263

Coffins, Sir! 266

"The Chairman will be Pleased to Spill Salt with You."
From the _St. James's Budget_ 267

A Knife I was Presented with 268

Tailpiece 271

"Au Revoir" 280

CONFESSIONS OF A CARICATURIST.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE ARTISTIC JOKE.

[Illustration: MY STUDIO DURING THE PROGRESS OF "AN ARTISTIC JOKE."]

The First Idea--How it was Made--"Fire!"--I am a Somnambulist--My
Workshop--My Business "Partner"--Not by Gainsborough--Lord
Leighton--The Private View--The Catalogue--Sold Out--How the R.A.'s
Took It--How a Critic Took It--Curious Offers--Mr. Sambourne as a
Company Promoter--A One-man Show--_Punch's_ Mistake--A Joke within
a Joke--My Offer to the Nation.

"_In the year 1887 he startled the town and made a Society sensation by
means of an exceedingly original enterprise which any man of less
audacious and prodigious power of work would have shrunk from in its
very inception. For years this Titanic task was in hand. This was his
celebrated 'artistic joke,' the name given by the 'Times' to a bold
parody on a large scale of an average Royal Academy Exhibition. This
great show was held at the Gainsborough Gallery, New Bond Street, and
consisted of some eighty-seven pictures of considerable size, executed
in monochrome, and presenting to a marvelling public travesties--some
excruciatingly humorous and daringly satirical, others really exquisite
in their rendering of physical traits and landscape features--of the
styles, techniques, and peculiar choice of subjects of a number of the
leading artists, R.A.'s and others, who annually exhibit at Burlington
House. It was a surprise, even to his intimate friends, who, with one or
two exceptions, knew nothing about it until the announcement that Mr.
Furniss had his own private Royal Academy appeared in the 'Times.' He
worked in secret at intervals, under a heavy strain, to get the
Exhibition ready, particularly as he had to manage the whole of the
business part; for the show at the Gainsborough Gallery was entirely his
own speculation. Granted that the experiment was daring, yet the
audacity of the artist fascinated peopl