FINE ARTS. NEW PRINTS.
ONE result of the practice of noticing all new prints as they appear is, that our remarks sometimes precede the receipt of the engraving; and this happens to be the case with SAMUEL COUSINS'S mezzotint of CHAI.oN's Portrait of the Queen, as she appeared on her first meeting the Parliament, that Mr. MooN has just sent to us, with a polite apology for not having done so earlier. Of the picture itself we still retain the opinion we have before expressed, that it is CriaLos's chef dieuvre, and the most pure and brilliant piece of water-colouring that has been produced in modern times; and the likeness of the Queen by far the most attractive and characteristic of all that have yet appeared. We have heard artists decry the design as theatrical, and the painting as flimsy and mannered : but though we have a most cordial distaste for the affectationlof CHALON'S ordinary style, we see so little of that fault here, that it is lost sight of in the splendour of effect for which this picture is unique of its kind. Never have the tinsel and jewelled trappings of royalty been more successfully treated in a modern picture ; the sumptuous costume and accessories, though accurately delineated, do not attract the eye to the individual details, but impress the sense by the gorgeousness of the ensemble. The transparency and freshness of the tints, in a painting of so much elaboration, attest the facility of the handling, as the breadth of light does the refined skill of the master.
The engraving of Consists is distinguished for that delicacy in the gradations of mezzotint that gives what is so rarely seen in plates of this style—tone: there is no rawness nor harshness, no crude contrasts of black and white, and the monotony inseparable from mezzo
tint is lessened by the nice attention paid to the effect of the picture. In fact, it is as near as possible like an exquisitely finished copy in sepia. In the matter of the likeness, as we before said, we prefer the print to the painting, slight as is the difference between them.
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