BIOGRAPHICAL CATALOGUE OF PAINTERS.*
A book such as this was greatly wanted. In 207 pages. an account is given of all the Italian painters that one is likely to require to know something about,—numbering, we fancy, some eight hundred or more,— alphabetically arranged. A vast quantity of less considerable names are omitted, and with those who are inserted the effort has rightly been to say as little as the matter could be reduced to ; Raphael himself goes into four pages and a half. The notices consist of biographical details, brief, and sometimes even meagre, a rapid view of the painter's charac- teristics, and a list of some of his principal works. The criticism is done competently and judiciously, if not with any extraordinary depth or daring. We have not found wanting any name which it has occurred to us to look out ; and the whole thing appears to be executed in a well-in- formed and reliable manner. Two matters of detail which might be im- proved are the cross-references between two or more names given to one painter, and the lists of pictures. The first should, we think, be made to include all such names, especially as -no class of men goes so much by nicknames as the Italian painters ; and the second would be much more perspicuous to the eye if the names of the places where the pictures are located were printed in Italics and in alphabetical order. The "Table of the Contemporary Schools of Italy" is a large sheet, which folds up and goes into a pocket in the book-cover. The authoress, Mims Maria Far- quhar, contemplates doing a similar catalogue for the artists of other coun- tries; and this will be equally a boon.
• Biographical Catalogue of the principal Italian Painters, with a Table of the Contemporary Schools of Maly. Designed as a Handbook to the Picture-Gallery. By a Lady. Edited by Ralph N. Wornum.
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