It is with great regret that we record the untimely
death of Mr. Charles Furse, the well-known portrait painter, which took place at Frimley, in Surrey, on Monday. Mr. Purse was still a comparatively young man, his work had won the com- mendation of the best critics of the time, and there was every possibility that had he lived his name would have been enrolled as one of the great English portrait painters. Not only was be a craftsman of consummate skill, but he added to the qualities of the hand a quick and eager intelligence. Thus he had both the mental capacity to read his sitters' characters, and the technical skill to transfer his intellectual impressions to the canvas. The portrait painter who is of a commonplace mind can make nothing but commonplace portraits. Mr. Furse's portraits had the distinction which belongs to the work of a man of distinction. One of the most interesting things about Mr. Furse's art was his reintroduction of what we may call the equestrian portrait. His picture exhibited two years ago in the Academy of a young man on a horse with a lady at the horse's side showed, as also did his earlier picture of Lord Roberts on a white charger, bow, had opportunity offered, he might have used his undoubted sentiment for heroic portraiture, and yet por- traiture which was at the same time entirely modern in spirit, to give a new development to the special form of painting in which he excelled.
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