the Louis XV. arm-chair, her long curved and jewelled hand lying in
her lap and a coiffure of laces pinned down with a long jewelled
hair-pin. How her head-dress of large laces decorates the paper, and
the elaborate working out of the pattern, is it not a miracle of
handicraft? How exquisite the black curls on the forehead, and how
they balance the dark eyes which are the depth and centre of the
composition! The necklace, how well the stones are heaped, how well
they lie together! How well their weight and beauty are expressed! And
the earrings, how enticing in their intricate workmanship. Then the
movement of the face, how full it is of the indolent south, and the
oval of the face is composed to harmonise and enhance the lace
head-dress; and its outline, though full of classical simplifications,
tells the character with Holbein-like fidelity; it falls away into a
soft, weak chin in which resides a soft sensual lassitude. The black
eyes are set like languid stars in the face, and the flesh rounds off
softly, like a sky, modelled with a little shadow, part of the
outline, and expressing its beauty. And then there are the marvels of
the dress to consider: the perfect and spontaneous creation of the
glitter of the long silk arms, and the muslin of the wrists, soft as
foliage, and then the hardness of the bodice stitched with jewellery
and set so romantically on the almost epicene bosom.

It is the essentially Greek quality of perfection that brings Corot
and Ingres together. They are perfect, as none other since the Greek
sculptors has been perfect. Other painters have desired beauty at
intervals as passionately as they, none save the Greeks so
continuously; and the desire to be merely beautiful seemed, if
possible, to absorb the art of Corot even more completely than it did
that of Ingres. Among the numerous pictures, sketches, and drawings
which he left you will find weakness, repetitions, even commonplace,