The acquaintance thus formed inevitably ripened into a friendship, and to this friendship we owe the superb portrait painted later on during one of Spence's visits to England. It is now the property of Mr. Francis Spence.

I

The Watts was painted during one of the five happy and fruitful years the painter spent at Carreggi with Lord Holland, and is a fair example of the way he was being 'spoiled' there. We cannot with great precision fix the date of this portrait, the painter himself having absolutely forgotten the painting of it; but as the picture shows us a man about thirty-three years of

age, and as he and Watts were on terms of intimate friendship, and as Watts, on being confronted by a photograph of the picture, had to own up and acknowledge this robust child of his Florentine days, we may, I think, with some degree of plausibility ascribe its authorship to that great artist, and regard it as one of the happiest flowers of his exuberant genius. As to its date, it was probably done in one of the years between 1840-45. Scientific criticism two or three centuries hence may speak with more certainty on this point than we can hope to now, but the observer of current or recent events is like one watching a feather sinking into the gulf when birds have been moulting or battling in the blue.

J. KERR-LAWSON.

BOYS BATHING. BY NICOLAS

MAES

Maes if not precisely a great artist is at least an exceedingly interesting one from the variety of style shown in the pictures signed with his name. Of these the

1 Reproduced on page 311.

painting of Boys Bathing is not the least remarkable, by reason of the modernity of its point of view. Indeed, at first sight it would be excusable to suppose that the work dated from the earlier part of the nineteenth century, and was the work of one inspired by Géricault's Raft of the Medusa. The nude is rarely treated by the Dutch masters with such success, and the composition has a freshness and freedom which we do not usually associate with Holland. These elements in the work are doubtless due to the example of Maes's teacher, Rembrandt, the one Dutchman whose art was not merely national. The face of the boy on the left is in the painter's earlier manner, and indicates a period closer to Rembrandt than the general appearance of the picture would suggest.

PORTRAITS BY NICOLAS ELIAS

The two portraits by the Dutch painter Elias, which are reproduced by permission. of Messrs. Dowdeswell on pages 315 and 317, are particularly interesting from the fact that this painter is not represented in the National gallery, and his work is very little known in England. The portrait of the man is a panel 48 by 34 inches, and that of the lady (presumably his wife) a panel 46 by 35 inches in size; the persons have not at present been identified. Nicolas Elias Pickenoy, the reputed master of Van der Helst, was born at Amsterdam about 1590. There are twelve pictures by him in the Rijks museum at Amsterdam, which show him to have been a sound and accomplished portrait painter, if not precisely a great one. He died probably at Amsterdam between 1646 and 1656. 2 Reproduced on page 313.