysterious London atmosphere.