Page:Women in the Fine Arts From the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentiet.djvu/262

Rh exhibited. Her portrait of Ellen Terry, which hangs in the Lyceum Theatre, was at the Academy in 1883. It is in the costume of Portia. Mrs. Jopling's pastels are of an unusual quality, delicate, strong, and brilliant. Her portraits are numerous, and from time to time she has also executed figure subjects.

Of late years Mrs. Jopling has been much occupied with a School of Painting. The large number of pupils who wished to study with her made a school the best means of teaching them, and has been successful. From the beginning they draw from life, and at the same time they also study from the antique.

Many of her pupils receive good prices for their works, and also earn large sums for their portraits in black and white. Mrs. Jopling writes: "What I know I chiefly learned alone. Hard work and the genius that comes from infinite pains, the eye to see nature, the heart to feel nature, and the courage to follow nature—these are the best qualifications for the artist who would succeed."

In the Art Journal, July, 1874, I read: "’The Five-o’Clock Tea' is the largest and most important design we have seen from Mrs. Jopling’s hand, and in the disposition of the various figures and the management of color it certainly exhibits very remarkable technical gifts. Especially do we notice in this lady's work a correct understanding of the laws of tone, very rare to find in the works of English painters, giving the artist power to bring different tints, even if they are not harmonious, into right relations with one another."