The Gentleman and the Kitchen Maid.

Diane Stanley. Dennis Nolan, illus. NY: Dial, 1994, unpaged, $14.99.

This trio of books tells make-believe tales about real artists.

Rusty is an art student who is assigned a typical task of copying a painting in a museum. Nolan has created about twenty look-alike paintings based on Dutch artists with a few others thrown in. These paintings hang on the walls that Rusty passes until she finds her Dutch portrait. The magic involves a romance between her gentleman and a maid hanging on an opposite wall. We are convinced of the spiritual aspects of such paintings.

Lorenzo Lotto's, The Annunciation, includes a cat, and this is a fanciful tale of that feline told in naturalistic paintings that depict sixteenth-century Venice with an appealing warmth. Scenes are lit by twilightish hues as forms merge into unified dramatic settings.

Johnson uses a harsher light to isolate her actors from the royal sets of Velasquez's Spain. Figures from Las Meninas are used to tell a simple story of a day in the little princess's life, including her involvement in this now famous painting. Detailed pages depict the palace's riches and the costumes of the period.