"Easel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Miss Annie, who had the loveliest rosy cheeks (no rouge in those days), who never married. One son, Bladen, was an artist, and he used to be a familiar sight with his camp-stool and easel on the streets, painting. ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... which still retained some show of freedom, Tacitus thundered against the oppressor of Africa. There were seen, side by side, the greatest painter and the greatest scholar of the age. The spectacle had allured Reynolds from that easel which has preserved to us the thoughtful foreheads of so many writers and statesmen, and the sweet smiles of so many noble matrons. It had induced Parr to suspend his labors in that dark and profound mine from which he had extracted a vast treasure of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... what I mean," she said with heightened color, and rose from her chair. "As there are no more green mice to peep out at me from behind my easel," she added, "I can have no excuse from abandoning art any longer. ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... drawing-rooms, and permitted her to offer their friends whiskey-and-soda instead of tea. Mrs. Van Sideren, for her part, was skilled in making the most of the kind of atmosphere which a lay-figure and an easel create; and if at times she found the illusion hard to maintain, and lost courage to the extent of almost wishing that Herbert could paint, she promptly overcame such moments of weakness by calling in some fresh talent, some extraneous re-enforcement of the "artistic" ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... of human woe or torture, as expressed in countenance or limb, came before his willing imagination, but he bore it straightway to his easel. In the moments that precede sleep, when the black space before the eyes of the poet teems with lovely faces, or dawns into a spirit-landscape, face after face of suffering, in all varieties of expression, ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... her with some good Yorkshire bacon. Next day she cooked some of this for me with beans, and I returned the present by a packet of London tea, a book, a picture of Napoleon, and another of "the Rob Roy on the Seine," in the highest style of art attainable by a man steering all the time he is at the easel. ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... in wandering from floor to ceiling rested finally on the empty easel, the numerous white unused sheets of paper near it. I felt in despair. Not even a sketch of a Phryne yet! Not even a model found! Not even the idea of where to ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... you, Miss Trevor! Excuse me for not coming in before, but I am so anxious to arrange my presents before the others come home from church. I want the easel from that corner, and I want you to promise faithfully that you won't come into the dining-room ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... big improvised easel was the full-length, half-reclining portrait of Rosalie Dysart—a gay, fascinating, fly-away thing after the deliberately artificial manner of the French court painters who simpered and painted a hundred ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... declined it on account of his unworthiness for the office. He would not work for money, and only painted at the command of his prior. He began his painting with fasting and work, he steadfastly refused to make any alteration in the originals. It is said that he was found dead at his easel with a completed picture before him. It is not wonderful, that from such a man should come one side of the perfection of that idealism which Giotto had begun. Fra Angelico's angels, saints, Saviour, and Virgin are more divinely ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... pointed out beautiful views over the valley; finally, showing Caper his studio, which, as it was a large room, and his padrona could impose on his good nature, was fairly glittering with copper pans, hung on the walls when not in use in the kitchen. On an easel was a painting, to be called The King of the Campagna; all that was apparent was the head and horns of the king. Wardor had thus actually spent three mouths painting on a space not so large as your fist, while the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... family of children to cope with, so it was small wonder that cobwebs hung in the passages and the dust lay thick and untouched. It is sometimes wiser not to see behind the scenes in country rooms. Miss Barton had set up her easel in the great hall, and absolutely revelled in painting the grey oak and plaster-work, nevertheless she had a tale of ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... painter, of the middle of the nineteenth century, is known by her portrait of Alexander von Humboldt (in possession of the Emperor William II.) and by her portrait of herself before her easel. Her historical paintings include "The Crusader" ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... ascended the long flight of stairs with a slow, hesitating step. For a moment she paused at the door of their own room; she heard a groan within, and hastily went in. Her first glance was directed to the easel in the window; but Raymond was not there. Another look discovered him lying on the floor with his head ...
— The Boy Artist. - A Tale for the Young • F.M. S.
... had taken just on the edge of the Luxembourg Gardens, on the nights when we were working at home, one of us at his easel, another at his drafting board, myself at my desk, we would knock off at about eleven o'clock and come down for beer and a long smoke in front of the cafe below. A homely little place it was, with two rows of small iron tables in ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... pressing request, Bonaparte consented on the fourth day to sit for him one-quarter of an hour after breakfast. Le Gros came therefore delighted, at the time appointed, into the cabinet of Josephine, and had his easel ready, awaiting the moment when Bonaparte would sit in the arm-chair opposite. But, alas! the painter's hopes were not to be realized. The general could not bring himself to sit in. that arm-chair, doing nothing ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... break the piece of gold, it is we—not Edgar—who quickly exchange our half for the half she was about to hang about her neck, solely because the latter has for an instant touched the bosom we so dearly love. Again, in the Lady of Lyons: the picture on the easel in the poor cottage studio is not the unfinished portrait of a vain and arrogant girl, but becomes the sketch of a Soul's high ambition and ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... were equally lovely in themselves, and natural to the first desires of his mind. But when for days he was missed from his office—when the very hours of morning which are most religiously devoted by the profession to its ostensible if not earnest pursuit, were yielded up to the easel—and when, overlooking the boundaries which, according to the conventional usage, made such a course improper, he passed many of these mornings at my house, during my absence, I began to entertain feelings ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... lawyer," I said, my choice of profession decided by an enlarged crayon portrait of Mary Gillespie's deceased brother on an easel before me. He had ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... well, both for those who paint and for those who hang pictures, that this subject should be taken into consideration. For it must be seen by this illustration that a bigger style is adopted by the artists who paint for high places in palaces or churches than by those who produce smaller easel-pictures intended to be seen close. Unfortunately, at our picture exhibitions, we see too often that nearly all the works, whether on large or small canvases, are painted for the line, and that those which happen ...
