Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 10.djvu/12

 Jo/ni Rand.

��workman and very industrious, yet he could not manage business. In less than three years he found him- self hopelessly in debt. His shop passed into other hands, and he grad- ually turned to what proved to be the great work of his life — portrait paint- ing. While he was an apprentice, there came into the neighborhood a man by the name of Morse, the same who afterwards became so distin- guished as the inventor of the mag- netic telegraph. He had studied un- der West, in Europe. While Morse never excelled as a portrait painter, yet he awakened in Mr. Rand the idea which had before lain dormant, — that of becoming an artist in the depart- ment of portrait painting. From this time, every leisure moment and much thought were given to this favorite and chosen pursuit of his life. The writer well recollects having heard Mr. Rand say, " I am willing to give my life to be a painter."

After remaining a few years in the country, and dividing his time be- tween portrait and ornamental and sign painting, perhaps because the latter was more immediatel}' remuner- ative, he went to Boston and opened a studio on Cornhill. Having re- mained there for some years, bending all his energies to the one purpose of his life, he travelled into the Southern states, everywhere prosecuting his work.

Having arrived at a good degree of proficiency in his chosen profession, he sailed for Europe, where, for twelve years, mostly in London, though for a time in Paris, he contin- ued with enthusiasm both the study and the practice of his art, until he had arrived at such a degree of per-

��fection that he had few living supe- riors.

During his residence in Europe, perhaps on the principle that neces- sity is the mother of invention, his attention was called to the manner in which pigments were preserved. The first we learn of such preparation, the paints when ground in oil were tied up in small parcels of prepared blad- der, or something that would exclude the air. Afterwards tinfoil was used in the form of a tube. This was an improvement : still the paints, as soon as opened, would begin to dry, and thus inconvenience and waste were the result. Mr. Rand, feeling the need of a better mode of preserv- ing artists' colors, gave thought to the subject ; and the tube fastened with a screw, now in common use on both sides of the Atlantic, was the result. Few artists of our day, as they mix their colors on the palette, are aware to whom they are indebted for this very great convenience. Mr. Rand secured a patent for his inven- tion in England ; I think also in France and America. For a time he received quite a royalty for the use of his invention, enough to have made him independent ; but, alas ! he could not escape the fatality which attends so many men whose inven- tions have blest the world. At the time when his patent was fast secur- ing the patronage of artists, and he was receiving a fair remuneration for its use, a man from America, with letters of introduction, appeared at his studio in London. He came to introduce and sell a recent invention of his, known as the teolian attach- ment to the pianoforte. He had sold the patent in America for one hun-

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