Page:The Etchings of Charles Meryon.djvu/15

 ton Fine Arts Club, to which the Rev. J. J. Heywood was the largest contributor. Much later, in 1902, an important exhibition was held by Messrs. Obach & Co., while Messrs. P. and D. Colnaghi & Co., arranged another very fine Meryon exhibition in 1919. The British Museum, fortunately, owes to the foresight of a former Keeper of Prints the early formation of a magnificent, though not complete, collection of Meryon, to which additions are still occasionally made, though they must needs be few now that a further stage in the migration of fine proofs is in progress and not the Channel only, but the Atlantic, parts them from their pays d'origine. The National Gallery of Scotland is fortunate in having obtained, by the gift of Mrs. G. R. Halkett, a small selection of very fine proofs of Meryon etchings, but Edinburgh's gain is far less than was Glasgow's loss by the sale, in 1916, of the collection of Mr. B. B. Macgeorge, which was undoubtedly the most complete work of Meryon ever brought together, containing, as it did, not merely almost every etching by the master in almost every state, but also a large number of his original drawings for the etchings of Paris. The year 1916 was an unfavourable time for acquiring such a valuable œuvre for any national or municipal museum, and the Macgeorge collection went to America and was dispersed, only a small number of proofs remaining in, or returning to, this country, where, I suppose, no one collection of importance still remains except that of the British Museum. A Meryon exhibition is being held at the Museum this autumn to celebrate the centenary of the artist's birth.

EARLY LIFE

The story of Meryon's life has often been told, but those who do not know it may welcome a brief recapitulation of it here, and indeed some such narrative is needed for the comprehension of his work, which becomes much more interesting when something is known of the period and circumstances in which it was produced. Meryon was born in Paris on November