of this institution, and, with that object in view, they have purchased
one of the most valuable paintings exhibited at the Royal Academy,
Burlington-house, London, last season, at a cost of over £600. It was
considered wiser to secure one high-class work by a representative artist
than to purchase a number of smaller and less important ones.

The selection of the picture was entrusted to Sir Edward J. Poynter,
president of the Royal Academy, and his choice fell upon Mr. Alfred
Parsons’s painting, entitled “The Green Punt,” a painting which had been
greatly admired by visitors to the Academy, and had been generally
described as one of the best of the season. The work arrived from London
on Monday, and is now on view, although as yet not hung. It is a superb
production, and justifies all the good reports that had preceded it. It
has already been much admired by visitors to the gallery, and will,
doubtless, prove a strong attraction for a long time to come. The artist’s
chief object has been, undoubtedly, the green-hued punt, which is seen
moored in the tranquil shade of a bend in one of the in many backwaters on
the River Thames. The boat is occupied by two devotees of Izaaak Walton,
one, a young fellow bending over his line, the other, an elderly man of a
decidedly rustic type, in the act of waiting for a bite. His crimson float
is seen lazily topping the water. He has one hand thrust in his trousers
pocket, and upon his face is that stoical look associated with confirmed
anglers, when bites are few and catches fewer. In the stern of the punt is
to be seen a tell-tale brown stone bottle. Long, cool shadows fall around
the anglers from the many trees banking the river, and a gentle summer
zephyr has passed over a portion of the river, causing just the faintest
ripple. The depth and clearness of the shadows beneath the trees in the
middle-distance of the picture are splendidly executed. In the immediate
foreground is to be seen a luxuriant growth of herbage, giving to the work
that touch of color necessary for its completion. To the left one catches
a glimpse of an old farm, nestling in the shade of trees, and surrounded
by meadows of a bright-green hue, whereon cattle are grazing. The whole
work is redolent of summertime, and one can almost scent the cowslip and
the honeysuckle and feel the soft breezes that play over the river. The
picture is one that reveals new charms the longer one contemplates it. It
is a work that will greatly add to the attractiveness of the gallery.

NOTES OF THE ARTIST.

Alfred William Parsons, the distinguished painter of “The Green Punt,” was
born at Beckington, in Somersetshire, on December 2, 1847. He was educated
at private schools, and in 1865 entered the civil service as a clerk in
the General Post-office, taking drawing lessons in the evenings at
Heatherley’s studio and the South Kensington Art Schools. In 1867 he left
the civil service, and devoted his time to art, studying from nature,
without masters. He exhibited his first picture in the Royal Academy in
1871, since which time he has been a frequent exhibitor at this famous
gallery. His principal works have been “Fallen,” “The Ending of Summer,”
“The Gathering Swallows,” “The Road to the Farm,” “The First Frost” (which
afterwards obtained a “mention honorable” in the Paris Salon), “The
Gladness of May,” “After Work,” “In a Cider Country,” and “When Nature
Painted All Things Gay,” the last-mentioned painting being purchased by
the Council of the Royal Academy under the terms of the Chantrey bequest.
He was awarded a gold medal for water-color and a silver medal for oil
paintings at the Paris Exposition of 1889, and was successful at the Paris
Exposition of last year, two medals for oil and water-color paintings at
the Chicago International Exhibition of 1893, and a gold medal at the
International Exhibition of Pictures in Munich in the same year. Mr.
Parsons has also been eminently successful in executing illustrations for
magazines, newspapers, and books. He was created an Associate of the Royal
Academy in 1897.