Curiosities Of Art

The failure of the great copper syndicate ruined M. Secretan, of Paris, last spring; consequently his vast picture gallery had to be put under the hamnier. The collection brought over $1,124,000. Foreign art gallarles were represented at the sale, but the bulk of the pictures was bought by Frenchmen. It shows that, in Bpite of so culled hard times, debt and mutterings of revolution, thore is still a vast amount of money in France. A strange instance of the cnilignity of fate is that of Millet, the great artist who painted "The Angelus." This was the geni of tlie Secretan collection, and the one the French government purchased for SI 10,600 to be placed in the Louvre. It just missed coming to America, and the contest over it was most lively. But if the spirit of poor, modest Jean Francois Millet could have looked down .from the heaven where good painters go üpon the bidding, a very grim smile indeed must have flitted over the angelic features. For Jean Francois Millet's life was one long struggle with poverty. This very paintmg of "The Angelus" he himself sold thirty years ago for $500. Once he sold himself and all the work he could produce for three years for an allowance of $2,400 a year. And even now, when millionaires and a government contend for the possession of his great picture, his widow is fighting poverty still, too poor to keep a home, the cottage he left her, over her head. It is to be hoped that there is not any where else ín the universo a world like this. There were sold 191 pictures in alL Next to the Millet the pictures that brought most extravagant prices were those of Meissonier, of which there were 81. A painting the size of one's two bands sold for $18,020. It was called "The Vicar's Wine." Another Meissoonier, "The Bowl Players at Versailles," 5i by 7 inches, brought f 14,200. "Bowl Players at Antibes," 4f by 7 inches, sold for $12,000. A uumber of other MeisBoniers, langing in size from 4 by 7 inches to 5 by 9 in size, brought pricea raneinL' anvwhere from $3.000 to $13.000.