masterly fancy, for which our time can offer no analogy.  A series of Berthe Morisot’s works looks like a veritable bouquet whose brilliancy is due less to the colour-schemes which are comparatively soft, grey and blue, than to the absolute correctness of the values.  A hundred canvases, and perhaps three hundred water-colours attest this talent of the first rank.  Normandy coast scenes with pearly skies and turquoise horizons, sparkling Nice gardens, fruit-laden orchards, girls in white dresses with big flower-decked hats, young women in ball-dress, and flowers are the favourite themes of this artist who was the friend of Renoir, of Degas and of Mallarme.

[Illustration:  BERTHE MORISOT

MELANCHOLY]

[Illustration:  BERTHE MORISOT

YOUNG WOMAN SEATED]

Miss Mary Cassatt will deserve a place by her side.  American by birth, she became French through her assiduous participation in the exhibitions of the Impressionists.  She is one of the very few painters whom Degas has advised, with Forain and M. Ernest Rouart. (This latter, a painter himself, a son of the painter and wealthy collector Henri Rouart, has married Mme. Manet’s daughter who is also an artist.) Miss Cassatt has made a speciality of studying children, and she is, perhaps, the artist of this period who has understood and expressed them with the greatest originality.  She is a pastellist of note, and some of her pastels are as good as Manet’s and Degas’s, so far as broad execution and brilliancy and delicacy of tones are concerned.  Ten years ago Miss Cassatt exhibited a series of ten etchings in colour, representing scenes of mothers and children at their toilet.  At that time this genre was almost abandoned, and Miss Cassatt caused astonishment by her boldness which faced the most serious difficulties.  One can relish in this artist’s pictures, besides the great qualities of solid draughtsmanship, correct values, and skilful interpretation of flesh and stuffs, a profound sentiment of infantile life, childish gestures, clear and unconscious looks, and the loving expression of the mothers.  Miss Cassatt is the painter and psychologist of babies and young mothers whom she likes to depict in the freshness of an orchard, or against backgrounds of the flowered hangings of dressing-rooms, amidst bright linen, tubs, and china, in smiling intimacy.  To these two remarkable women another has to be added, Eva Gonzales, the favourite pupil of Manet who has painted a fine portrait of her.  Eva Gonzales became the wife of the excellent engraver Henri Guerard, and died prematurely, not, however, before one was able to admire her talent as an exquisitely delicate pastellist.  Having first been a pupil of Chaplin, she soon came to forget the tricks of technique in order to acquire under Manet’s guidance the qualities of clearness and the strength of the great painter of Argenteuil; and she would certainly have taken one of the first places in modern art, had not her career been cut short by death.  A small pastel at the Luxembourg Gallery proves her convincing qualities as a colourist.