“The portrait of Mrs. Charles S. Dodge, by Mrs. A. Brewster Sewell, is the finest example in the exhibition of pictorial treatment, the lady being wrapped in a brown velvet cloak with broad edges of brown fur, and seated before a background of dark foliage.  It is a most distinguished canvas, though one may object to the too obvious affectation of the arrangement of the hands and of the gesture of the head—­features which will jar upon many eyes and detract from the general handsomeness.  The same lady sends a large classical subject, the ‘Sacred Hecatomb,’ to which the Clarke prize was awarded.  It represents a forest scene lit by slanting sunlight, through which winds a string of bulls, the foremost accompanied by a band of youths and maidens with dance and song.  The light effects are managed very skilfully and with convincing truth, and the figures are free and animated in movement, though the flesh tints are scarcely agreeable.  It is a decorative composition that might be fitly placed in a large hall in some country house.”

SEYDELMANN, APOLLONIE. Member of the Dresden Academy.  Born at Trieste about 1768; died in Dresden, 1840.  Pupil of J. C. Seydelmann, whom she married.  Later she went to Italy and there studied miniature painting under Madame Maron.

She is best known for her excellent copies of old pictures, and especially by her copy of the Sistine Madonna, from which Mueller’s engraving was made.

SHAW, ANNIE C. The first woman elected Academician in the Academy of Design, Chicago, 1876.  Born at Troy, New York.  Pupil of H. C. Ford.  Landscape painter.  Among her works are “On the Calumet,” “Willow Island,” “Keene Valley, New York,” “Returning from the Fair,” 1878, which was exhibited in Chicago, New York, and Boston.  To the Centennial, Philadelphia, 1876, she sent her “Illinois Prairie.”

“Returning from the Fair” shows a group of Alderney cattle in a road curving through a forest.  At the time of its exhibition an art critic wrote:  “The eye of the spectator is struck with the rich mass of foliage, passing from the light green of the birches in the foreground, where the light breaks through, to the dark green of the dense forest, shading into the brownish tints of the early September-tinged leaves.  Farther on, the eye is carried back through a beautiful vista formed by the road leading through the centre of the picture, giving a fine perspective and distance through a leafy archway of elms and other forest trees that gracefully mingle their branches overhead, through which one catches a glimpse of deep blue sky.  As the eye follows this roadway to its distant part the sun lights up the sky, tingeing with a mellow light the group of small trees and willows, contrasting beautifully with the almost sombre tones of the dense forest in the middle distance.”

SHRIMPTON, ADA M. Has exhibited at the Royal Academy, Royal Institute of Water-Colors, British Artists, and principal provincial galleries in England and in Australia; also at the Paris Salon.  Member of Society of Women Artists, London.  Born in Old Alresford, Hampshire.  Pupil of John Sparkes at South Kensington, and of Jean Paul Laurens and Benjamin Constant in Paris.