— The Theory and Practice of Perspective • George Adolphus Storey
... and lighted with one wide window; the ceiling sloped and narrowed down to this from the quadrangular vault, and the cool gray walls rose not much above Cornelia's head where they met the roof. They were all stuck about with sketches in oil and charcoal. An easel with a canvas on it stood convenient to the light; a flesh-tinted lay-figure in tumbled drapery drooped limply in a corner; a table littered with palettes and brushes and battered tubes of color was carelessly pushed against the window; there ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... a brace of pheasants have come to me. Livy, do you know what that picture means to me? I have just been feasting my eyes on it all the morning. I mean to get an easel and stand it at the foot of my couch, with that Indian scarf of mine just draped over it; won't it cheer me up on one of my bad days when I can't read or work, and even thinking is too hard for my poor head? ''Tis a love token, I reckon,' I shall ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... living mass as if he were its soul! The waters choke the shout and all is still. Lo! next a kneeling crowd, and one who spreads The hands in prayer—the engulfing wave o'ertakes And swallows them and him. A sculptor wields The chisel, and the stricken marble grows To beauty; at his easel, eager-eyed, A painter stands, and sunshine at his touch Gathers upon his canvas, and life glows; A poet, as he paces to and fro, Murmurs his sounding lines. Awhile they ride The advancing billow, till its tossing crest Strikes them and flings them under, while their tasks Are yet unfinished. ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... the easel, Mr. Palma looked back, and critically contemplated the effect; and he acknowledged it was the fairest picture his fastidious ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... day a child came to look at us. The third day about ten children stood around asking for sous. I was foolish enough to give them some, and the following day there were twenty or thirty boys, some of them from sixteen to eighteen years old. Seeing near my easel something not particularly agreeable, I begged one of them to take it away and throw it into the sea, and for that I gave, I think, fifty centimes. When I came back the following day to finish my painting the whole population of the neighbouring village had chosen ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... half-finished portrait of Orsino from the easel and put another in its place, considerably further advanced in execution. Orsino lit a cigarette in order to quicken his judgment, ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... moment at least was beyond my comprehension. I had walked out on the moor in the forenoon, and on my return, as I topped the brow that overlooks the little town, I saw my fellow-lodger some little distance off among the gorse. She had raised a light easel in front of her, and with papered board laid across it, was preparing to paint the magnificent landscape of rock and moor which stretched away in front of her. As I watched her I saw that she was looking anxiously ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... perhaps be well to turn to those pages (227-230) and read here, on our first sight of his genius, what is said. Two Angelicos are in this room—the great triptych, opposite the chief Lorenzo, and the "Crowning of the Virgin," on an easel. The triptych is as much copied as any picture in the gallery, not, however, for its principal figures, but for the border of twelve angels round the centre panel. Angelico's benignancy and sweetness are here, but it is not the equal of the "Coronation," which is a ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... went direct to the art-factory, and was just about entering when my attention was attracted by a prominent picture in the window. I stepped back to look at it. It was our reversible landscape, mounted upon an easel, and labelled "A Morning Scene." While I examined it to assure myself that it was really the landscape with which I was so familiar, it was turned upside down by some concealed machinery, and appeared labelled, "An ...
— Amos Kilbright; His Adscititious Experiences • Frank R. Stockton
... Lucy's did n't know anythin' a tall about Mrs. Macy's troubles. We had our own, Heaven help us, 'n' they was enough, for the very first thing of all Mr. Dill caught his pocket on the corner of Mrs. Dill 'n' come within a ace of pullin' her off her easel. That would have been a pretty beginnin' to Lucy's weddin' day if her father had smashed her mother's glass to bits, I guess, but it could n't have made Lucy any worse; for I will say, Mrs. Lathrop, as I never see no one in all my born life act foolisher than Lucy Dill this day. First ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... these with his own Bull and Valentinus Dux? Here Tasso tuned his lyre for Francesco Maria's wedding-feast, and read 'Aminta' to Lucrezia d'Este. Here Guidobaldo listened to the jests and whispered scandals of the Aretine. Here Titian set his easel up to paint; here the boy Raphael, cap in hand, took signed and sealed credentials from his Duchess to the Gonfalonier of Florence. Somewhere in these huge chambers, the courtiers sat before a torch-lit stage, when Bibbiena's ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... his way down a splendid staircase, past the long picture gallery where masterpieces of Van Dyck and Rubens frowned and leered down upon him; descended the final stretch of broad oak stairs, crossed the hail, and entered his master's rooms. Mr. Fentolin was sitting before the open window, an easel in front of him, a palette in his left hand, painting with deft, ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... latter was living at Rhodes, when Apelles disembarked there, desirous of seeing the works of a man whom he had hitherto only known by reputation. Accordingly, he repaired at once to the studio; Protogenes was not at home, but there happened to be a large panel upon the easel ready for painting, with an old woman who was left in charge. To his inquiries she made answer that Protogenes was not at home; and then asked whom she should name as the visitor. "Here he is," was the reply of Apelles; and seizing a brush, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... I, "that the artist even of that picture laid aside his brush heavily, when he sighed to himself that he must call it finished. I believe that in all the days that it lay upon his easel he went to it many times with weariness, because there was monotony in the work,—because the work that he had laid out for himself in his fancy was far above what he could execute with his fingers. The days of drudgery hung heavily on the days of inspiration; and it was only when he carried ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... she cried as she stood before the easel. Nick was pleased with her ejaculation, he was even pleased with what he had done; he had had a long, happy spurt and felt excited and sanctioned. Miriam, retreating also a little, sank into a high-backed, old-fashioned chair that stood two or three yards from the picture and reclined in it, her ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... heavy duty on it in its raw state. One can import a whole window free of duty because it is listed as an art work; but the glass out of which an art work is to be constructed costs a very high price. Odd, isn't it? As soon as I reach the point of using glass I arrange it on a large plate glass easel, using wax in the spaces where the lead is to go. Then I experiment and experiment with my colors. You probably know that in making modern stained glass a great deal of paint is used in order to get shading and degrees of color. It was ...
