Documents associated with: Cowan, Sophy
Record 1 of 22
System Number: 00704
Date: [28 June 1893][1]
Author: JW
Place: Paris
Recipient: John James Cowan[2]
Place: [London]
Repository: Glasgow University Library
Call Number: MS Whistler C205
Document Type: ALS
'June 28 1893'
110. Rue du Bac. Paris.
Dear Mr Cowan .
Your note[3] is charming and kindly considerate - like yourself -
No work is really produced without trouble - and in this case you have had quite as much as I have - If we each had thought that we should have had less - well we were both mistaken! - Voilà tout[4]! - [p. 2] After all I fancy we were less fatigued than Mrs Cowan[5] - to whom we owe so much -
Now when you find that you have time - and there is no hurry - hurry is an abominable thing - you will come over again and we will quite complete in all details, the "Arrangement in Grey & Green"[6] - which meanwhile I continue to be on very good terms with -
I shall send for that last number of "The Studio."[7]!
Please give our kindest regards to Mrs Cowan - and let us know where you go in Brittany[8] -
Always sincerely
J McNeill Whistler
[p. 3] 'June 28th 1893'
This document is protected by copyright.
Notes:
1. John James Cowan
John James Cowan (1846-1936), paper manufacturer and collector [more].
2. [28 June 1893]
This date is inserted twice, firstly in pencil on p. 1 and then in ink on p. 3, apparently in the hand of J. J. Cowan. This was presumably the date that he received the letter.
3. note
Untraced.
4. voilà tout
Fr., that's all.
5. Mrs Cowan
Sophy Cowan (b. ca 1850), née Gillespie, wife of J. J. Cowan [more], who read Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island aloud in the studio during the sittings in May 1893 (see Cowan, John J., From 1846-1932, Edinburgh, 1933, pp. 156-57, 168-73).
6. Arrangement ... Green
Arrangement in Grey and Green: Portrait of J. J. Cowan (YMSM 402). Cowan had recently been sitting for JW in Paris. The picture was never finished although he gave JW sixty sittings between 1893 and 1900.
7. 'The Studio'
A new and prestigious monthly art journal.
8. Brittany
JW and Beatrix Whistler (1857-1896), née Beatrice Philip, artist [more], also went to Brittany later in the summer.