Well-born, rich, a social favourite, trained in Paris and Italy, an archaeologist and student as well as a painter, he commanded the world as he pleased.

Society asked him to dinners, and he gave himself no professional airs and went when he could.

But among his fellows he lived a happy comrade's life, spending his gifts and his knowledge without reserve, always ready to help a man in a tight place, to praise a friend's picture, to take up a friend's quarrel.

He took his talent and his good-fortune so simply that the world must needs insist upon them, instead of contesting them.
As for his pictures, they were based on the Italian tradition--rich, accurate, learned, full of literary allusion and reminiscence.

In Fenwick's eyes, young as was their author, they were of the past rather than of the future.