IN middle age Delacroix harboured no illusions about Alexandre Dumas' literary talents and dreaded his visits in search of material for his Memoirs. Nevertheless, he often found his writings entertaining, had an obvious affection for the man and admired his irrepressible energy in the face of adversity. Fairly characteristic critical judgements are to be found in Delacroix's Journal on 17th October 1853: 'qu'est-ce que Dumas... 

'Je compose en ce moment un dessin meuble representant des sites de la vallee de Munster', wrote the Alsatian textile designer Henri Lebert (1794-1862). in his Journal, on 18th June 1815. The Hartmann factory, at Munster (Alsace), for which he worked, then sent his preparatory study for this furnishing fabric, to Paris, to Jean-Jacques Karpff (better known as Casimir Karpff), a pupil of David, who was working on the cartoon for the cotton printing in January 1816. 

EVEN before any official declaration of hostilities between France and Great Britain in the War of American Independence a naval encounter took place on the 17th June 1778. Two ships were involved, the frigates Arethusa (twenty-eight guns, commanded by Capital Marshall) and the Belle Poule (thirty guns, commanded by Monsieur Chadeau de la Clocheterie).

ART historians have perhaps not paid enough attention to the question why some painters have made a great many drawings and others none at all - like most Caravaggisti - or none that played an essential part in their oeuvre, as with Chardin, to take a major instance. The reasons for this are in some cases doctrinal, but in others they are harder to identify, requiring fuller research and deeper analysis. 

DURING the course of the French Revolution, there are to be found numerous examples of the appropriation of both religious monuments and secular traditions for political ends. From the official requisition of Sainte Genevieve to create the Pantheon to the redesignation of the seasonal mai as arbre de la liberte, the exploitation of inherited significance for superimposed revolutionary purposes was widespread.

IN AUGUST 1977 I published in THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE a large cameo (set in a magnificent gilt-bronze mount) which is preserved at Versailles and also its drawing by Peyron, that the abbe Francois-Paul Ferdinandi intended to present to Louis XVI. The interest of the article, in my opinion, lay in connecting the drawing and the cameo with each other and with letters exchanged by Cardinal de Bernis, French ambassador at Rome, and d'Angiviller, sur indendant des batiments du roi.