We now enter upon the present period of woman's artistic life, the active period, let us call it. We no longer trouble about her place at our exhibitions, since she has nowadays her own exhibition, or rather exhibitions proper to herself. Among the many youthful _amateurs_ who constitute the bulk of feminine artists, one finds a number of true artists. To name a few: Mademoiselle Louise Abbéma, Madame Madeleine Lemaire, Madame Nanny Adam, Mlle. Fiérard, Mme. Vallet-Bisson, Madame Chatrousse, Madame Darmesteter, Mme. Delacroix-Garnier, Mme. Baury-Saurel, and many others, as this book proves. Several women-artists have won their place in the National Museum, wherein first rank is held, after Rosa Bonheur and Mme. Demont-Breton, by Madame Marie Cazin, painter and sculptor, Madame Victoria Dubourg (widow of Fantin-Latour), Mlle. Dufau, who has just been commissioned to execute some important decorations for the Sorbonne, Mlle. Delasalle, Mlle. Marie Gautier, Señora Eva Gonzalès, and a couple of semi-naturalised foreigners, Miss Mary Cassatt, an American, and Mlle. Breslau, a Swiss--both dames of the Legion of Honour. To conclude, women are proving just now not only that the domain of art should be open to them as freely as it is to men, on the grounds of right and reason, but also that they are specially gifted by their delicate sensitiveness, their quickness of comprehension, their initiative faculty, and lastly, by all the phases of their natural temperament, and by their intelligence to endow art with the elements of expression and beauty proper to womankind. LÉONCE BÉNÉDITE. [Illustration: FRENCH SCHOOL, 1768-1826 PORTRAIT OF MARIE PAULINE, PRINCESSE BORGHESE. AFTER THE PAINTING AT VERSAILLES, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY NEWIDEIN, PARIS Madame Marie Guilhelmine Benoits, Painter 1768-1826] [Illustration: FRENCH SCHOOL, XVII AND XVIII CENTURIES PORTRAIT OF MADAME VICTOIRE DE FRANCE. AFTER THE ORIGINAL PAINTING AT VERSAILLES, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY BRAUN CLEMENT AND CO., PARIS Madame Guyard, née Labille des Vertus, Painter 1749-1803] [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF MARIE DE RABUTIN-CHANTAL, MARQUISE DE SÉVIGNÉ (1626-1696) AFTER THE ORIGINAL PAINTING AT VERSAILLES, FROM A COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH BY NEWIDEIN, PARIS Mademoiselle de Vanteuil, Painter 17th Century] [Illustration: FRENCH SCHOOL, XVIII CENTURY THE SONS OF CHARLES X. OF FRANCE. AFTER AN ORIGINAL PICTURE IN THE MUSÉE DE VERSAILLES, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY NEWIDEIN, PARIS Madame Anna Rosalie Filleul, née Bocquet, Painter Died 1794] [Illustration: FRENCH SCHOOL, XVIII CENTURY PORTRAIT OF THE DUC D'ANGOULÊME, SON OF CHARLES X FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY BRAUN, CLÉMENT & CO., PARIS, AFTER AN ORIGINAL PASTEL AT VERSAILLES Madame Filleul, née Bocquet, Pastellist Died 1794]