We have to call the attention of our readers to
a work on art now in progress of publication, which promises when it is complete to be of very great interest and value. This is English Art in the Public Galleries of London, published under the direction of Thomas Hum- phrey Ward, M.A. (Bousson, Valadon, and Co.) Mr. Ward is assisted by Messrs. Walter Armstrong, G. H. Boughton, A.R.A., Austin Dobson, A. W. Hunt, W. B. Richmond, and T. Woolner, B.A. The plan is to include the works of English art found in the National Gallery, the South Kensington Museum, and the National Portrait Gallery. The pictures are rendered by the process of photogravure and are accompanied by a descriptive and critical letterpress. They are of folio size. Part 4, to take an instance, is devoted to English portrait-painting, and contains three specimens by Romney (two of Lady Hamilton, and "The Parson's Daughter ") ; the "Portrait of a Lady," by Sir H. Raeburn ; Barry's portrait of himself ; Jackson's "Rev. W. H. Carr ;" Sir W. Beechey's "Mrs. Siddons ;" "J. J. Angeratein," by Sir Thomas Lawrence ; and "The Countess of Oxford," by Hoppner ; while the tenth, the "Portrait of a Child," by Sir Thomas Lawrence, is promised for a future number. Mr. T. H. Ward accompanies these pictures by an essay on English portrait- painting, with some biographical particulars of the artists. The tenth part, again, contains four specimens of Sir David Wilkie (" The Village Festival," "The Blind Fiddler," "The Refusal," "Duncan Gray," " Blindman's Buff "), and three by Thomas S. Good (" Fisher- man with a Gan," "The Newspaper," and "Study of a Boy "), while Mr. Austin Dobson furnishes the written comment. The work, which may be obtained on various scales of sumptuousness, is worthy of its subject.
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