Documents associated with: Deschamps, Charles William
Record 4 of 54
System Number: 07906
Date: [11/13 December 1872][1]
Author: JW
Place: London
Recipient: Charles William Deschamps[2]
Place: [London]
Repository: Library of Congress
Call Number: Manuscript Division, Pennell-Whistler Collection, PWC 1/24/7
Document Type: ALS
'5 10[3]'
2 Lindsey Houses - Chelsea -
My dear Deschamps -
Parsons[4] has today sent me a huge package of photographs from the Portrait of my Mother [5]- with an enclosed bill[6] - and I cannot make it all out - see:
| Oct. 19 - 12 photographs.. - at 3/6. | 2. 2. 0. |
| Dec. 11. 88(!) do [8 dots] ........ | 15. 8. 0. |
| 17.10. 0 | |
| Less | 5.13. 4. |
| £11.16. 8. |
Now I never ordered 88 photographs!! also I never paid £5-13-4 -
[p. 2] Can you tell me any thing about it - for some of the letters[7] that were written for me by my friend Mr Jee[8] who was staying with me at the time were sent to you if I remember rightly -
I have been a prisoner again these last few days - This weather is impossible - but I wish I could get out -
Faithfully Yrs
J A McN Whistler.
This document is protected by copyright.
Notes:
1. [11/13 December 1872]
Dated from the second day mentioned in the bill (11 December) and by related material in other letters to Deschamps (#07904 and #07905).
2. Charles William Deschamps
Charles William Deschamps (1848-1908), art dealer [more].
3. 5 10
Numbered in another hand.
4. Parsons
John Robert Parsons (ca 1826 - d.1909), painter, photographer, and art dealer [more].
5. Portrait of my Mother
Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter's Mother (YMSM 101). The earliest known photograph of the portrait is in the Avery collection, New York Public Library. This shows the painting before some of the details on the curtain, the butterfly signature, the folds on the skirt, and the pattern on the rug, darkened. This photograph was signed by JW and dated '1872', and then signed by Anna Matilda Whistler (1804-1881), née McNeill, JW's mother [more], on 22 June 1873, and inscribed to Samuel Putnam Avery (1822-1904), print-publisher, collector and philanthropist [more] (see MacDonald, Margaret F., 'Whistler: The Painting of the 'Mother',' Gazette des Beaux-Arts, LXXXV, February 1975, pp. 73-78, pp. 79, 87 n. 28).
6. bill
Not located.
7. letters
Not located.
8. Jee
Horace Jee, musician, JW's occasional secretary [more].