29 JUNE 1895, Page 40

The National Museum of the Louvre. By Georges Lafenestre and

Eugene Richtenberger. Translated by Professor H. B. Ganseron. (Dean and Son.)—This is a volume of a series which should be highly useful, for it aims at doing nothing less than cataloguing all the picture galleries in Europe. The plan followed here is to give a description, but not a critical notice, of the pictures as they actually meet the visitor's eye. The Louvre

collection contains three thousand pictures. Two-thirds of them are noticed here,—a proportion we are inclined to think too large. Anyhow, the volume is inconveniently heavy. And what endurance is equal to an adequate inspection of so many works of art ? We are bound to say that for practical purposes we should have preferred a selection, with the critical element duly represented, of about one fifth.