On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    MADAME . HENEIETTE BROWN. 91

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    ¦± -**«— It Is A Curious And Not Uninter...

    Sister of Charity , to put _uioon a lay-figure which she had had prepared expressly for that occasion . Madame Henriette Brown ,

    however , not being- able to get the lay-figure into just the attitudes she wanted , her friend at last boldly donned the long-sought vestments ,

    and , thus arrayed , sat for the various figures introduced into the picture . This sacrilegious substitution was , of course , kept a

    profound secret ; the " Sister " to whose use the objects confided to the artist were destined , as well as the Superiors by whose permission

    they had been at last obtained , remaining in happy ignorance of the fact that they had been desecrated by being placed upon the person

    of a woman of the world . All tb _, e productions of Madame Henriette Brown bear the stamp

    of the sa ) _oae honest , conscientious realism . They are transcripts from Nature as manifested in the scenes , objects , and actors of the

    social world around her , harmonised by an admirable talent of composition , and refined and ennobled by the pervading influence of a

    womanly tenderness and insight that sees and renders visible the beauty latent in homely forms and every-day associations .

    That little girl , in yon humble kitchen , so busily employed In il mending < fc go minding -cart" the " in the which coarse round he stocking -faced is kicking bab on y-brother which his heels she attached so is much at to work to the his , roug while own h

    satisfaction , how full of the unspoken poetry of real life she Is , with that air of -womanly kindness , and of premature _resjDonsibility

    diffused over her whole person ! The scissors hanging by their string from the back of her chair , which the baby-brother would so mucli

    like to play with could he get at them , the clumsy table at which _, she sits , and the rude and scanty cottage furniture about her , are

    all instinct with meaning , and complete the exposition of the artist ' s thought .

    That peasant-boy , on his knees in the midst of his rabbits , so intent on Ms munching pets that he has evidently forgotten tlie

    existence of everything else ; that aged matron in her snowy cap , with kerchief crossed in snowy folds over her bosom , slowly reading

    tlirough hei ? spectacles the ponderous Bible open on her lap—held at the corners by those wonderfully living and expressive

    handshow absorbed she is , and what an atmosphere of peace and goodness , exhaled from her inner life , seems to encircle her , just as the

    light by which we see this charming figure , has been made , by skilful contrivance , to proceed apxoarently from the figure itself ;

    those charity schools , with their discolored walls , and their groups of young faces ; those " Sisters" so busy mixing medicines for the

    , poor , on whom their ministrations are bestowed with _siich lavish oblivion of self ; those two fair and high-born maidens , in the

    costume of the fifteenth century , seated in high-backed chairs on either side of the richly-carved oaken table , covered with

    heavytomes , between which lies a bunch of freshly-gathered flowers , and studying , with grave , and earnest countenance , the forbidden volumes

    _vor _,. v . g 2

    Madame . Heneiette Brown. 91

    MADAME . _HENEIETTE BROWN . 91

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), April 1, 1860, page 91, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01041860/page/19/