Page:The illustrators of Montmartre.pdf/89



treated frankly as sketches and nothing more. Yet how amply complete is such a drawing as that of the little powdered "cocotte" in the black hat receiving the last touches to her toilette from her maid, while her vicious, bony, mother waits impatiently to hurry her off to the evening's rendez-vous. Another fine drawing culled from the same source introduces us to a squat lady sculptor, modelling from a beautiful nude female model, The shapeless sculptor cries out, "There! you're posing so badly that I shall have to finish it from myself — before the glass."

An exhibition of Forain's work, which was held on the Eiffel Tower in 1890 or 1891, under the auspices of the Courrier Français, achieved for the artist a great success; although he had a terrible struggle at the outset of his career, even at one time appealing to Renouard to get him a job to draw anything, — "anything, fashion plates, or never mind whatsoever."

Forain is yet another past habitué of the Montmartre "Café des Hydropathes" (which later developed into the "Chat Noir") who has achieved fame and riches. He now lives in a splendid mansion in one of the most fashionable quarters of Paris, immersed as ever in his studies, and taking up sculpture as a relaxation, He works in a vast, untidy studio amidst an astounding litter of studies and papers, from which he but occasionally tears himself for a rapid spin in his beloved motor-car,