PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE CHARTRES FIGURES.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.") Sia,—On reading your interesting article on the postcard reproductions issued by the British Museum it occurred to me that all your readers might not be familiar with the series of photographs of the stone figures of Chartres Cathedral which the Gardien, M. Etienne Houvet, has published. They consist of a comprehensive selection of the innumerable groups and figures with which the wealth of thirteenth-century genius has endowed what is, as well as so many other things, one of the greatest galleries of sculpture in the world. The devoted piety of those nameless master sculptors has left no niche of the great building without its statue, so that many of the most wonderful are in positions which may well daunt the most flexibly-necked of tourists. But M. Houvet, with the aid of scaffolding and the skill of a steeplejack, has succeeded in producing magnificent photographs of even the most inaccessible. Such, for instance, is the supreme series of figures of the Creation- " God creating the night and the day," " God creating Adam," " God creating the sun and the moon," " God creating the birds "—surely one of the greatest representations of his Maker that man has ever achieved. Of this series in particular M. Houvet's photographs give a very definitely better impression than the tortured glimpse of the originals that can be obtained from the ground. That M. Houvet's is a labour of love is evident when one discovers that he sells these photographs (they are about 6 inches by 9 inches, and very suitable for framing) for 75 centimes each (to-day about 3d.). He has also published several large books of reproductions of sculpture, stained-glass windows and general architectural views of the cathedral. A card to M. Etienne Houvet, Gardien de la Cathddrale, Chartres, will always obtain complete particulars.—
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