5 MARCH 1859, Page 19

The lecture on Art, Artists, and Industry in England, delivered

at the Society of Arts by M. Theophile Silveatre, has been published in English. This gentleman's business in this country having been somewhat rudely questioned, it may be as well to use the words by which he himself desig- nates his functions amongst us, " appointed by H. E. the Minister of State, and of the the household of H.M. the Emperor of the French to inspect the Fine Arts in Europe."

From Florence comes a glowing account of the success of M. Dupre, the Sicnnese sculptor who in his " Nymphs de in Fete" reads a moral to mere pleasure-seekers. A lovely female figure, seated with her head drooped on her left shoulder, her arms resting on her knees, and with the whole form " fallen with fatigue," seems to be filled with a secret horror of her mis- spent hours. At her feet is a broken wine-cup, and in her hand is a cym- bal; but the sentiment of the sculptor is to be found rather in the exquisite contour of the whole figure and its charmingly sad attitude and expression.

The sketches, books,. engravings, drawings, and copies of studies of the old masters in the collection of Ary Scheffer, well chosen and interesting as souvenirs of his taste, are to be sold on the 15th of the present month, in Paris.

M. Leon Benouville, a young French painter of the Scheirer school, has died in the French capital, at the early age of thirty-eight. His most cele- brated work was a pastoral figure of Joan of Arc, her mission being evi- denced by the extatic character of the face.

The riches of the palace of Sardanapalus at Nineveh, of Nimrod, Tama- nassar, and Jehu, consisting of statues, bassi rilievi, &c., fill the last mom of the Assyrian Museum at the auvre, and are now accessible to the Parisian public.

A committee, consisting of Count d'Haussonville, M. Louis Viardot, and M. Eugene Delacroix, has just been formed at Paris, to erect a statue to the late Ary Scheirer, on some convenient place near the Louvre or in the Champs Elysdes. The inhabitants of Dortrecht, (Holland,) the native place of the great painter, have likewise resolved on commemorating his memory.

The forthcoming exhibition of pictures at Paris is expected to be brilliant. A large number of paintings have been sent in from the provinces, as well as from England, Holland, Germany, and Italy. Even Russia has contri- buted her quota ; a Finnish artist of considerable merit, M. Ekman, has also forwarded a large painting.