Page:The museum, (Jackson, Marget Talbot, 1917).djvu/153

will not bother to read the labels at all. The casual tourist who feels that he must "do" the museums of a town will rush through, glancing hastily from left to right and from right to left and paying little attention to any of the exhibits. If, however, his eye catches something which he thinks may interest him, he will stop and look at the label where he would not consider for a minute looking up the object in a catalogue. In the labelling of paintings, two points are to be considered: 1. the label should be legible, 2. it should not obtrude itself upon the view of the visitor. How is it possible to reconcile these two? In the museum of the Corsini Palace in Rome, an experiment has been tried which is not altogether successful. Here the labels have been made of wood, rather large, carved in a design resembling the frame and characteristic of the period of the picture. They have been gilded and toned to match exactly the color of the frames. Upon these the name of the picture and the artist's name and his dates have been written in letters characteristic of the period. The result is that in some instances the label is almost unreadable and in other cases it seems to overshadow the picture in importance. The usual brass plates lettered in black while not pretty are certainly preferable to these. In other museums the attempt has been made to have the