Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 June 1876 — Why Great Prices Are Paid for Pietures. [ARTICLE]

Why Great Prices Are Paid for Pietures.

People, while admiring a fine picture, or while marveling at the price paid for a chef-d'autre, are apt to lose sight of the cost of the production to the artist,. They marvel at the $60,000 paid to Meissonier for his “ Battle of Friedland,” and they lose sight of the ten years of toil, the money paid for costumes, for the hire of models, the time spent in historical researches, etc. Then the ordinary expenses of an artist are by no means trifling. The antique carved furniture, Venetian glass, ancient tapestry and old costumes .used in paiuting certain historical pictures, are extremely valuable. The accessories of the studios of Vibert or Castiglione, for instance, are worth no less than $5,000 each, at a moderate computation, and at European prices. Even the colors are, in certain very costly. Then comes the question of framing. The frame of a moderate sized picture may cost anywhere from |4O to S2OO. Gustave Dore' is said to have paid $«00 for a frame for one of his colossal compositions. And, moreover, in these days of keen competition, a painter, especially it devoted to landscape, cannot sit quietly down and evolve things out of the -dei>ths of his moral consciousness. He must -travel, he .must study Nature in all the varred- aspects that he wishes to represent, and these journeys cost money. As for; sculptors, they are •till worse off as regards expense. To

than $1,200 for each statue, the carvers that copy the clay model in marHe, and turn over the statue to the sculptor all read/ to receive the finishing touches, being paid some SSOO for every one tha» they undertake. The block of marble for a life-sized statue costs about $250, nor can the artist ever tell how his stone is going to turn out. It may be of the finest qnality, and as white as the driven snow entside, yet may contain hidden flaws and stains that will be only too apparent on the surface of his statue. Years ago I heard of a young sculptor in Rome who had expended all his time, his talent and his means in the production of a female figure, on which he founded all his hopes of success and of future fame. It came from the hands of the carver fair as his fancy had pictured it, but with a broad, black vein extending from the parting of the hair to the tip of the nose. The young man cast one look at the disfigured face that represented the ruin of his hopes, turned away, retired to an inner chamber,, and there committed suicide. — Appletone'' Journal.