Mr. Linley Sambourne, of Punch, too, has contributed for some years to the hoardings a lively drawing of a lady smoking a cigarette as she sits on a champagne cork-but this was an enlargement of a random sketch made, in accordance with the artist's pleasant custom, on a sheet of note-paper, while talking with a visitor. It was intended for a book. Similarly, Mr. Harry Furniss's filthy Casual, who used Pears's Soap years and years ago, "since when he has used no other," is simply an enlargement of a Punch cut. Nevertheless,

they do their share in educating the public taste away from the horrors of 1850, and to prepare it for black-andwhite work such as M. Willette's lithograph-not entirely suitable for the position, it is true, but full of passion and tears--for “L'Enfant Prodigue." Far better adapted to its purpose, though too light and delicate in its lines for effective wall-treatment, was the admirable theatrical bill designed by Mr. Heywood Sumner for Mr. Benson's Shakespearian revivals.

While Walker and his followers were tempting popular taste away from Warren's Blacking, America through her theatrical posters was showing to England how much more could be done by lith

DIAGRAM ILLUSTRATING

ography in the way of color than the old wood - block methods-in which the tint of a face was composed of diagonal red lines which fell into their places and became pink (through courtesy of the intermediate bars of plain white paper) when the spectator retired to a distance of ten or twenty yards. But, unhappily, this otherwise capital innovation was entirely in the direction of pictorial treatment; and the English manufacturers and traders, with characteristic perversity, seized upon it at once. The high finish delighted them; and encouraged by the example of theatrical managers- who were pleased to be able to rep

resent a play-scene upon paper with all the glories (and a good deal more) of its native colors-they proceeded to test it in the direction of picture-reproduction. Traders bought popular paintings with their copyrights at sums which in themselves were bold advertisements, and had them reproduced with such additional effects and details as would proclaim their wares. Thus "Bubbles," of Sir John Millais, R.A.; "This is the Way we Wash the Clothes," of Mr. G. D. Leslie, R.A. (page 39); "Mariana," by Mr. J. J. Shannon; "A Dress Rehearsal," by Mr. Chevallier Tayler; Venetian genre scenes by M. Van Haanen; Landseer, Edouard Frère, even Rubens and Rembrandthave all in turn advertised articles of trade; and had not Fred Walker's "Bathers" been run up to $13,

125 at the Graham sale in 1886, it would now be in the service of soap, instead of reposing as a treasured gem in Mr. Cuthbert Quilter's picture-gallery.

Sir John Millais, R.A., del.

Soap, it may be said, although the most advertised commodity in Great Britain, is not the most attractive thing for an artist to deal with. A naturally cleanly public is getting tired of it; and for all that it may be "matchless for the complexion," we do not want to have it continuously thrust in our faces. On the other hand, advertisers claim to know their own business best from the business point of view, and the greatest of them all reminds me that "this French exhibition (at the Aquarium), I may tell you as an advertiser of some little experience, is an absurdity, whatever may be said of it in respect to its 'art.'"

Nevertheless, it soon began to dawn upon some commercial minds that the original suitability of a special design might prove as attractive to the public as the most apt distortion of a popular picture, and that besides being talked of for the wares alone they might obtain additional credit

NOW ON VIEW PICTVRES&SKETCHES ANDRESINET.

P. Wilson Steer, del.

GOUPIL GALLERY

5 RECENT STREET. Admission 1 with Catalogue. PALL MALL. SW.

10 tall 6

André Sinet, del.

of the stage and the demi-monde about most of his ladies, as you may trace in his three designs for "The Gaiety Girl," in the great poster of To-day (page 42), and even in the theatrical air of the lily-bearing Sister who, with sanctified air, heralded the arrival of St. Paul's. But all the more, perhaps, for that are his efforts applauded and his pencil employed.

Next to Mr. Hardy, and linking him with the latest movement, comes Mr. Robert Fowler, R.I., whose rather hesitating design in five colors for the Walker Art Gallery of Liverpool has through his classic dignity something of the spirit of the former with more than a soupçon of the Academic flavor of latter-day poster-designers. Among these M. André Sinet created a great impression by the poster he made for his exhibition at the Goupil Gallery (page 41), and his simple figure of a girl drawn in five colors was quickly acted upon. The fine taste and masterly "placing" in Mr. Mortimer Menpes's announcementsheets, were passed over in favor of the spirit of Messrs. Sinet, Steinlen, and de Lautrec - perhaps because he was too individual, too personal and simple to permit of satisfactory imitation. Mr. Raven Hill's two-colored poster for Pick-me-up (page 41), and in particular Mr. Maurice Greiffenhagen's bill for the now defunct Pall Mall Budget (page 44), created a distinct sensation among the younger men, and enabled them to catch the public eye-as they had captured a considerable section of the London press in its critical columns, as well as an equal section of wall-space in the exhibition galleries. Mr. Greiffenhagen's work was peculiar enough to attract public attention and elegant enough not to repel it; its three colors and their relative proportion were well enough selected and balanced to please the artist, and the whole was suffi