December 1861: Henriette Browne – Review of “The Sisters of Charity / Mercy”

A review, on page two of The Glasgow Courier, on Thursday the 12th of December, 1861, reads:

 

“FINE ARTS.

There is at present exhibiting at the galleries of

Messrs. James McClure & Son, Buchanan Street, a most

admirable painting, entitled the ‘Sisters of Mercy,’ by

a celebrated French artiste, Henriette Browne (Countess

de Soux.) The picture represents a Sister of Mercy

nursing a sick child, and in the back-ground another of

those devoted women in the act of mixing medicine.

We cannot too highly praise the manner in which the

artiste has expressed the anxious yet firm look with

which the kind sister receives the poor sick boy, who is

evidently far advanced in a fever. None but an artist

of great feeling could execute so noble a work. This

painting was executed in 1859, and presented by the

artiste to a charitable institution in France, and won at

a lottery by an eminent banker, who has since refused

two thousand pounds for it. It is now entrusted to Mr

Gambart, the celebrated picture dealer, for the purpose

of being engraved, for which it is highly adapted. With

all the social faults of France, there is hope of a country

possessing such artists as Edouard Frere and Henrietta [sic]

Browne.”

 

 

It is worth noting that the advertisement on the same page in the

Courier, has The Sisters of Charity, as the title of the painting. It

also is known as The Sick Child.

 

 

 

George Fairfull-Smith, July 2025.