a _Toilette of Minerva
Polias_ and _A Miracle in the Temple of Vesta_, his most celebrated
work. Gustave Boulanger exhibits his _Roman Baths_, his _Roman Comedians
rehearsing their Roles_, and his _Roman Promenades_, which the
wealthiest amateurs, MM. Aguado, Andre, Stebbins, contended for at the
late Salons; M. Lecomte du Nouy his _Pharoah slaying the Bearers of Evil
Tidings_ and his _Homer Begging_; while M. Alma-Tadema completes the
group with his best-known pictures, including _The Studio of an Antique
Painter_, _An Audience at the House of Agrippa_, and _The Vintage at
Rome_, which was also at Philadelphia. Americans will remember the young
reddish-haired priestess of Ceres, so elegantly attired and _coiffee_,
advancing with torch in hand and followed by flute-players. The details,
which are multiplied almost to profusion, are all calculated to enhance
the effect, and are distributed with exquisite art. The amount of
research which this work suggests is almost incredible, and it was
perhaps a more laborious undertaking to paint the _Vintage at Rome_ than
to write the Carthaginian romance of Gustave Flaubert. Alma-Tadema
exhibits in the English gallery, and his contribution has raised the
average of that section by a good third. If I have spoken of this
painter in connection with the pupils of Gerome, it is that, considering
his place of birth (Dromvyp, Netherlands), I think that I have an equal
right with the English to classify him according to my fancy.

But let us leave the remote antiquity in which the poet-painters of the
Neo-Greek school delight to dwell, and come back to modern times.
Passing through one of the central rooms, one is struck by the
appearance of a great space of gilded wall hung with pictures
considerable in number, but mostly quite diminutive in size. It needs no
reference to the catalogue nor to the signature of these works to tell
us the name of their author. If the singular talent which they display
were not enough, the _mise en scene_ would leave no doubt that this
extraordinary piece of wall has the honor of supporting the exhibit of
M. Meissonier. M. Meissonier holds a great position in contemporary
art--a fact which is known to everybody, and to no one better than to M.
Meissonier. But it was in 1867 rather than in 1878 that he ought to have
gilded his wall. It was in the former year that he exhibited his _1814_,
his _Reading at Diderot's_ and other incomparable works, which placed
him