and parcel of Mr. Wenzell's personages. We can be very certain that his figures are at all times naturally occupied. Their ways are tinctured with the expected affectation of consciously beautiful women and consciously clever men; but they do not bring to mind the professional posturers of the studio, who are graceful (in their hired robes) at fifty cents per hour.

Mr. Wenzell may be most aptly described as a conscientious historian of American polite society; a chronicler who fixes facts with pigment and draughting pen. He is a reflector of drawing-room episodes, trifling perhaps in the light of intrinsic meaning, but wholly agreeable in their sparkling execution, in their suggestiveness of gayety and good living; in their effect of many colors conjured from a simple palette of black and white.

Schooled in Munich,
Mr. Wenzell is nat-
urally prone to solid
methods of brush
manipulation. He
has apparently rid
himself of the less
commendable traits
of German art and
teaching, and holds
to that which may be
logically proven
good. There is
more gladness in
his heart over the
successful drawing
of a woman's back
hair, the rigidly creased trousers of a carpet
knight, a Renaissance scroll or a Louis XV.
screen, than in the making of twenty lofty
themes foreign to his accepted sphere of art.
It gives Mr. Wenzell an exquisite pleasure to
note the sheen of a silken skirt, the curve of a
well-proportioned arm, the soft, white shoulders
of a healthy woman, and the mirrored blaze of
a hundred waxen candles. There is a sort of
ravishment for him in gilt-legged chairs and
silver-ornamented divans; his fondness for the
long thin shadows thrown on highly polished
floors asserts itself continually. His drawings
are like pictured panels ingeniously inlaid with
jewels.

"A PHILOSOPHER FROM RURALVILLE."

Personally considered, Albert B. Wenzell is

He is somewhat

frank in manner, courteous, considerate, and broad-minded. above the medium stature, has the bearing of a man of the world, is on the Mr. Wenzell was born in sunny side of thirty, and lives in Flushing, L. I. Detroit, Mich., and left there at an early age to study under various masters in Munich. His most notable work has graced the pages of Life, though many recent and very excellent drawings have appeared in The Century, The Cosmopolitan, and Godey's Magazine.

Interrogating nature at every stroke, recording the brighter realities of easy life, indefatigably courting the true, the bright, and the graceful, it is not to be questioned that his work has vastly influenced the man and formed his thought to a cordial way of viewing things. Despite the fact that Mr. Wenzell works almost entirely in monochrome, his color sense is deeply developed. Of late many of the brilliant pictures of this artist seen in the magazines have been re

"AN UNFINISHED POSE."

produced from colored originals. As an illustrator Mr. Wenzell is highly distinguished, and this distinction has come through painstaking, thoughtful effort. This offers rare encouragement for his future as a painter pure and simple. As it is, Albert B. Wenzell is an artist to whom we may confidently look for the upholdment of the best principles and highest aims of the illustrators' ever-enlarging profession, and one in whom those. who recognize art as an essential factor of life find many just reasons for pride.

With a style which, if not absolutely unique, is, however, wholly of himself, and a future prospect in his art that might reasonably be coveted by many of his confrères, Mr. Wenzell is advanced well along that great highway which leads to the city of success.

"LISTENING."

THE ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE QUARTER.

BY GEORGE WHARTON EDWARDS.

66

"I KNOW," said Steele in the Spectator, a way to be greater than any man. If he has worth in him I can rejoice in his superiority to me, and that satisfaction is a greater act of the soul in me, than any in him which can possibly appear to me." This thought could proceed but from a candid and generous spirit, and is for one to emulate in this paper. To which, since I am got into quotation, give me leave to add the saying of another old philosopher, who, after having invited some of his friends to dine with him, was ruffled by his wife, who came into the room in a passion and threw over the table with its feast. "Everyone," says he, "has his calamity, and he is a happy man who has no greater than this." Now, while this may not be apropos of the writing of this little essay, let me get about the business of it without more ado and without any affectation of being wiser than my fellows.

Technically considered, the "guache" drawings of Jo Pennell in the December Century, illustrating his talented wife's paper "To Gipsyland," are of much interest to the artist. They seem to have been done with much ease and bravura,

but when studied closely one is forced to the conclusion that the detail of the grouping is photographic. However

this may be, they are successful as far as they go, and remarkably so coming from an artist whom one is accustomed to associate with architectural work and landscape.

Robert Blum, now returned from two years among the Japanese, appears to advantage in a fine drawing of Ristori (1880), interpreted by T. Cole, The Century's master engraver, and there are characteristic examples of the work of Albert E. Sterner, whose technic has lately evolved a most charming quality all his own. W. T. Smedley in a full page reproduced by process, and Irving R. Wiles has a well-characterized "Choir "; F. V. Dumond, "A Madonna"; Abbot H. Thayer, a "Virgin Enthroned"; F. W. Mielatz and T. R. Manley (a new name to us),

Drawn by W. A. McCullough.

"A CALLER."

From Life.