e and showed a still keener interest in his pupil. This artistic
friendship resulted in the marriage of the two artists, and in 1880 they
established themselves in Oosterbeck.

Here began the intimate study of the heath which so largely influenced
the best pictures by Frau Bilders. In the garden of the picturesque house
in which the two artists lived was an old barn, which became her studio,
where, early and late, in all sorts of weather, she devotedly observed
the effects later pictured on her canvases. At this time she executed one
of her best works, now in the collection of the Prince Regent of
Brunswick. It is thus described by a Dutch writer in Rooses' "Dutch
Painters of the Nineteenth Century":

"It represents a deep pool, overshadowed by old gnarled willows in their
autumnal foliage, their silvery trunks bending over, as if to see
themselves in the clear, still water. On the edge of the pool are flowers
and variegated grasses, the latter looking as if they wished to crowd out
the former--as if _they_ were in the right and the flowers in the wrong;
as if such bright-hued creatures had no business to eclipse their more
sombre tones; as if _they_ and _they_ alone were suited to this silent,
forsaken spot."

Johannes Bilders was fully twenty-five years older than his wife, and the
failure of both his physical and mental powers in his last days required
her absolute devotion to him. In spite of this, the garden studio was not
wholly forsaken, and nearly every day she accomplished something there.
After her husband's death she had a long illness. On her recovery she
returned to The Hague and took the studio which had been that of the
artist Mauve.

The life of the town was wearisome to her, but she found a compensation
in her re-union with her old friends, and with occasional visits to the
heath she passed most of her remaining years in the city.

Her favorite subjects were landscapes with birch and beech trees, and the
varying phases of the heath and of solitary and unfrequented scenes. Her
works are all in private collections. Among them are "The Forester's
Cottage," "Autumn in Doorwerth," "The Old Birch," and the "Old Oaks of
Wodan at Sunset."

<b>BOZNANSKA, OLGA.</b> Born in Cracow, where she was a pupil of Matejko.
Later, in Munich, she studied with Kricheldorf and Duerr. Her mother was a
French woman, and critics trace both Polish and French characteristics in
her work.

She paints portraits and genre