Documents associated with: Whistler, William
Record 11 of 16
System Number: 06734
Date: [13 October 1895][1]
Author: JW
Place: Lyme Regis
Recipient: Helen Euphrosyne Whistler[2]
Place: [London]
Repository: Glasgow University Library
Call Number: MS Whistler W728
Document Type: ALS[3]
The Royal Lion -
Lyme Regis -
Dorset -
My dear Nellie -
Enclosed I send cheque - £210, two hundred guineas, for the little picture of Devonshire cottages[4] you have had hanging in desperate loneliness at the top of the house for all these years -
Not so bad is it - especially [p. 2] as it is bought by Thomson[5] of Goupils - picture dealer! - instantly on sight and the cheque paid down on the nail - and this under rather stringent conditions - one of which was that they undertake that the picture shall not be sold to an Englishman! -
You see the little [picture] up in the bedroom had really no frame to it and you cant really know anything of a painting without a frame - Besides it was lost in dirt! I washed it -
What pleased me is that this is only as who should say a feeler - for the "Studio" picture[6] has got to come on! and now I think we can bide our time and get a niceish litle sum -
I haven't written before because I wanted to have the pleasure of telling you something worth while - and I do hope this comes in well so that you need not be entertaining painful intentions of accepting the Winans[7] or others as boarders and vexing yourselves! -
If Willie[8] can spare it for the moment I wish he would send for Mr Hanson[9] and lend him the ten pounds extra off the guineas, for me! -
Not a penny more must he advance - This must be understood - But I do wish he would do this tomorrow - and explain that if I haven't written it is because I have been too much troubled to do so[10] -
Write me a line tomorrow to say this is all right - Indeed you might wire in the morning to say it had arrived safely -
With love to both
Always
J McN Whistler.
This document is protected by copyright.
Envelope:
Mrs William McNeill Whistler17. Wimpole Street
Cavendish Square
London.
[stamp:] POSTAGE AND INLAND REVENUE / ONE PENNY
[postmark:] LYME REGIS / B / OC 13 / 95
[postmark on verso:] LONDON W. / C 7 / OC 14 / 95
Notes:
1. [13 October 1895]
Dated from postmark.
2. Helen Euphrosyne Whistler
Helen ('Nellie') Euphrosyne Whistler (1849-1917), née Ellen Ionides, JW's sister-in-law [more].
3. ALS
Published in Thorp, Nigel (Editor), Whistler on Art: Selected Letters and Writings 1849-1903 of James McNeill Whistler, Manchester, 1994, and Washington, 1995, no. 60, pp. 148-9.
4. picture of Devonshire cottages
Green and Silver: The Devonshire Cottages (YMSM 266).
5. Thomson
David Croal Thomson (1855-1930), art dealer [more].
6. 'Studio' picture
Whistler in his Studio (YMSM 63). JW had placed the picture with the Goupil Gallery between January and March 1893 but it did not sell and was subsequently returned to Dr Whistler. It was eventually sold to the Goupil Gallery in December 1896 for £400.
7. accepting the Winans
JW was possibly thinking of Walter Scott Winans (1840-1928), civil engineer [more], who was resident in London from the late 1880s.
8. Willie
William McNeill Whistler (1836-1900), physician, JW's brother [more].
9. Mr Hanson
Charles James Whistler Hanson (1870-1935), engineer, son of JW and Louisa Fanny Hanson [more].
10. too much troubled to do so
Beatrix Whistler (1857-1896), née Beatrice Philip, artist [more], was seriously ill with cancer.