faltering step, until there is no single competitor in the civilized
world to dispute its mastery. This is something to be proud of, not only
for the firm in question, but even for the country at large, and to
crown its achievements, the firm of L. Prang & Co. have this year made,
apart from their usual wonderful variety of original Christmas cards and
other holiday art prints, a reproduction of a flower piece of the
celebrated Belgian flower painter, Jean Robie, and printed it on satin
by a process invented and patented by Mr. Prang. For truthfulness as a
copy this print challenges the admiration of our best artists and
connoisseurs. The gorgeous work as it lies before our eyes seems to us
to be as perfect as if it left the very brush of the master, and even in
close comparison with the original it does not lose an iota of its
charms.

Of the marvellous excellence of this, the latest achievement of this
remarkable house, thousands who visited the late exhibition of the
Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic's Association and saw Messrs. L. Prang
& Co.'s, extensive exhibit, can bear witness. Everybody who looked at
the two pictures, the original masterpiece by Robie and its reproduction
by Prang, side by side, was puzzled to distinguish which was which, many
pointing to the reproduction as the better, and in their eyes, therefore
as the original picture. The same was true with regard to many more of
this justly celebrated firm's reproductions, which they did not hesitate
to exhibit, alongside of the original paintings. Altogether, their
exhibit with its large collection of elegant satin prints, its studies
for artists, its historical feature, showing the enormous development of
the firm's work since 1856, its interesting illustration by successive
printings of how their pictures are made, and its instructive and
artistic arrangement of their collection, made it one of the most
attractive features of the fair.