The late Theophile de Bock was an interpreter of nature and his brush-work was fat and rich.  His work is well known in America and gains in value every day (he died in 1904).  There are fourteen specimens here of his best period.  The Emile Bretons are early and therefore different from his commercial productions.  Of the Corots, twelve in number, we did not see an insignificant one, not a weak one.  The famous Early Morning and View at Villeneuve-les-Avignon are hung.  The first depicts a group of trees; to the right a narrow stream in which is reflected a cloudless sky.  In the centre two women in white caps.  The second is more elaborate in composition.  The middle distance is occupied by picturesque buildings dating probably from the Middle Ages.  In the foreground four persons are under the shadow of some trees.  An unusual scheme for Corot.  His well-known characteristics are present in the dozen; the tremulous leafage, the bright, pure light, the Italian softness.  And what do you say to a half-dozen Courbets, all of his strong period, landscapes, still-life, a nude study, a dead roe, a sunlit path, and a lake scene!  Good Courbets are not numerous, and these are good.  The nude is a woman recumbent upon draperies.  The pate is heavy but vital, the flesh tones glowing, and the silhouette firm, yet delicate.  The portrait of the artist by himself is massive.  It was probably painted in Ste. Pelagie.

Coutures two, twenty-five Daubignys, and one of his son Karl.  Daubigny the elder is here in all his manners, dark pictures with big foregrounds, intimate bits of wooded interiors, sand-hills, streamlets, moonlights, coast scenes, evening effects, sunsets at sea, twilights, sheep, broken rocks, and a study in crayon.

Decamps and Delacroix come next in order.  There are three of the former, among the rest his Poacher, and three of Delacroix, one a portrait of himself.  Seven of Diaz, painted when his colour was most sonorous and brilliant, are here, with a study of an undraped female figure.  La Mare is a sunlight effect in the forest of Fontainebnleau.  Dupre has seven to his account, several of great tonal beauty.  The one Fortuny is an elaborate etching of his Anchorite.  The Josef Israels are strong.  Jacque pigs and sheep; Klinkenberg’s view of the Binnenhof; Mancini’s bewildering chromatic blurs and sensuously rich gamut, and seventeen in number.  This painter is seldom encountered in America.  He should be better known; while his ideas are not particularly significant he is colourist for colour’s sake, as was Monticelli.  The three brothers Maris, Jakob, Willem, and Matthys (the latter living in London), are to be seen here in unexampled states.  Mauve, too, with fourteen pictures.  Both the Mesdags, Taco Mesdag, a brother and his wife are present.  Also Ter Meulen, a gifted Dutch artist.  We have seldom seen better George Michels.  The Monticelli up-stairs is an unusual subject.  It is a mountain path in the south of France.  The sun is disappearing behind a cluster of trees.  Rocks in the foreground.  The scheme of colour is low for Monticelli, the forms sharply accented.  He could see line when he wished.  The smaller example is an interior, as rich as Monticelli knew how to lay the colours on.