The Lament of Edwin Austin Abbey
“It is only natural for an author to suppose or assume that the article illustrated is, as a rule, better than the illustrations. Of course there are two opinions as to this…but I am not sure that a temperate mind, able to judge of both, would not admit that it was an open question….Take the case again of the historical picture! If the right man… is found, one who knows, say, the period of the middle of the seventeenth century, in Holland for instance, he would have to work upon, possibly a subject like this: “The officer, entering suddenly, discovered the family quietly seated at their midday meal” Nothing is said of the uniform of the officer—of the fact that the matron of the family has her hair smoothly drawn back and done into a small knob at the back of her head, which is covered by a small round cap like a black muffin ring, having two three-corner tabs coming down over her ears, the whole covered by another cap of white lace, stiffened and turned back in front, in the form ...