group we arranged a teacher with an affectionate little girl who was only too pleased to embrace the object of her affection. The subject is not quite so easy as it looks: the lady must be seated at a height to require the child while standing to reach up a bit to bring her head to the mother’s chin. The little arm must fall within the bend of the larger arm, to form a parallel curve. When the group is arranged the outline should describe the form of a pyramid.
Rubens’s Sons is a lovely presentation of brotherly companionship. When this picture was put up, I explained the rich velvet and satin costumes as the Flemish court dress of the seventeenth century. The artist was court painter to the Archduke Albert and Isabella, and was in high favor with royalties. So he gave his eldest son the name of his patron, and both boys enjoyed all the advantages of his wealth and station. But fine clothes did not seem to spoil them as they sometimes do less sensible lads; their frank round faces make them very likable. It happened that one of the boys in our school was an Albert, and he was eager to play the part of Albert Rubens. For the younger boy, whose name was Nicholas, we found a lad of proportionate height. The two took their places below the picture. Of course boys are not expected to wear velvet and satin in school, and our models were not at all embarrassed by their shabbiness. They were proud and pleased with the honor, and blissfully unconscious of any incongruity between their threadbare suits and the elegant attire of their prototypes. Indeed, for the time being they fancied.
