A hundred and fifty Carrières! Who could pride himself on possessing such a treasure? One would have to be an American multi-millionaire to enjoy such an æsthetic satisfaction as that. Now it is within the reach of every well-to-do individual. The 150 reproductions comprise about the whole of the great artist’s life-work up to now. They disclose to every beholder, who is of good faith and possesses a sensibility for the beauties of painting, the key to the law of art which Carrière laid down for himself. They render it possible to follow the course of his development, which, at the beginning, is hesitating, then becomes decided and weighty, and carries the artist from the school to mastership, from tradition to uncompromising individuality. Eugène Carrière was born on 17th January 1849, in the village of Gournay (Seine-et-Marne). His father was a Fleming from the north of France; his mother an Alsatian. His appearance corresponds to this probably pure Germanic origin. He is a big, broad man with strong bones and portly stoutness; white-skinned, blue-eyed, and fair-haired; slow of speech, thoughtful and reserved in his movements; dreamy when listening, unintrusive when silent, raising his voice little when saying modest, sensible words about things which he understands. He was still a child when his parents settled in the mother’s home. He grew up in Strassburg, and was intended for an artisan. When he was eighteen he went to St Quentin, and had an opportunity of seeing the La Tours in the museum there. His talent was kindled by this unsurpassed, perhaps unequalled master. The beautiful crayon faces of La Tour taught him to feel the velvety splendour of youthful human skin, and meditate on the mystery of the artistic creation of plastic effects through merely intensifying or subduing the play of light. He began to draw and paint eagerly, and aroused sufficient belief in his vocation to be sent to Paris to the Academy of Art. What it offered him was practically nothing. Drawing copies of plaster models chilled him; even the professional life-model in the prescribed studied attitudes seemed to him futile and absurd. What meaning for him had this comedy of gladiatorial positions, ostentatious muscular development, clownish distortions expressive of no natural feeling or rational purpose, in which no human being would, if left to himself, indulge, and which, often enough, the body can assume and retain only by the artificial help of rests and props? What he longed for was life, warm life, such as pulsates in men of strong feelings, and is expressed by them in a straightforward, convincing way by looks and gestures.