Jannetje van der Vorm

AN AMERICAN HONORED.
He Is Well Recognized Among the Artists of the Paris Salon.
Ernest Peixotto has recently added himself on the list of America artists to receive honorable mention in the salon of Paris. He is the first artist from California to receive the distinction.
In addition to the medals there were perhaps ten or a dozen honorable mentions. As there were 1,850 pictures in the salon, as these were selected from 8,000 offered for exhibition, and as the competition was open to everybody, is is seen than an honorable mention is a parchment sward.
"Who was my model?" said the artist when questioned. "Oh, that is quite a pleasant little story. I was down in Rijsoord, a small place near Rotterdam, and the old frau of the hotel took me around to so the people who would be gind to pose. On the way home she stepped in to see the wife of the cobbler of the village - the shoemaker being quite a personnage, a cut above the farm folk and on a social level with the keeper of the inn".
"There I saw the shoemaker's wife and knew at once I wanted her for my model. She looked just like the old Dutch Madonnas - a woman of about 26, her neck like a long column, the dress cut right around it, not quite low enough to show the pit of the neck, and on this a finely chiseled head, with eyes that looked right out into nothing. Her skin was very pale, and she was a delightful study in her big white coiff, the krullen - you know how the Dutch wear them with the twisted gold things at the Salon.
"She never had posed before, and I had some difficulty in making arrangements. She had three young children, but the neighbors agreed to care for them; and, at last, after important negotiations, I secured her at 12 1/2 Dutch cents an hour - about a nickel an hour. I made half a dozen studies of her - and this was the picture which received the honorable mention."
Regarding the subject the artist continued: "Well, I called it the "Femme de Rijsoord", and it was merely a head - not the thing at all which generally receives an honorable mention. I sent it because I thought it was the best of my work. Then I was surprised at the position it was given, and again much more surprised when it received the honorable mention. I had another picture and two pen and ink drawings in the same salon. The picture was a modernized treatment of the holy family."