— The Story of Glass • Sara Ware Bassett
... master than were ever before collected under the same roof. Upwards of a thousand sketches, many of great power and beauty, are here, besides several portraits and one masterpiece, the Christ in the Temple, brilliant as a canvas of Holman Hunt, although the work of an octogenarian. The painter's easel, palette, and brushes, his violin, the golden laurel-wreath presented to him by his native town, and other relics are reverently gazed at on Sundays by artisans, soldiers and peasant-folk. The local museum in France is something ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... high wind, and he was plain Perugino—as if there was only one man in Perugia, and he were that one. "Here is a boy I have brought you as a pupil," said the priest to Perugino. And Perugino glancing up from his easel answered, "I thought it was ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... went into the studio. The model had gone, and the artist stood before his easel surveying his sketch ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... easel in Lady Merivale's drawing-room, stood a picture, before which were grouped a small assembly of her friends, including one or ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... her hands; though, to guard against the latter, she wore gloves. The corners of Miss Ruth's mouth were drawn down and her eyebrows lifted up, and her whole face was a protest against her work. On her easel was a canvas, where she had begun a sketch purporting ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... at once for the blue-jerseyed young man she had seen in talk with the porters; and apparently he had prevailed, for he stooped under the weight of a great burden, in which Hester recognised a blackboard, an easel, a coloured globe, and sundry articles of school furniture very cleverly lashed together and slung across his shoulder by a stout cord. He was smiling, and she smiled too, moved perhaps by the sight of these familiar objects in a ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... apartment. Etageres of carved and gilded wood occupied each corner, and, together with the low mantelshelf (which was upheld by two dancing nymphs in Carrara marble), were crowded with costly trifles in Bohemian glass, Dresden and Sevres porcelain, gilded bronze, carved ivory and Parian ware. An easel, drawn toward the centre of the room, supported the one painting that it contained, the designs on the walls being unsuited for the proper display of pictures. This one picture had evidently been ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... bargaining to make his first money by the sale of copies. His large, stern face, his brow that filled his pupils and admirers with terror lighted up with a merry smile. He recalled how he used to go into the Museo with halting steps, how he feared to leave the easel, lest people might notice the gaping soles of his boots that left ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... would have an enchanting summer withdrawn from the world, and great deeds would be done by her husband. "I could almost paint myself here," she said to him, "it all looks so quaint and lovely." Jack liked the place, and quickly set up his easel under the trees down by the stone pier where the fishing-boats landed and where there was always a noisy, lively scene. Milly idled near by in the sand with the baby. But the work did not go fast. She thought that Jack must be fagged after the long winter indoors, and urged ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... association. As a result, on the evening of February 15, there were gathered in the spacious parlors of Dr. Carey's hospitable home, one hundred and fifty persons representing the best circles of Indianapolis society. A portrait of Miss Anthony rested upon an easel, conspicuously placed, that all might see the serene face of the woman who for thirty years has preached the gospel of political freedom, and expounded the constitution of the United States in favor of justice to all. The programme was somewhat ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... was his formula, often expressed by his slogan—"A bas l'objectif! Vive le subjonctif." Whatever that means, he scored with the Filbertines who would gather in immense numbers wherever he set up his easel. ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... others of their set used to dignify by the name of conspiracy. It seemed to him that his ideas must at that time have been deplorably confused and lamentably unsettled. He sometimes took out the old sketch of Madame Mayer's portrait, and setting it upon his easel, tried to realise and bring back those times when she had sat for him. He could recall Del Ferice's mock heroics, Donna Tullia's ill-expressed invectives, and his own half-sarcastic sympathy in the liberal movement; but the young fellow ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... generated an habit of coming and going, as he pleased, without consideration of his host's absences; and latterly, in the early spring—whose caprices in England Rainham was never in a hurry to encounter—the easel and painting tools of the assiduous artist had become an almost constant feature of ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... never have understood, or understanding would have detested, the luxurious dilettante spirit which made Leonardo prefer painting to sculpture, because whereas the sculptor is covered with a mud of marble dust, and works in a place disorderly with chips and rubbish, the painter "sits at his easel, well dressed and at ease, in a clean house adorned with pictures, his work accompanied by music or the reading of delightful books, which, untroubled by the sound of hammering and other noises, may ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... Messrs. Van Brick and Pinchfip, called first at Legume's studio; they found him in the Via Margutta, (in English, Malicious street,) in a light, airy room, furnished with a striking attention to effect. On his easel was a painting of the required size, representing Louis XV. at Versailles, surrounded by his lady friends. By making the figures of the ladies small, and crowding them, Legume managed to get a hundred or two on the canvas. A period in their ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... remained silent. Arthur's eyes rested on the chair in which Margaret had so often sat. An unfinished canvas still stood upon the easel. It was Dr Porhoet ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... upon wood, clay, plaster, stone, parchment, and canvas. They generally painted upon panels or tables, and very rarely upon walls; and an easel, similar to what is now used, was common among the ancients. These panels, when finished, were fixed into frames of various descriptions and materials, and encased in walls. The ancients used also a palette very similar to that used by the moderns, as is sufficiently attested by a fresco painting ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... and placed near a bay window makes an elegant ornament. Care should be taken in arranging that the room be not over-crowded. There