Show TARDY REWARDS OF GENIUS widow and hla greatest paint inc death and tb woodcutter A few days ago writes the paris correspondent of the philadelphia telegraph there passed away from a troublous life the widow of the great artist jean baptiste francois millet it is rather a commentary on the strange ways of this world the fact that the man whose picture tange lus brought so fabulously high a price sold that and many other masterpieces ter pieces for sums ranging from fifty to two hundred dollars apiece and after toiling miserably and hopelessly in the vain effort to earn money enough to keep the wolf from his shabby door suddenly broke down under the strain and died of a malady brought on by anxiety and privation not knowing that his fame would speedily be lauded to alie skies hiis family survived to see the apotheosis of his glory but whether the fact of the angelus bringing at a sale over one hundred thousand dollars consoled the artists widow for the fact that within a week after this amount of money had been paid for her husbands work she herself then in the depths of poverty was ejected from her little house at barbazon barbizon Bar bizon by the foreclosure of a mortgage for two thousand dollars and had it not been for the cli arity of her son in law would have been reduced to begging her bread is an unsolved mystery millet s greatest work remains in paris it is the property I 1 think of ame mme charcot widow of the great physician who inherited it from her father alie celebrated millionaire tailor laurent richard it is called death and the woodcutter the grisly form has laid one bony hand on the bh of the old and weary man bending under his load of wood and the worn hag gard face is raised in absolute ecstasy to meet the summons ona hand is loosening the cord that binds his burden of branches and the other is laid willingly in the welcoming clap cla p of the great consoler it is not an illustration of fontaines La fable it is merely the utter weariness of life of an unsuccessful and wretched man translated and transferred to canvas with the intensity of personal that transforms talent into momentary genius and renders genius transcendent |