interspersed with a deal of by-play and mysterious nods and whisperings, until a stranger present was seduced into an offer of 70 guineas, when the owner of the picture shut up his eye-glass, and coolly turned his back to the auctioneer-a telegraph signal understood by the whole party that the victim was entrapped. As the picture was, of course, knocked down to a bonâ fide purchaser, the history of it may be instructive. It was bought by the dealer some time before, at a sale of imported rubbish, for 25s.; was lined, the dirt cleaned off, one unsatisfactory figure obliterated, and the heads of other figures altered. A poor but cleverish artist did this for the pittance of 30s., and the advantageous changes were made from prints. The picture was next "dirtied down; and after it had been unsuccessfully offered in sales got up at Birmingham, Manchester, and other provincial cities, it returned, after a year or two spent in wandering, to find a gulled proprietor in a dingy sale-room in street.

Sketches by Harious Hands.

PICTORIAL COMPLIMENT TO A LADY.

CLIEFDEN HOUSE, near Reading, was built by the late Duke of Sutherland for his amiable Duchess. The boudoir contains one of the finest pictorial compliments that even a French artist ever paid to beauty. The subject of the "Judgment of Paris" is portrayed in a central panel of this apartment-the Duchess's own, be it observedand the shepherd prince is represented as offering the golden apple out of the frame, there being only two of the three goddesses in the picture, namely, Juno and Minerva. The neat implication that Venus must be somewhere else, only required on the spectator's part a moment's thought of the lady who would oftenest look at the picture, and would see the prize extended towards herself. The artist who put this graceful fancy into form was Mr. Hervieu, a Frenchman naturalised in England.

WET AND DRY.

An artist painted a portrait of a gentleman noted for his libations, and invited several of the gentleman's friends to see it. One of them, who was near-sighted, approaching it rather too closely, the artist in alarm exclaimed, "Don't touch it; it isn't dry." "No use in looking at it then," replied the gentleman; "it can't be my friend."

THE CRITICS AND THE DOG.

A young Parisian artist painted a portrait of a Duchess, with which her friends were not satisfied, declaring that it was totally unlike. The painter, however, was convinced that he had succeeded admirably, and proposed that the question of resemblance or no resemblance should be left to a little dog belonging to the Duchess, which was agreed to. Accordingly the picture was sent to the hotel of the lady the next day, and a number of her friends assembled to witness the test. dog was called in; and no sooner did he see the portrait, than he sprang upon it, licked it all over, and showed every demonstration of the greatest joy. The triumph of the artist was complete, and all present insisted that the picture had been retouched during the night, which was actually so,

The

the artist having rubbed it over with a thin coating of lard! The dog's nose was sharper than the critics' eyes.

CLEANING PICTURES.

A new process for cleaning pictures was recently discovered at Amsterdam. It is well known that it is very difficult to remove the old varnish without injuring the delicate lines of the picture beneath. The new system consists in simply spreading a coating of copaiba balsam on the old painting, and then keeping it face downward over a dish of the same size filled with cold alcohol at an altitude of about three feet. The vapours of the liquid impart to the copaiba a degree of semifluidity, in which state it easily amalgamates with the varnish it covers. Thus the original brilliancy and transparency are regained without injuring the oil-painting. After the picture has been hung up for two or three days, it looks as if it had been varnished afresh.

REFUSING TO PAY FOR PORTRAITS.

A wealthy Manchester merchant engaged a rising young painter for the purpose of having his (the merchant's) portrait in oil handed down to posterity. The terms were arranged. "How

long do you think it will take?" asked the model. "Perhaps fifteen days," was the reply. Sittings began, and the artist entered so heartily into his work that in eleven days the portrait was done. "Why," asked Croesus, when the fact was announced to him, "do you intend suppressing four days' work?" "It does not matter at all; the portrait is finished," answered the painter. "Well, sir, this is not business; we said a hundred guineas, and fifteen days' work. I am quite ready to stand the price, but you ought not to spend an hour less upon the work than was agreed upon." There was no use in arguing with such a man. The painter took his brush again, and spent four more sittings in lengthening, little by little, in the portrait, the ears of his patron.

A similar story is told of one of Hogarth's pictures. A nobleman refused to pay for a portrait he had ordered, and the artist being in want of money, informed him that if he did not do so in three days, he would add to it a tail and other appendages, and sell it to Mr. Hore, the wild beast exhibitor. A painter named Du Bost, about sixty years ago, went even further than this. Failing to extract an enormous price for a portrait of Mr. and Mrs. H-, the artist exhibited it in Pall-Mall as "Beauty and the Beast," which so enraged the