should be a few good pictures or painted plaques mounted in plush hung on the walls; a portrait may be placed on a common easel and draped with a scarf in old gold or peacock-blue, and tiny lambrequins, painted or embroidered, may hang beneath a bracket supporting ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... his flesh tints are truly surprising, most true to life. He probably painted with a more simple palette. The pains and labour which Sir Joshua bestowed, and which were perhaps very surprising when his pictures were fresh from the easel, have lost much of their virtue. The great difference between these great cotemporaries lay in their power of character. Gainsborough was as true as could be to nature, where the character was not of the very highest order. Plain, downright ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... the sixteenth century, most of the pictures were painted directly upon the plaster walls of churches or of sumptuous dwellings and were called frescoes, although a few were executed on wooden panels. In the sixteenth century, however, easel paintings—that is, detached pictures on canvas, wood, or other material—became common. The progress in painting was not so much an imitation of classical models as was the case with sculpture and architecture, for the reason that painting, ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... and least restored in the county, and the beech-woods and bracken jungles through which the road runs to the great house are singularly rich in what the vulgar artist and photographer call "bits." So that Mr Watkins, on his arrival with two virgin canvases, a brand-new easel, a paint-box, portmanteau, an ingenious little ladder made in sections (after the pattern of the late lamented master Charles Peace), crowbar, and wire coils, found himself welcomed with effusion and some curiosity by half-a-dozen other brethren ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... foremost of the first painters, owes his reputation, as I have observed, to his excellence in the higher parts of the art. Therefore, his works in fresco ought to be the first object of our study and attention. His easel-works stand in a lower degree of estimation; for though he continually, to the day of his death, embellished his works more and more with the addition of these lower ornaments, which entirely make the merit of some, yet he never arrived at such perfection as to make him an object of imitation. ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... and my slave placed the picture on an easel, while I welcomed my brother Philip who had come to see me, and who had lighted a lamp, and of course had brought a book. He was so absorbed in it that he did not observe that I had come in till I addressed him. Then I told him whence I ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... brush, overturned the easel, and ran around the studio like a madman. "What!" he shrieked. "Send a Whistler to Chicago! Allow one of my paintings to ...
— Whistler Stories • Don C. Seitz
... all the time at the unfortunate man who had rashly tried to provoke him. When his favorite enemy was out of sight, he turned away, and indulged himself in a brisk turn or two up and down the room. Meanwhile I lifted my canvas on the easel, and was on the point of asking him to sit down, when he assailed ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... painter's studio. Scattered about the room are works of art, fine paintings, portraits, statuary, vases of ancient form, and flowers. A guitar and flute hang from the wall, and at the left of the stage is a large picture, with a crimson curtain partially drawn across it. The painter's easel stands at the right of the stage; on it is an unfinished portrait of a lady. A small table, sofa, and three ancient chairs complete the furniture of the room. The artist is seated in one of the chairs, engaged in painting the lady's portrait. ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... years since I first heard of The Shaving of Shagpat. I was newly come, in all my callow ardour, into the covenant of Art and Letters, and I was moving about, still bewildered, in a new world. In this new world, one afternoon, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, standing in front of his easel, remarked to all present whom it should concern, that The Shaving of Shagpat was a book which Shakespeare might have been glad to write. I now understand that in the warm Rossetti-language this did not mean that there was anything specially reminiscent of the Bard of ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... take this oath was simply a summons to death. More was at his house at Chelsea when the summons called him to Lambeth, to the house where he had bandied fun with Warham and Erasmus or bent over the easel of Holbein. For a moment there may have been some passing impulse to yield. But it was soon over. Triumphant in all else, the monarchy was to find its power stop short at the conscience of man. The great battle of spiritual ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... fall entirely over the aperture between the two rooms. He looked round him. Mr. Heron was absent, and they had the room to themselves. Several unfinished canvasses were leaning against the walls; the portrait of an exceedingly cadaverous-looking old man was conspicuous upon the artist's easel; the lay figure was draped like a monk, and had a cowl drawn over its stiff, wooden ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... anything too difficult at first," said Mrs. Otter. "Put your easel here. You'll find that's the ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... of passion was not to surround my fated steps for ever. Noble aspirations rose in my melancholy heart. I had seen the birth of true science, true liberty, and true wisdom. I had lived with Petrarch, stood enraptured beside the easel of Angelo and Raphael. I had stood at Maintz, beside the wonder-working machine that makes knowledge imperishable, and sends it with winged speed through the earth. At the pulpit of the mighty man of Wittenberg I had knelt; Israelite as ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... with bunches of rosebuds on the walls, and scent-bottles on the toilet-table, and muslin curtains, and a bright carpet, and pretty book-shelves, and brackets, and lovely child-faces in the engravings; and on a broad table was a little easel, and a paint-box, and drawing-paper; and here too was his old box with ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... EASEL.—A sign of marriage to widows and maids; to the married, increase of worldly goods; this symbol must be read in connection with ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent
