His _début_ before the public was with a portrait called “La Femme Rose” about the year ’68. This picture created an immediate effect upon the critic and public, and the artist, scarcely more than a boy, found himself the success of the moment. The following year he took the Prix de Rome, which recognition instead of coming to him--as it did to most of the student world--a stimulus and a reward, broke in--as it were--success upon success! In order to avail himself of the privilege, the prize offered, he was obliged to leave behind him the opening of a career already promising and to journey to Italy. The period of his Italian sojourn was neither productive nor important; and he afterwards made a stay in London, where he found himself sympathetic with English people and their art. He painted several portraits whilst in England, and amongst them those of Admiral Sir Redmond Cameron and Sir Bartle Frere. The pictures exhibited at the Salons following his [Illustration: THE SICK WOMAN] success with “La Femme Rose” were “L’homme qui court après la Fortune” and “Procession des Seigneurs de Voilans,” a decorative bit of painting done, as is evident, in his extreme youth, full of movement and sincerity and novelty, and indicative of his power as future decorator. This picture is to-day on the walls of his studio in Paris. Then followed “Une Source,” “St. Benoit et Enfant,” and a large canvas “Après la Défaite.” In 1883 a portrait called “La Femme jaune et bleue” caused an artistic furore and recalled the enthusiasm with which his _début_ had been received a few years before. The picture was not a portrait, it was a study of lights. Besnard is not, strictly speaking, a portrait painter, and this production, “La Femme jaune et bleue,” rather than the faithful transcription of a likeness, is the skilful, masterly treatment of a scheme. Never was Besnard able to reproduce for the people--who at once flocked to give him orders for portraits--the effects which had so strikingly won their notice. In the portrait of “La Femme jaune et bleue” he has insisted upon the effects of _deux rayons_--the light of an interior and the delicate illumination of the twilight entering from without. In this blending of tones, the azure luminescence of twilight and the yellow lamplight, stands the woman’s figure. The public to whom the picture was enthralling did not perhaps comprehend it was the rendering of an idea, the peculiar vision of Besnard, or understand that therein lay its distinction and that it was not a study of portraiture.