lint Arts.
THE SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM.
The opening of the artistic, industrial, and educational collections forming the South Kensington Museum, which took place in the presence of the Queen on Saturday last, indicates an important approach to the concentration of our national treasures, and "looks like business" on the part of the Department of Science and Art, to whose activity it is mainly due and subservient. Since last Wednesday the Museum has been fully open to the public. Many, various, and highly valuable, are the contents of the Museum. It comprises the museum of Ornamental Art, recently removed from Marlborough House, and as yet only very partially displayed in its present home ; the educational collections, originating from the exhibition held at St. Martin's Hall in 1854; a selection from models in the possession of tfie Commissioners of Patents, with the addition of others from various contributors, ranging from the year 1787 to the present day ; the very excellent and important Architectural Museum lately housed in Cannon Row ; a collection of sculpture of the United Kingdom formed by the Sculptors' Institute—the several works being removeable from time to time within a 'maximum limit of three years ; the "Gallery of British Fine Arts," consisting of the Sheepshanks Gallery, with some additions, rich in Landseers Mulreadys, Websters Turners, and examples of many of the tither artists to whom the English art of the last fifty years is most indebted ; the Trade Collection belonging to the Commissioners for the Exhibition of 1851, which "will eventually resolve itself into a collection of animal products, and their appliances to industrial purposes" ; and the Economic Museum of Materials for building, clothing, &e. &c. Great pains have evidently been taken in the arrangement and display of the scores of classes of work, and the thousands of objects, summed up in these general titles ; the convenience of the public has bean studiously consulted, with a new to making a visit both profitable and pleasant; and altogether we consider that great credit is duo to the Department of Science and Art, and the active businesslike administration of Mr. Cole.
GENERAL WILLIAMS AT EARS.
A second large historical painting founded on the siege of Kars has just been made public. The first was the production of Mr. William Simpson. The new one, from the prolific pencil of Mr. T. J. Barker, • is now to be seen at the Auction Mart in the City, along with the same artist's very successful work, "The Allied Generale before Sebastopol." General Williams is represented leaving Kars, when at last endurance could endure no longer. His staff accompanies him the inhabitants crowd round him extolling him as "no end of a man," and showering curses on Turkish misrule : the Turkish soldiers themselves pass out dogged, moody, and famished—one of them breaking his sword. Mr. Barker has composed and worked up his subject with his wonted skill, from sittings, photographs, and local sketches, into a telling and wellbalanced whole. The difficult combination of portrait-subject with historical picture has entailed a certain licence in treatment—the portraitfigures being in good case and irreproachably dressed amid the general calamity : but this passes under the circumstances. The accuracy of the details has been attested, we find, on the most undoubted authority.
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