... chimney, and a cardboard shade, and had probably cost less than a florin; five florins would have purchased the table; and all the rest of the furniture, including the arm-chair in which the dressing-gown reclined, a stool, an easel, three packets of cigarettes and a trouser-stretcher, might have been replaced for another ten florins. Up in the corners of the ceiling, obscure in the eclipse of the cardboard shade, was a complicated system of cobwebs to match the dust on ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... to ensure silence, and then, taking hold of a projecting oak bough, peered down and signed to Josh to come and look. There was not much to see; there was an easel and a small canvas thereon, an open black japanned paint-box, a large wooden palette blotched with many colours lying on a bed of fern, and whose thumb-hole seemed to comically leer up at the boys like some great eye. Then there was a pair of big, sturdy legs, upon which ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... of Winchester," he exclaimed. "What on earth—Show her in, please." Hastily picking up a brush and the first tube which came to hand, he placed himself in a dramatic position before his easel ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... centre was bright with gaily bound books, elegant conveniences for writing, and beautiful flowers; the second table, near the window, was covered with all the necessary materials for mounting water-colour drawings, and had a little easel attached to it, which I could expand or fold up at will; the walls were hung with gaily tinted chintz; and the floor was spread with Indian matting in maize-colour and red. It was the prettiest and most luxurious little sitting-room I had ever seen; and I admired it ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... and then, as calmly as though he had done nothing more than cross the much-trodden pons asinorum, he told two attendants to take the board down and put it in front of the platform; then, while they were lifting another on to the easel, ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... the green valley and flashing river where cattle red and white stood chewing the still luxuriant aftermath, was none other than Ida herself, and what was more, Ida accompanied by Colonel Quaritch. They were seated on campstools, and in front of each of them was an easel. Clearly they were painting together, for as Edward gazed, the Colonel rose, came up close behind his companion's stool made a ring of his thumb and first finger, gazed critically through it at the lady's performance, ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... that I was in the favoured abode of beauty. A table littered with a variety of those flimsy trifles which ladies are wont to dignify with the name of "work" occupied the centre of the room, a harp stood in one corner and a guitar in another, an easel supporting an unfinished sketch in water-colours stood by one of the two windows which lighted the room, and a small bookcase filled with elegantly-bound books occupied a niche in one of the walls. A tiny riding-gauntlet of embroidered leather trimmed with lace, and a gold-mounted riding-switch ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... said there were no Indians in that country, and it would spoil the whole picture, anyway. The Little Doctor threatened to sketch them herself, drawing on her imagination and what little she knew of Indians, but something in his eyes stayed her hand. She left the easel in disgust and refused to touch it again ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... in the woods; my allowance was for the time exhausted; I had begun to regard the exchange (with my father's help) as a place where money was to be got for stooping; and in an evil hour I realised three thousand dollars of the college paper and bought my easel. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Wilkinsburg and painted some portraits; we visited his studio, and a new world opened to me. Up to that time portrait painting had seemed as inaccessible as the moon—a sublimity I no more thought of reaching than a star; but when I saw a portrait on the easel, a palette of paints and some brushes, I was at home in a new world, at the head of a long vista of faces which I must paint; but the new aspiration was another ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... their hats and coats, to the carpet upon the stair and the curtains of purple plush that, slightly parted, disclosed glimpses of an inner and more sumptuous paradise upon the right—a grand crayon of Mrs. Holt herself, life-size, upon an easel of bamboo; chairs and sofas with tremendously stuffed seats and backs and arms, a tapestry-work fire-screen—a purple puppy ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... in. The room was a typical Chelsea studio, scantily furnished and lacking a carpet. In the centre was an easel, behind which were visible a pair of trousered legs. A cloud of grey smoke was curling up over ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... mention that one purpose of my Russian journey was to discover whether there were heads of Christ in the possession of the Russian Church older or nobler than the ivory carvings, the frescoes, or easel pictures which are found in Italy and other Southern or Western nations. And I was, I confess, disappointed not to meet with any data which could materially enlarge or enrich this most interesting of subjects. As to priority of date, it seems ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... Wynnie and I approached a long low ridge of rock, rising towards the sea into which it ran. Crossing this, we came suddenly upon the painter whom Dora had called Niceboots, sitting with a small easel before him. We were right above him ere we knew. He had his back towards us, so that we saw at once what he ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... I AM tired: I think I will go to bed," she said; and Mrs. Peniston, suddenly distracted by the discovery that the easel sustaining the late Mr. Peniston's crayon-portrait was not exactly in line with the sofa in front of it, presented an absent-minded ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... she set up her easel—that for the first time in their lives she and Arthur had been seeing something of the great world, and—mildly—"doing" the season. Arthur was now continuing the season in Scotland, while she had stayed at home to work and rest. ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... Nevil stood at his easel, seizing and recording, the unconscious grace of her pose, the rapt stillness of her face. He was never weary of painting her—never quite satisfied with the result; always within an ace of achieving the one perfect picture ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... played my lady very well, reclining in her father's great chair. Her hall was roomy enough; it had its space for Sam Winnington's easel as well as Clary's harpsichord, and, what was more useful, her spinning-wheel, besides closets and cupboards without number. Sam Winnington entertained Clarissa; he was famous in years to come for keeping his sisters in good humour. He told her of the academy and the president's parties, of the ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... an easel, sunning itself beneath the park trees. The old priest clattered along the gravelly walk, to take ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... eternal, and thinking is more than doing—it's more complete. The waking days are brief intervals of test that betray the character of our hidden