ns, and would you pay Slapdash, R.A., fifteen thousand for a
larger one? I then made the assertion, "It is not too much to say that a
fashionable portrait painter often receives L900 for his name, and L100
for the value of the picture to the sitter as a portrait. It is the
artist's autograph with a dash of something attached." I asked, "Why
should snobbery tempt those away from an honest, well-painted portrait
by a less-known man, to accept a failure with a Society signature?" a
query that was replied to by my receiving any number of letters from all
over the country asking me to recommend artists; in fact, at the time I
might have started an agency for portrait painters. One of the artists I
suggested had already had a very striking portrait of the Chinese
Ambassador, Marquis Tseng, hung in the Academy, and over that painting
he had had a trying experience. His sitter, like Queen Elizabeth,
objected to shadows, not like the conceited Queen through vanity, but,
being an Oriental, he really did not understand what the shadows were,
and rushed to the glass to see if his face was dirty. He was a high
official in his own country, and naturally anxious not to be mistaken
for the Dirty Boy. Again he got into a frightful state at the glazy
appearance of his skin--it was an oil painting.

"Only opium-eaters have shiny skins, and I am free from that vice. This
is a libel, sir, and will disgrace me at home."

Then he had no idea of perspective, but a great idea of his own rank,
and commanded my bewildered brother-artist to paint the red button on
the top of his hat, the feather down the back, the orders in front, and
was disappointed that his different coats and sashes, three and four
deep, could not all be shown at once.

Another illustration of the difficulties of portrait painters I gave in
the same lecture has since been so frequently repeated in the Press that
I fear it will be stale to most of my readers--the story of the man who
called upon the portrait painter and asked him to paint his father.

"But where is your father?"

"Oh, he died ten years ago."

"Then how can I paint him?" asked the artist.

"Why, I've just seen your picture of Moses, and surely if you can paint
the portrait of a man who died thousands of years ago, you can more
easily paint my father, who has only been dead ten years!"

Seeing the sort of man with whom he had to deal, the young artist agreed
to paint the defunct gentleman, and the picture