In Bohemia with Du Maurier | Page 3

that one merely headed:
"Dusseldorf, 19th Cent." Well, in 1857, then, let us take it, the Antwerp
Academy was under the direction of De Keyser, that most urbane of
men and painters. Van Lerius, well known to many American and
English lovers of art, her Majesty included, was professor of the
Painting Class, and amongst the students there were many who rapidly
made themselves a name, as Tadema, M. Maris, Neuhuys, Heyermans,
and the armless artist, whose foot-painted copies after the Masters at
the Antwerp Gallery are well known to every tourist. The teaching was
of a sound, practical nature, strongly imbued with the tendencies of the
colourist school. Antwerp ever sought to uphold the traditions of a
great Past; in the atelier Gleyre you might have studied form and learnt
to fill it with colour, but here you would be taught to manipulate colour,
and to limit it by form. A peculiar kind of artistic kicks and cuffs were
administered to the student by Van Lerius as he went his rounds. "That
is a charming bit of colour you have painted in that forehead," he said
to me on one occasion--"so delicate and refined. Do it again," he added,
as he took up my palette knife and scraped off the "delicate bit." "Ah,
you see, _savez vous_, you can't do it again; you got it by fluke, some
stray tints off your palette, _savez vous_," and, taking the biggest brush
I had, he swept over that palette and produced enough of the desired
tints to have covered a dozen foreheads.
The comrade without arms was a most assiduous worker; it was
amusing to watch his mittened feet step out of their shoes and at the
shortest notice proceed to do duty as hands; his nimble toes would
screw and unscrew the tops of the colour tubes or handle the brush as
steadily as the best and deftest of fingers could have done. Very much
unlike any of us, he was most punctilious in the care he bestowed on
his paint box, as also on his personal appearance. Maris, Neuhuys,
Heyermans, and one or two others equally gifted, but whose thread of
life was soon to be cut short, were painting splendid studies, some of
which I was fortunate enough to rescue from destruction and have
happily preserved.
Quite worthy to be placed next to these are Van-der-something's studies.

That (or something like that) was the name of a wiry, active little man
who in those days painted in a garret; there everything was disarranged
chaotically, mostly on the floor, for there was no furniture that I can
recollect beyond a stool, an easel, and a fine old looking-glass. He had
a house, though, and a wife, in marked contrast with his appearance and
the garret. The house was not badly appointed, and she was lavishly
endowed with an exuberance of charms and graces characteristic of a
Rubens model.
A fellow-student of mine was their lodger, a handsome young German,
brimful of talent, but sadly deficient in health. He had always held most
rigid principles on questions of morality, but unfortunately they failed
one day in their application, owing to the less settled views entertained
by Madame Van-der-something on such subjects. She certainly gave
him much affection on the one hand, but on the other she so
audaciously appropriated those of his goods and chattels that could be
turned into money, that the police had to intervene, and she eventually
found herself before a judge and jury. There, however, she managed so
well to cast all responsibility on her husband, who, to this day, I believe
was quite innocent, that--"cherchez la femme"--she got off, and he was
sentenced to a term of imprisonment.
Now if Van Ostade or Teniers had risen to prosecute him for forging
their signatures, and he had been found guilty and condemned to severe
punishment, it would have served him right. He was a perfect gem of a
forger. He picked up a stock of those dirty old pictures painted on
worm-eaten panels that used to abound in the sale-rooms of Antwerp.
On these he would paint what might be called replicas with variations,
cribbing left and right from old mildewed prints that were scattered all
about the floor. He would scrape and scumble, brighten and deaden
with oils and varnishes; he would dodge and manipulate till his picture,
after a given time spent in a damp cellar, would emerge as a genuine
old master. I once asked a dealer whom I knew to be a regular customer
of his, at what price he sold one of those productions. "I really can't
say," he answered; "I only do wholesale business. I buy for exportation
to England and America." If any of my friends here or over there