our last old master is unlike this shy, fastidious spirit that M. Léon
Werth, by a brilliant stroke of sympathetic intelligence, has contrived
to catch and hold for an instant.

[Illustration: (_Mrs. Jowitt's Collection_) DUNCAN GRANT]



DUNCAN GRANT

To-day, [N] when the Carfax Gallery opens its doors at No. 5 Bond Street,
and invites the cultivated public to look at the paintings of Duncan
Grant, that public will have a chance of discovering what has for some
time been known to alert critics here and abroad--that at last we have
in England a painter whom Europe may have to take seriously. Nothing of
the sort has happened since the time of Constable; so naturally one is
excited.

[Footnote N: February 6, 1920.]

If the public knows little of Duncan Grant the public is not to blame.
During the fifteen years that he has been at work not once has he held
"a one-man show," while his sendings to periodic exhibitions have been
rare and unobtrusive. To be sure, there is a picture by him in the Tate
Gallery. But who ever thought of going there to look for a work of art?
Besides, during the last few years the Tate, like most other places
of the sort, has been given over to civil servants. Duncan Grant is a
scrupulous, slow, and not particularly methodical worker. His output is
small; and no sooner is a picture finished than it is carried off by one
of those watchful amateurs who seem a good deal more eager to buy than