Page:Pen And Pencil Sketches - Volume I.djvu/130

84 Hung in a corner of the lecture- room, it was looked on coldly by his confreres on the varnishing-days, and few, if any, had a word of compliment or congratula- tion. Private-view day arrived and ended without the picture being sold. W. Agnew could not see his way to become the purchaser — size and subject were against its saleability. It was emphatically a “gallery picture,” very low in tone, the only light being the face of the prisoner at the bar, with so terrible an expression, like that of some hunted wild animal brought to bay — it haunted one's memory, and was scarcely a subject to appeal to the average picture-buyer. On turning the picture round to the light, we found that poor Walker had, in a fit of anger and mortification, obliterated the head, not by merely painting it out, but by rubbing it with pumice-stone to the actual canvas, till only a few dark blurred spots were left to show where the shadows of the brow and mouth had been. With the inspection of this work our mournful task came to an end, and we came away.

The picture was kept for many years by the executors, who were irresolute in coming to any conclusion as to what should be done with it. They at length persuaded R.W. Macbeth, A.R.A., whose admirable etchings from Walker’s works are known to every one, to repaint the head, which he did (partly aided by a little oil replica exhibited in the