1886; all Europe spoke of it at the time, and it called forth entire bundles of poems, anecdotes, biographies, and romances. From that time he advanced in his career with rapid strides. [Illustration: _Art Annual._ HERKOMER. PORTRAIT OF HIS FATHER. (_By permission of the Artist._)] The University of Oxford appointed him Professor of the Fine Arts. He opened a School of Art, and had etchings, copper engravings, and engravings in mezzotint produced by his pupils under his guidance. He wrote articles in the London papers upon social questions, and political economy, and all manner of subjects, an article signed with Herkomer's name being always capable of creating interest. He has his own theatre, and produces in it operas of which he writes the text and the music, and manages the rehearsals and the scenery, besides playing the leading parts. [Illustration: _Brothers, photo._ HERKOMER. HARD TIMES. (_By permission of the Manchester Art Gallery, the owners of the picture._)] Yet it is just his portraits of women, the foundations of his fame, which do not seem in general to justify entirely the painter's great reputation. Miss Grant was certainly a captivating woman, and she broke men's hearts wherever she made her appearance. People gazed again and again into the brilliant brown eyes with which she looked so composedly before her; they were overwhelmed by her austere and lofty virginal beauty. "The Lady in Black (An American Lady)" made yet a more piquant and spiritualised effect. There was the unopened bud, and here the woman who has had experience of the delights and disappointments of life. There was unapproachable pride, and here a trait of distinction and of suffering, an almost weary carriage of the body. There would certainly be an interesting gallery of beauty if Herkomer unite these "types of women" in a series. But even in the first picture how much of all the admiration excited was due to the painter and how much to the model? The portrait of Miss Grant was such a success primarily because Miss Grant herself was so beautiful. The arrangement of white against white was nothing new: Whistler, a far greater artist, had already painted a "White Girl" in 1863, and it was a much greater work of art, though, on account of the attractiveness of the model being less powerful, it triumphed only in the narrower circle of artists. Bastien-Lepage, who set himself the same problem in his "Sara Bernhardt," had also run through the scale of white with greater sureness. And Herkomer's later pictures of women--"The Lady in Yellow," Lady Helen Fergusson, and others--are even less alluring, considered as works of art. The reserve and evenness of the execution give his portraits a somewhat clotted and stiff appearance. Good modelling and exceedingly vigorous drawing may perhaps ensure great correctness in the counterfeit of the originals, but the life of the picture vanishes