UNCLE TOM IN PAINTING AND STATUARY.It should be noted, among the favorable signs of the times, that artists, of all grades, now find it not only a congenial, but a remunerative work to represent the creations of Mrs. Stowe's genius in pictures and statues. The people of Boston, and of large towns generally, have long been accustomed to see Uncle Toms, Evas, and Topsys without number, in engravings of various degrees of merit and price. Lately, they have been represented in beautiful and spirited engravings printed in oil colors, by Baxter, or some of his imitators; and now I find not only large engraved heads, in the finest style of Parisian mezzotint, one of Uncle Tom, life-size, and another of Eva and Topsy, but a group in real bronze, showing Eva putting the wreath of jessamines around Tom's neck, and separate statuettes of George Harris, and Eliza and her child. I infer, from seeing these elegant and expensive works in the shop windows with Paul and Virginia, Little Nell and Undine, not only that the general heart of humanity has been touched by them as by their predecessors, but that they have an established market value, and that people of wealth and taste now begin to seek such works as the ornaments of their parlors and chambers.— C.K.W. |