I The Chauchard Collection By Edward Verrall Lucas N writing about Paris a few years ago I complained with some cockney bitterness that she was too rich in objets d'art. She had not only the Louvre but the Luxembourg, not only the Cluny but the Carnavalet, and so forth. She is richer now; for now she has the Chauchard pictures. That is to say, to the Louvre have just been added one hundred pic tures of inestimable worth, by Millet, Corot, Daubigny, and others of the Barbizon school, together with twenty-six of the finest Meissoniers; so that in this one building you may now visit four distinct sets of Barbizon paintings: (1) those in the Musée proper, acquired from the annual Salons or the artists' studios as they were painted, now hanging in Salle VIII (but a little difficult to appreciate fully, so crowded are they by neighboring works); (2) those contained in the Moreau Collection; (3) those contained in the Thomy-Thierret Collection; and now (4) those bequeathed by M. Chauchard and thrown open to the public in December of last year. The total is some hundreds, and there is hardly a picture among them which, isolated, would not cast its spell. Some hundreds-perhaps a thousandin all; while in London, until George Salting died in 1910 and left his pictures to the nation, the National Gallery had no Corot of its own, no Daubigny, no Millet. |