PAINTERS AND CHILDREN.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 828, 28 May 1910, Page 11

PAINTERS AND CHILDREN.

.Some pretty stories about children have been collected from artists' studies by Isabel Brooke-Alder, who writes iu "Cassell's" for April under tho heading "Painters of Child Life."

According to Mr. Solomon J. Solomon, R.A., "Tho absorbing occupation is painting a child; also the most exasperating. Children arc so lovely, yet so eludvc, that one might as well try to do justice i with mere paint to a rainbow. And to keep them anywhere near the original position is such a hopeless enterprise. When I have finished a portrait of a child I vow I'll never begin another; but I keep that vow until I meet the next pretty child, when I promptly fall a vie-, tim to its charm, and proceed as soon as possible to give myself the pleasure of contemplating at leisure the loveliness of its expression, its freshness of colouring —in fact, its irresistible attractiveness in all its phases."

Mr. Solomon's youngest son, who is a most engaging combination of irrepressible spirits and thought-fulness, was recently discovered, after he was supposed to be safely in bed for the night, standing' on a chair before a high mirror, with head thrown back and eyes half closed. In reply to his nurse's surprised inquiry, "What are you doing?" he said, "I'm seeing how I look when I'm asleep." : "Once I had a trying experience," says •Miss Harriet Kalked, "when I posed two little sisters reading ono book. They looked lik'B a pair of angels, and behaved so sweetly all through tho first sitting that I fondly imagined success was assured; but afterwards they quarrelled so dreadfully that I had to paint one of them in the absence of. the other."

A boy of most embarrassing activity, whose curls were his mother's delight, and his own detestation for th3r unmanliness, when asked by Miss Fortune De Lisle if he was glad his sitting was 'over, replied. "No; but my hair does want cutting." Ho had made up his mind to bo an admiral when he grew up. A conversation was overheard between him and a little cousin. The future admiral was expressing a doubt as to whether he would bo able to pass the exams., which even his clever big brother seemed to dread. "Well," said the little cousin,

"If I can't pass tho exams, and get into the navy, I shall go and be a pirate." "How do you do that?" said tho othor, his eyes shining with excitement. "Oh, it is quite easy. No exams. You just get hold of an old ship and any old guns and swords and cutlasses, and yon fly a black flag, and then tho other ships go for you, and you go for them, and you have a splendid time." A boy with a divinely beautiful face, who had never mentioned his father, replied to a question as to his existence:— "My' father? Ain't got none. Dead? No' he's alive all right, but he's in quod."

At the end of an afternoon sitting, Mrs. Seymour Lucas, to whom he had been sitting as a model, remembered that her little son must just then bo having tea with his governess, so she told tho model to knock at this nursery door on tho next landing, as he went downstairs, and ask fpr a piece of cake. Whilst waiting for it to bo cut, ho stared hard at the small tenant of tho nursery, seated neat and clean in his high chair .at tho tea-table, and as ho left tho room, he turned and, pointing to the child, asked the governess, "Is that yourn, or the top lodger's?"

Now, as the winter approaches, is the time to caro for your children's skins. Lakshmi and Lakshmi Cream aro as good for the little ones as they arc good for their mothers. If you wont your small girls to, have good complexions later, care for them now. Tlie.sc preparations never fail, and are absolutely wholesome. Each, 3s. Gd., all chemists j or 3s. 9d. post free from the John Strango Winter Co., Wellington.—Advt. Ladies' Costumes aro made at tho English Tailoring Rooms, 52 Willis Str«t. Those who have been gowned by Mr. \\\ 8. Bedford, continually advertise hiih. -Advt.