THE PERTH ART GALLERY.—The Perth Art Gallery will shortly be enriched by some half-dozen paintings by artists of considerable repute in the world of art. The task of choosing these works was entrusted to Mr. George Clausen, himself an associate of the Royal Academy. Several of the pictures selected were among the exhibits of the Academy this year. The purchases include the following :—
“ In the Meadows,” by Mark Fisher, size 30 x 24;
“Yacht Racing in the Solent,” size 30 x 24, by P. Wilson Steer;
“The Freeholder,” size 28 x 24, by James Charles;
“Afternoon in the Meadows,” size 36 x 24, by T. Sidney Cooper, R.A.;
“A Summer Morning,” about 36 x 42, by H. H. La Thangue; and
“ Loading Barges on the East Coast,” size 51 x 20, by Charles W. Wyllie.
Mr. George Clausen, A.R.A., has also been commissioned to produce a work specially for the West Australian gallery. Mr. Clausen describes Mr. La Thangue’s work as very beautiful and adds that “this artist is the outsider who has made the greatest advance this year, and he will most probably be elected into the Royal Academy at the next vacancy. His picture is of two children, a boy and girl, fishing in a boat. The Sydney people were, I believe, after it, but I was first.”
Concluding his letter to the chairman of the Selection Committee in Perth, Mr. Clausen observes— “I have tried to the best of my judgment to get works that are good in painting and artistic qualities, and that have also sufficient interest from the point of view of subject to have some attraction for the public. I think it is necessary for a picture (especially in a public gallery) that it should not appeal to the painter alone. I hope the selection will be liked and help to educate some of our young artists. It has been a great pleasure to me to make this choice, and I must thank you again for having given me the opportunity The Agent-General in London (Sir Malcolm Fraser) has arranged for the safe despatch of the pictures to the colony, and they should arrive in the course of a month or so at the latest.”
[Note: —The following article on the Perth Museum is appended to the above but its source and date are unknown].
PERTH MUSEUM—The curator of the Perth Museum requests us to announce that the cast of “The Moabite Stone,” received from Messrs. Brucciani and Co., is now on view. This black basalt monument was found by the Rev. F. Klein in 1868 at Dibhan, Moab, and gives a history of the defeat of Jehoram, King of Israel, King of Moab, who describes how he conquered many cities and carried out various irrigation works etc., by means of the labor [sic] of captive Israelites, B.C. 895. The account given in II. Kings, chap. iii., concludes with this statement, that the Israelites “returned to their own land,” for as usual the conquered omit unpleasant details, while the conqueror makes the most of the victory.
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