The most obvious gap in the ranks of the portraits by British painters in our National Collections is caused by the absence of any work of really first-rate importance by George Romney.

The Parsons Daughter, in the National Gallery, and the Mrs. Robinson, at Hertford House, are of the finest quality; but they are only heads.

The large portrait of Mrs. Mark Currie is charming, but by no means so fine.

In the Louisa, Countess of Mansfield, we are nearer to the very best; but that is only a temporary loan, and until the public are in possession of one or two of his superb whole-length portraits, such as Earl Crewe’s Lady Milnes, the Marquis of Lansdowne’s Lord Henry Petty, or the Lady Bell Hamilton, they will hardly be able to judge the work of Romney as fairly as that of his more fortunate contemporaries.

In placing him in the first rank of English painters, however, the present generation are only doing him as much honour as he deserves, after a century of neglect; and there seems to be no fear of his fame diminishing again or his popularity abating.

R. D.