HISTORIC PORTRAITS.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE '• SPECTATOR.1
have read with deep interest the suggestive letter signed "Genealogist" in your last issue on this subject, and as one greatly interested in English portraiture I very cordially agree with the suggestion "that a society should be .
formed for the purpose of obtaining photographs of all family portraits which have never been engraved." There can be no doubt as to the desirability of such a society, and in the interests of lovers of art and historical portraits the sooner it is started the better. In Mr. Arthur Dasent's last work, "The Speakers of the House of Commons," occurs the follow- ing passage : "There should be a Royal Commission on his- torical portraits on the same lines as the Royal Commission on historical manuscripts, for I have abundant proof of sur- prising ignorance on the part of many owners of portraits of distinguished Englishmen who neither know the names of the subjects of the portraits they possess nor those of the artists who painted them." I happen to know that as a direct out- come of this suggestion Sir William Bull, M.P. for Hammer- smith, asked the Prime Minister for the appointment of such a commission, but without any satisfactory result; however, I am informed that other efforts will be made to attain this end.
It is much to be hoped that " Genealogist " will approach Sir William Bull and others interested in the subject, such as Mr. C. J. Holmes, the Director of the National Portrait Gallery, the Rev. Edmund Farrer, and Mr. Algernon Graves. English portraiture is of pre-eminent interest and value, for it is the one art which has distinguished England for well- nigh three centuries. Yet there was hardly any systematic work done in this direction until Mrs. Lane-Poole published some few weeks ago the first portion of her monumental work, "The Catalogue of the Portraits in possession of the Univer- sity, College, City and County of Oxford," and she freely admits that this work was the result of the three exhibitions of portraits organized by Mr. C. F. Bell and held in Oxford in, 1904, 1905, and 1906.
All who are interested in this branch of work will know and. highly value the Rev. Edmund Farrer's noble volume, ".Por- traits in [West] Suffolk Houses." Many, too, await with. interest the similar work on Norfolk promised by Prince.
Frederick Duleep Singh.—I am, Sir, &c., JOHN LANE. The Bodley Head, Vigo Street, W.
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