deeper life. We are judged in sleep. We last for ever and ever. In the day, awake, we stand before the easel on which our adventures of the night have painted those patterns which are the very structure of our outer life's behaviour. When we sleep again we re- enter the main stream of our spirit's activity. In the day we forget, of course—as a rule, and most of us—but we ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... gates and return again, bringing Jourdan, with feet strapped beneath his horse's belly. He told of his journey to, Paris—his purpose to learn to paint (at such a time!); of the great David, fat and wheezy, back at his easel, panting from civil blood-shed; of the call to arms, his enlistment, his first campaign of 1805; of the foggy morning of Austerlitz, his wound, and he long hours he lay in the rear of a battery on the height of Pratzen, writhing, watching the artillerymen at work and so on, with stories ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... arrow struck on a line between number three and four it counts three and a half. Anything like this rarely happens. The target is fixed upon an easel formed of three pieces of wood fastened together by a string at the top, and it ought to lean back at the top slightly, away ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous
... painted white, and the horizontal bars are green, so that the divisions may be apparent at a distance; it has perpendicular divisions breaking it up into three columns, each of which contains rows of nine small dresser hooks. It can be hung on an easel or supported by its own hinge on a table. Each of the divisions represents a numerical grouping, the one on the right is for singles or units, the central one for tens, and the left side one for hundreds: the ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... deserted, Palette and brush laid by, The sketch rests on the easel, The paint is scarcely dry; And Silence—who seems always Within her depths to bear The next sound that will utter— ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... large package arrived at Elmhurst addressed to Kenneth Forbes, and Oscar carried it at once to the boy's room, who sat for an hour looking at it in silent amazement. Then he carefully unwrapped it, and found it to contain a portable easel, a quantity of canvas and drawing-paper, paints and oils of every description (mostly all unknown to him) and pencils, brushes and water ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... the next eighteen years. This was the richest period of his life: his energy was untiring, and his zeal both as an artist and as a priest burned with a steady fire. His works were sought for far and wide, and most of his easel-pictures were painted during this time. Fra Angelico would never accept the money which was paid for his work; it was given into the treasury of his convent; neither did he accept any commission without the consent of the prior. Naturally, the monk-artist executed works for the ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... strong, never wavering—and I never saw them waver—yet in them something distant and inscrutable. It was a candid eye, and he was candid in his evil; he made no pretense; and though the means to his ends were wicked, they were never low. Presently, glancing round the room, I saw an easel on which was a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... a private sitting-room which he had secured for himself in the hotel at almost fabulous terms. It was a small apartment, but it had the advantage of a long French window which opened out into the garden. Here, on an easel, was a canvas with its back turned towards ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... ledgers and accounts, while Laura had become peevish and querulous since the one tie which held her to Tamfield had been removed. The chamber was a bare and bleak one, un-papered and un-carpeted, but a good fire sparkled in the grate, and two large windows gave him the needful light. His easel stood in the centre, with the great canvas balanced across it, while against the walls there leaned his two last attempts, "The Murder of Thomas of Canterbury" and "The Signing of Magna Charta." Robert had a weakness for large subjects and broad effects. If his ambition was greater ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... beautiful portrait of Andrea del Sarto, and once his eyes rested on another copy next to his, better and truer than his, and once he stopped to pick up a girl's prune-coloured tie, which had fallen from the neighbouring easel. After this he seemed to become unconscious of his surroundings, as unconscious, indeed, as any one of the pictures near him. Any one might have been justified in mistaking him for the portrait of a man, but that his lips moved; for it ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... nothing to keep him in the house, and yet he lingered in it. It was something to be even near Agnes—to see the things belonging to her that were scattered about the room. There, in the corner, was her chair, with her embroidery on the work-table by its side. On the little easel near the window was her last drawing, not quite finished yet. The book she had been reading lay on the sofa, with her tiny pencil-case in it to mark the place at which she had left off. One after another, ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... the River Swamp woods. Peter came fleet-footed to Neptune's old cabin, raced round it, and then stopped, in utter confusion and astonishment. On the back steps, with an umbrella beside her, and an easel in front of her, sat a young woman so busy getting a bit of the swamp upon her canvas that she didn't hear or see Peter until he was upon her. Then she looked up, with her ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... a white stone, and made me sit down. The hall in which we were represented the union of the kitchen, reception-room, bedchamber, studio, and wine-cellar. There were charcoal furnaces visible, a bed, paintings, an easel, bottles, strings of onions, and a magnificent lustre of coloured glass pendants. I glanced at ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... middle one there was an easel, and the girl was in the room, standing there in front of the canvas between me and the light. She was seemingly entirely abstracted and absorbed. She was completely motionless, and for the moment she communicated her stillness ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... willow that offers a helping root. Within a stone's throw, under a great branching of gnarled trees, is a nook where the curious sun, peeping at you through the interlaced leaves, will stencil Japanese shadows on your white umbrella. Then the trap is unstrapped, the stool opened, the easel put up, and you set your palette. The critical eye with which you look over your brush-case and the care with which you try each feather point upon your thumb-nail are but ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... and utterly engrossed by the sanguine anticipation of a fame which appeared to him already won, he allowed himself no momentary interval of relaxation; his food was