For an artist to marry his model
is as fatal as for a GOURMET to marry his cook: the one gets no
sittings, and the other gets no dinners.
On the whole the English female models are very naive, very
natural, and very good-humoured. The virtues which the artist
values most in them are prettiness and punctuality. Every sensible
model consequently keeps a diary of her engagements, and dresses
neatly. The bad season is, of course, the summer, when the artists
are out of town. However, of late years some artists have engaged
their models to follow them, and the wife of one of our most
charming painters has often had three or four models under her
charge in the country, so that the work of her husband and his
friends should not be interrupted. In France the models migrate EN
MASSE to the little seaport villages or forest hamlets where the
painters congregate. The English models, however, wait patiently
in London, as a rule, till the artists come back. Nearly all of
them live with their parents, and help to support the house. They
have every qualification for being immortalised in art except that
of beautiful hands. The hands of the English model are nearly
always coarse and red.
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