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pupil, Mr. Neilson, (a very rich and strongly painted work,) which is now in the collection on exhibition at Ortgies' rooms in Broadway, and the larger upright painted for Jonathan Sturges, call "In the Woods." In this great work, the solemnity of an American forest is forcibly rendered; the giant trees are rich with moss, fallen trunks strew the ground, a brook sparkles in the shady depths, and through the tangled boughs and leaves come flashes of a luminous sky beyond.  Judge Speir, an intimate and life-long friend of the artist, possesses another fine forest scene in similar feeling, and rich in color. 

The open scene of the Catskill clove, with mountain sides in a gray atmosphere, is our Century picture; and he also painted the study of "Franconia Notch," on the easel, in the half-length portrait of him which was painted by the writer for the Century. That study on the easel is a reduced copy of a large picture, which he was painting for Robert L. Stuart at the time he was sitting for the portrait. 

The sculptor Brown was an intimate friend of Durand, and modelled a bust of him, an excellent likeness (recently presented to the Academy of Design by John Durand).  The sculptor had at his house in Newburgh a "June Shower," by Durand-one of his best efforts, in which the sunlight is bursting 



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through a rift in the hurrying clouds and streaking with brightness a part of the dripping valley.  (This is also now in the Exhibition in Broadway.) 

Durand was fond of Lake George scenery, and there painted many of his best studies.  I visited the pleasant resort he frequented late in life, called Bosom Bay, at Hewlett's Landing.  Arriving late in the afternoon, as the shadows were deepening in the ravines of Black Mountain, we were kindly welcomed by the white-haired artist, who was smoking his quiet pipe, on the old-fashioned stoop of the snug farmhouse, surrounded by a group of friends and members of his family.  The following day we made a party to row to Harbor Island for sketches and picnic.  It was a lovely day in the early autumn.  Harbor Island is one of the beauties of Lake George--irregular in shape, varied by forests and rocky shores, having a sequestered interior bay with a narrow entrance, where the still, transparent water, protected from wind, reflects every leaf.  Durand, with his accustomed industry, was soon busy with a study.  Some sketched, or strolled about, or lounged with idle oars to various points of the shore.  The views are beautiful. To the east rises the massive form of Black Mountain; to the south stretches the lake, dotted by the hundred islands of the Narrows; and the western outlook is