eaten by starts, and without stirring from his easel; his sleep was brief and broken by feverish dreams; he no longer roved with Clarence, when the evening threw her shade over his labours; all air and exercise he utterly relinquished; shut up in his narrow chamber, he passed the hours in a fervid and passionate self-commune, which, ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and up the expensively restored staircase to his studio. It had great windows on three sides, and perfect means for regulating light. Unfinished studies melted into walls so subdued that they looked like atmosphere. There were no completed pictures—they sold too fast. As he walked over to his easel, his eye was caught by a spray of colour—the branch of spindleberries set in water, ready for him to use, just where the pale sunlight fell, so that their delicate colour might glow and the few tiny drops of moisture still clinging to them shine. For a second he saw ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... arm inside Miss Foster's, Mrs. Burgoyne dexterously turned her away from the glass, and brought her to the large central table, where a vivid charcoal sketch, supported on a small easel, rose ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... too, left the breakfast table, and wandering into the garden saw Kenneth busy at his easel in a shady corner. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... before her easel, and was so absorbed with her work that she was, or affected to be, unconscious of her husband's entrance. Not daring to advance, he stood in the doorway, devouring her with his eyes, almost mad with desire to clasp her to his heart. She, on her side, sat painting, and humming a ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... accomplishments, does one particle of intellectuality creep? Would not many of their ablest professors and most diligent practitioners stare, with unfeigned wonder, at the supposition, that the five hours per diem devoted to the piano and the easel had any other object than to accomplish the fingers? The idea of their influencing the head would be ridiculous! of their improving the heart, preposterous! Yet if both head and heart do not combine in these pursuits, how can the cultivators justify to themselves the devotion ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... months passed swiftly by after this meeting in an ideal existence of work and play. Mrs. Osbourne worked industriously at her painting, and as she sat at her easel the acquaintance between her and the young Scotchman rapidly flowered into a full and sympathetic understanding. Everything about this American family, speaking as it did of a land of new and strange customs and habits of thought, appealed strongly to the ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... had awaited our arrival to begin the performance, for we had hardly taken our seats than the curtain, which had hitherto hidden the stage from our view, rolled up and discovered the Professor standing with his hand resting upon an easel, on which was placed a ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... back of scene a large window and door to hall. On the walls hang studies, canvases, weapons, costumes and plaster casts. To right there is a door leading to Axel's room; to left a door leading to Bertha's room. There is a model stand left center. To right an easel and painting materials. A large sofa, a large store through the doors of which one sees a hot coal fire. There is a hanging-lamp from ceiling. At rise of curtain Axel and ...
— Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter • August Strindberg
... was seated at his easel, held up his brush as a signal of silence, and did not even raise his eyes till he had finished the touches on which he ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... I willingly did, and was struck with amazement at the appearance of his studio. Several cages were hung about the walls, containing specimens of birds, all of which I examined at my leisure. On a large easel before me stood an unfinished portrait, other pictures hung about, and in the room were two young pupils; and at a glance I discovered that the eccentric stranger was, like myself, a naturalist and an artist. The artist, as modest as he was odd, showed me how he laid on the paint ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... the afternoon I found Gladys Todd in the little vine-covered veranda in the rear of the house, painting. I am sure that had I seen her for the first time as she sat there at her easel beautifying a black plaque with a bunch of tulips, every wave of her hand as she plied the brush would have struck the divine spark in my heart. Marguerite at her spinning was not more lovely. The place was ideal for my purpose. We were above the town, hidden by height from its sordidness, ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... the Madonna, with Christ, S. John, and four attendant male figures, once in the possession of Mr. H. Labouchere, and now in the National Gallery. We have no authentic tradition regarding this tempera painting, which in my judgment is the most beautiful of the easel pictures attributed to Michelangelo. Internal evidence from style renders its genuineness in the highest degree probable. No one else upon the close of the fifteenth century was capable of producing a composition at once so complicated, so harmonious, ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... has recovered the perfect beauty which it possessed when it first left the artist's easel. If OSCAR intended an allegory, the finish is dreadfully wrong. Does he mean that, by sacrificing his earthly life, Dorian Gray atones for his infernal sins, and so purifies his soul by suicide? "Heavens! I am no preacher," says the Baron, "and perhaps ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 19, 1890 • Various
... drawing-room of the great house, decorated with faded tapestry, and on an easel in the middle room, a portrait of the stout Madame Stevens by a fashionable painter who had represented her in a languishing attitude, like a flower dying for want of water, with a die-away expression in her eyes, and her body draped in impossible ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... portrait stood unfinished on the easel; the hand of the artist had failed! An access of a local complaint, under which he had suffered for some time past, added to a general prostration of health, brought Goldsmith back to town before he had ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... Katschuka looked up from his easel, his dark-red chalk drew such a streak across the portrait's brow, that it would be hard for bread-crumbs to get it out, and he rose involuntarily from ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... me one day," said an old painter as he watched a little fellow named Michael Angelo making drawings of pot and brushes, easel and stool, and other articles in the studio. The barefoot boy did persevere until he had overcome every difficulty and become the greatest master of art the world has known. Although Michael Angelo made himself immortal in three different occupations,—and ...
