THE PICTORIAL WORLD.

THE CHOCOLATE-GIRL.

THIS well-known picture in the Dresden Gallery, is one of the few which will contribute to ensure a lasting reputation to the painter, Liotard of Geneva, commonly called "the Turk," and is undoubtedly one of his happiest productions. The tone is light, and the various shades in the cap, the face, the kerchief, and the dress are in excellent keeping with the still and demure character of the figure. Had the picture been more highly laboured, it would have worn an air of pretension which might have called up opposition in the spectator; but so gently has the artist raised his simple subject, that no visitor passes it by without bestowing upon it some moments of agreeable contemplation, notwithstanding the great masterpieces that surround him on all sides.

In the conceptions of the Italian painters, worked out with all that instinctive feeling of beauty and grandeur which distinguish those wonderful men, we are apt to lose sight of the merits of the execution in the sublimity of moral feeling which they excite: in landscape-painting the diversity of nature, with silver stream and verdant mead, adds its soothing influence to the painter's art; and even in a more circumscribed scene, as in the beautiful picture of the Hermit, by Gerhard Dow; the difference between the deep religious fervour of the solitary, and the indicated glimpses of serene and smiling nature, brings the aid of moral contrast; but in such subjects as in the plate before us, with no adventitious aid from without, where the painter voluntarily imposes upon himself the shackles of conventional life, the question naturally forces itself upon the mind; whence arises this feeling of pleasure, which painting conveys in a degree so much superior to that which we derive from the subject itself in real life? We apprehend that a great part of the interest arises from the totality of the conception; it tells us in one simple figure the ideal history of a whole class. At first sight there may, indeed, seem to be little poetry in the subject; and truly, what there is, is but a moment, as it were, caught up in some daguerotyped idyllic representation of still life, in the midst of the noise and bustle,

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and turmoil of the city. Let the male frequenters of the house form part of the picture, and however masterly be the representation of the painter, the interest inspired by the work is of a coarser nature, and divided, if not frittered away: in the painting before us, a part of woman's destiny is pleasingly and undividedly brought before the mind. Imagine a smart waiter, with his napkin under his arm, moving briskly about, as waiters move about in these quick and unromantic times, and we defy the best painter to give interest to the subject: although we are by habit reconciled to it in daily life, who is there that does not feel that there is something in it the very contrary to every thing that gives interest to art? But woman! it is her nature to minister to man, and whether she does it untiringly in the sick room, or in the grateful services of daily life, she spreads a charm round her by the quiet grace and goodhumoured cheerfulness with which she discharges her allotted duties. Nor are our reflections on contemplating the figure before us disturbed by any necessary allusion to the darker shades that occasionally overshadow the valley of human life. Light and easy is her task; in a few short hours, the labours of the day, if they deserve so heavy a name, are over; it is a kind of holiday work: she can daily enjoy the innocent vanities of dress, so dear to woman's heart, and which the painter has happily given with the spotless cleanliness which doubtless characterized the original; for the few records that we have of this artist, hand down his memory to us as of one that was but little disposed to revel in the flights of fancy or imagination.

Liotard was born at Geneva in the year 1702. His father originally determined to bring him up as a merchant, but some friends of the family, perceiving the genius of the youth, prevailed upon him to allow his son to devote himself to the arts. He went to Paris, and seems soon to have attracted the attention of the nobility of several countries. In 1738 he accompanied the Marquiss de Puisieux, the French ambassador, to the court of Naples, as far as Rome. In this latter city, he enjoyed the patronage of the Earl of Sandwich, and of Lord Duncannon, afterwards Earl of Besborough, with whom Liotard went to Constantinople. His usual good fortune attended him, and Sir Everard Fawkener, the English ambassador at Constantinople, persuaded him to come to England. He was most probably a man of agreeable manners, or he could hardly have been so uniformly successful in his intercourse with the great. He remained in England two years, retaining the Oriental dress which he had adopted, and appearing in public with a long beard. It gave great effect to his portraits of himself; and if he wore it for this reason, he indulged his own vanity more than he did that of his customers, but he seems to have known the value of eccentricity. On returning to the continent he married a wife much younger than himself, who persuaded him to sacrifice his beard. He repeated his visit to England in 1772, and made a considerable profit by a sale of pictures by different masters, and by the extravagant prices which he demanded for some paint

ings on glass by himself, with extraordinary effects of light and shade, although this was not produced by pure artistic means, as these effects could only be brought out by darkening the room in which they were exhibited. As a portrait painter, he was highly esteemed, and several crowned heads sat to him. He painted beautifully in miniature and in enamel; although he seldom practised this last branch of art. But it is by his works in crayons that he is most distinguished. The high rank of the persons who introduced him, procured him many sitters, but his customers gradually fell off in the second year, for "his likenesses were as exact as possible, and too like to please those who sat to him. Devoid of imagination, he could render nothing but what he saw before his eyes. Freckles, marks of the small-pox, everything found its place; not so much from fidelity as because he could not conceive the absence of anything that appeared to him. Truth prevailed in all his works, grace in very few, or none. Nor was there any ease in his outline, but the stiffness of a bust, in all his portraits." Such was the judgment of a cotemporary, severe and probably sarcastic, which at least will hardly be borne out by his picture of the Chocolate-Girl,

MERKENSTEIN.

AUSTRIA is rich in romantic ruins, and among these, Merkenstein is entitled to a distinguished place. It is situated to the south-west of Vienna, beyond Baden and Grossan, in a beautiful country; but its chief interest arises from its associations with the olden time. After passing through the forest which covers the ascent, the visitor enters the castle through a colossal gate, built in the rock, which gives im posing evidence of the former strength of the building, the greater part of which is still accessible. The chapel and the great cistern are in the best state of preservation, and the remains of the fortifications may still be traced beyond the road, and extending to the other side of the mountain.

The name of the family from whom the castle took its name, occurs as early as the twelfth century; but since the fourteenth, it has frequently changed masters, and has recently been given by the emperor to the Count of Münch-Bellinghausen. In the war between Austria, and Matthias Corvinus, John of Hohenberg, a partisan of the latter, defended it against the imperial troops, until he was relieved by King Matthias. In the terrible war between Austria and Turkey, in the year 1683, a brave soldier, whose name, unfortunately, history has not preserved, defended the castle with two hundred men for nearly a month, against fifteen thousand Turks,