Frontispiece: Don’t Crydetails

PICTURES of which the human interest lies in the incidents of childish life among the poor may very easily offend by reason of a sentimental unreality; but Edouard Frère—who, by-the-by, has more honour among us than in his own country—has long since shown us that the tritest subjects of this kind may be dealt with freshly by an artist who goes observantly to nature for his incidents and expressions. M. Bonnat has generally treated far different subjects, but he also feels the charm of rustic childhood, and occasionally leaves loftier ideas for this simple and natural humanity. In “Don’t Cry” his little Roman maiden (of a day when Roman women and girls wore the tovaglia, the white chemise and thick dark apron which are the very commonest common-places of art, though hardly now to be found in life) has the womanly air which every one must have observed as distinctive of Italian children; she looks like the small replica of her large-eyed, grave, and hard-working mother. Her brother, double her age, is of the fairer-haired type of shock-headed Italian youth. M. Rajon’s artistic etching is from the original oil-painting by M. Bonnat, which represented the artist at the International Exhibition of Vienna in 1873.

(p. 480)