— An Iron Will • Orison Swett Marden
... have been otherwise, and just as good! as if inspirations were made up of parts, and those fluctuating, successive, indifferent! I will never go into the work-shop of any great artist again, nor desire a sight of his picture, till it is fairly off the easel; no, not if Raphael were to be alive again, and painting ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... permitted his tenant to increase the light by extending the windows across the street-side wall. Beyond that, there were as few signs about of the art-trade as Gerald had affectations of the artist. The model-stand supporting books and things appeared like a low table; easel, canvases, portfolios, all the littering properties of a painter, had been shoved for the occasion into the next room, a spacious glory-hole which Giovanna did not permit to become ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... obscure young men of less than modest fortune. He was intent, he was earnest, he was even a bit peremptory; but she felt perfectly certain that he was not treating her as a subject and a subject merely. His black eyes looked at her with a sort of sharp severity across the leg of the easel, and his rasping crayon promptly scratched down his impressions upon the promising blank of his canvas. Preciosa was slightly puzzled, but on the whole pleased. She knew she was worth looking at, and felt herself fit to stand the keenest scrutiny. She leaned ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... from the back room, he brought with him an unframed canvas which he put on an easel near his clay figure. We drew close about it, for the darkness was rapidly coming on. Despite the dullness of the light, we instantly recognized the boy of Hartwell's "Color Sergeant." It was the ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... wall, at the far end. The facing wall has neither window nor door. The plaster on all the walls is uncovered and undecorated, except by scrawlings of charcoal sketches and memoranda. There is a studio throne (a chair on a dais) a little to the left, opposite the inner door, and an easel to the right, opposite the outer door, with a dilapidated chair at it. Near the easel and against the wall is a bare wooden table with bottles and jars of oil and medium, paint-smudged rags, tubes of color, brushes, charcoal, a small ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw
... is the cause of many a failure, making the millionaire of to-day a beggar to-morrow. Show me a really great triumph that is not the reward of persistence. One of the paintings which made Titian famous was on his easel eight years; another, seven. How came popular writers famous? By writing for years without any pay at all; by writing hundreds of pages as mere practise-work; by working like galley-slaves at literature for half a lifetime with ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... camera-picture. I know now why Arthur snatched it from my hand. It was you. You were bending over an engineer's tripod. Even now I should have doubted had I not recalled what you said one day on board, that you had built bridges. Arthur couldn't build anything stronger than an artist's easel. You ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... denizens of the place gave him a vague impression of being engaged in the fine arts. A glimpse of an interior hung with Navajo blankets, Pueblo pottery, Dakota beadwork, and barbaric arms; the sound of a soprano practising Marchesi exercises; an easel seen through an open door and flanked by a Grand Rapids folding-bed with a plaster bust atop; and a pervasive scent of cigarettes, accounted for, and may or may not have justified, the impression. On the fourth floor the scent ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... up a canvas that had been standing till now with its face to the wall, he flourished it triumphantly before my eyes, and placed it on the easel. ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... casement partially darkened, to the bleak north; various sketches on the walls; gaunt specimens of antique furniture, and of gorgeous Italian silks, scattered about in confused disorder; one large picture on its easel curtained; another as large, and half finished, before which stood the painter. He turned quickly, as Kenelm entered the room unannounced, let fall brush and palette, came up to him eagerly, grasped his hand, drooped his head on Kenelm's shoulder, and said, ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... girl's appearance led her to step back, like a painter from his easel, and survey ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... appearance. After a little exposure of this kind, Plantagenet would labour with double energy, until, heaving a deep sigh of exhaustion and vexation, he would burst forth, 'O Lady Annabel, indeed there is not a nominative case in this sentence.' And then Lady Annabel would quit her easel, with her pencil in her hand, and give all her intellect to the puzzling construction; at length, she would say, 'I think, Plantagenet, this must be our nominative case;' and so it ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... in self-defense, not a real desire for work, that I fled to "Waterspin" and screened myself behind easel and canvas. And then it was but to find that I had jumped from the frying-pan ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... Square Top Stool. Folding Blacking Box. Convenient Easel. Hanging Book-rack. Sad Iron Holder. Bookcase. Wood-box. Parallel Bars for Boys' Use. Mission Writing Desk. Screen Frame. Mission Chair. Grandfather's Clock. Knockdown and Adjustable Bookcase. Coal Scuttle Frame or Case. Mission Arm Chair. Dog-house. Settle, With Convenient ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... too long indulged in by literary critics to praise her at the expense of Boucher's "conventionality"; but she never painted a portrait that surpassed the Wallace "Pompadour" or the "Infant Orleans," to say nothing of other rare portraits from Boucher's easel. To set her up in rivalry against one of the greatest decorative artists of the years is but to give her an ugly fall. The astounding part is not that she painted better than she did, but that she ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall
... scrutiny of the hostess he falls dramatically into an attitude of awed entrancement. Reverently he gazes upon the priceless bibelots within: the mother-of-pearl fan, half open; the tiny cup and saucer of Sevres on their brass easel; the miniature Cupid and Psyche in marble; the Japanese wrestlers carved in ivory; the ballet-dancer in bisque; the coral necklace; the souvenir spoon from the Paris Exposition; the jade bracelet; and the silver snuff-box that grandfather carried to the day of his death. If the gazing visitor ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... in tossing o'er his folio's leaves, He chanced upon the picture of the child, Which he had sketched that bright morn long before, And then forgotten. Now, as he paused to gaze, A ray of inspiration seemed to dart Straight from those eyes to his. He took the sketch, Placed it before his easel, and with care That seemed but pleasure, painted a fair theme, Touching and still re-touching each bright lineament, Until all seemed to glow with life divine— 'Twas innocence personified. But still The artist could not pause. He needs must have A ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various |
