Note 23 — LUCIEN BUONAPARTE’S COLLECTION, ETC.

When the writer of this article was in France twelve years ago, a young French artist began to copy in pencil a figure of the Virgin by Leonardo da Vinci. He returned to it day after day, and week after week. He was always there. He would first retouch an eyebrow or an eyelash, then do something to one of the fingers, then mark in a bit of the drapery, and then return to the face again. All this he did, sometimes leaning over the railing before the picture, sometimes sitting on a stool, mechanically screwed on to it, sometimes standing on one leg. He also relieved the monotony of his undertaking, by retiring to a small distance to compare his copy with the original, or shewed it to some one near him, or went round to look over others who were copying, or stood at the fire for an hour together, or loitered into the sculpture room, or walked round the gallery, and generally observed at his return that Poussin was excellent ‘pour la composition,’ Raphael ‘pour l’expression,’ Titian ‘pour les beaux coloris,’ but that David and his pupils united all these qualities to the fine forms of the antique. At the end of eleven weeks, we left him perfecting his copy. For anything we know, he may be at it still.