Narcisco Virgilio Diaz de la Peña was the noble name of him who, born at Bordeaux in 1807, the son of a Spanish refugee, died at Mentone, November 18, 1876. Left an orphan when very young, he drifted to Paris, and found work, painting on china, in the manufactory at Sèvres. Here he met Dupré, employed like himself; and in their work in other fields it is not fanciful to feel the influence of the delight in rich translucent color, of the tones employed with over-emphasis on the surface of _faïence_. After a bitter acquaintance with poverty, Diaz produced work which brought him great popularity. The earlier pictures were studies in the forest of Fontainebleau, whose venerable tree-trunks, moss-grown; whose lichen-covered rocks, and gleaming pools reflecting the sky, he rendered with force of color and strength of effect. Gradually he began to attempt the figure, which in his hands never attained a higher plane than an assemblage of charming though artificial color; and these little _bouquets_, which superficially imitated Correggio, Da Vinci, or Prud'hon, as the fancy seized the painter, bathed in a color that is undeniably agreeable, were and are to this day loved by the collector. Of a whimsical temperament, Diaz was the life of artist gatherings; and his facility in work, and its popularity, gave him the means of doing many generous acts, the memory of which lives. But of the group of men of his time, he has exercised, perhaps, the least influence. [Illustration: THE STONE-BREAKERS. FROM A PAINTING BY GUSTAVE COURBET. One of Courbet's early pictures, which, when exhibited at the Salon, excited considerable discussion, certain adverse critics finding in it an appeal to the socialistic elements. It represents a scene common in France, where stones are piled by the roadsides, to be broken up for repairing the route.]