The difficulties in the way of elaborating these new conceptions, and the studies of anatomy necessary for the attainment of excellence in delineating the form, excluded women in a great measure from the pursuit. Gervinus remarks that women are fond of realizing new ideas; but they are those, for the most part, which are readily brought into use in common life, and which require no persevering study to reduce them to practice. Even the triumphs of literary talent in that toilsome age owed much to the patronage of the great. We find many ladies of high rank seeking the muses’ favor by the royal road to eminence. Notwithstanding the paucity of women artists, we discover at least one representing each prominent school of painting--Flemish, Italian, and German. MARGARETTA VON EYCK. First among these, Margaretta von Eyck deserves mention. She was the sister of Hubert and John von Eyck, who were distinguished not only for enlarged apprehensions of art, but for the discovery and introduction of oil-painting. While these men were, by their works, preparing the way for an important revolution in the method of painting, Margaretta occupied herself chiefly in painting miniatures. She worked under the patronage of the magnificent and liberal court of Burgundy, and her fame extended even to the countries of the romantic south. It is an interesting sight, this modest woman-work beside the more important enterprises of the gifted brothers, making itself appreciated so as to furnish an example for all time. Sometimes the sister worked with the brother in the decoration of costly manuscripts. One of the finest monuments of their united skill was the breviary--now in the imperial library at Paris--of that Duke of Bedford who, in 1423, married the sister of Philip the Good. Margaretta’s miniatures were preserved also in manuscript romances of the period. One of the earliest historians of Flemish art, Carl von Mander, calls her a “gifted Minerva,” and informs us that she spurned the acquaintance of “Hymen and Lucina,” and lived out her days in single blessedness. ANOTHER MARGARETTA. As in Margaretta von Eyck the grand efforts of Flemish art found expression modified by a feminine nature, so had those of the school in Nuremberg through the labors of another Margaretta--a nun from 1459 to 1470 in the Carthusian Convent, where she copied and illuminated religious works. Eight folio volumes were filled by her indefatigable hands with Gothic letters and pictures in miniature, presenting a curious specimen of the blending of the art of the scribe with that of the painter, so common in the Middle Ages. CATERINA VIGRI.