Documents associated with: Coert, J.
Record 3 of 6
System Number: 13798
Date: 3 August 1902
Author: Rosalind Birnie Philip[1]
Place: The Hague
Recipient: Charles Lang Freer[2]
Place: [Detroit]
Repository: Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Call Number: FGA Philip
Credit Line: Charles Lang Freer Papers, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.: Gift of the Estate of Charles Lang Freer
Document Type: TLc[3]
30 Lange Voorhout,
La Haye,
Sunday, August 3d, 1902.
Dear Mr. Freer:
I am writing to thank you very much for your kind letter which Stefano[4] delivered quite safely. We will certainly make use of him when we have need. We were much pleased to hear that you started on your journey with everything looking hopeful for a good voyage.
Everything here is as usual, except that today Mr. Whistler is, we think, improved. The doctor[5] himself seemed pleased and you can imagine the joy of the sisters-in-law when lobster was ordered for his lunch!
Mrs. Whibley[6] and I are bearing up and have laid in a supply of needlework before our good resolutions fail, and you may expect the masterpieces later on. There has been much consultation and the result will be something quite unique. We hope they will be properly treasured and treated with high consideration.
We all miss you very much and we have talked about you a great deal, but we are shortly to be consoled. Mr. William Heinemann[7] is looming large in the near distance. At present we are debating which of us shall assist at his reception. Mrs. Whibley stands firm for a precipitate retreat to our part of the apartment.
We would like to come and see you beyond everything, but we must not say we will, you are so far away. Rather we must look forward to your coming next year.
We all send you many affectionate messages and my sister and I shall always bear in remembrance all your great kindness to us in our troubles, which no expression of ours can tell you how much we felt.
We hope you found good news[8] awaiting you and that all is well with you.
Always very sincerely yours,
Rosalind Birnie Philip
This document is protected by copyright.
Notes:
1. Charles Lang Freer
Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), industrialist, collector and founder of the Freer Gallery of Art [more].
2. Rosalind Birnie Philip
Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958), JW's sister-in-law [more].
3. TLc
Published in Merrill, Linda, With Kindest Regards. The Correspondence of Charles Lang Freer and James McNeill Whistler, 1890-1903, Washington and London, 1995, no. 75, pp. 174-75.
4. Stefano
Possibly a servant.
5. doctor
Dr J. Coert, physician [more]. JW had been seriously ill in The Hague, and Freer had stayed on for a considerable time to help the Birnie Philips to nurse him and keep him amused.
6. Mrs Whibley
Ethel Whibley (1861-1920), née Philip, JW's sister-in-law [more]. They were embroidering needlepoint slippers for Freer, which were eventually destroyed by a careless shoemaker (Philip to Freer, 26 September and 5 December 1902, FGA Philip; see Merrill, op. cit., p. 175).
7. Mr. William Heinemann
William Heinemann (1863-1920), publisher [more].
8. good news
Freer had had to make a hurried departure from The Hague when news reached him of his brother's illness in America.