System Number: 00085
Date: 20 September [1901][1]
Author: JW
Place: London
Recipient: Inez Addams[2]
Place: Paris
Repository: Glasgow University Library
Call Number: MS Whistler A85
Document Type: ALS[3]
A word in desperate haste, to the devoted and watchful Apprentices - with first thanks and much appreciation -
Will write more in a day -
Go then at once to my lawyers, Messrs Bodington & Alexander[4] - They are the lawyers of the American Legation, so you will [p. 2] have no difficulty in finding them - on the Boulevard des Italiens, I think - they were in olden days in
Alexander is no longer the partner - it is now Boddington & someone whose name for the life of me at this minute with my watch on the table I have clean forgotten! But he[5] is the most [illegible] au courant in all that concerns the picture robbery - I saw him when last in Paris - and he is prepared for anything -
Take him your purchases and tell him to come down on the man instantly and terrify him - He must say where he got the lithographs from - I have no doubt that they came direct from Lemercier's[6], Rue de Seine -
The stones were printed there - and I have never taken them away! - Lemercier is a most respectable house - and it may be some printer who has done this -
The proofs of the Montesquiou[7] I mean - they never were given by me to anyone, neither dealer nor other.
Indeed I never had any except one or two trial proofs myself -
Also probably the proofs are from two lithographs my wife[8] did - far more beautiful! - and . . . .
[p. 3] Go then tomorrow and see Mr Boddington or his partner - and write result of first interview -
Always,
[butterfly signature]
Garlant's Hotel.
Sept. 20.
This document is protected by copyright.
Envelope:
àMadame Clifford Addams -
9. Rue Falguière
Paris
[stamp:] POSTAGE & INLAND REVENUE / ONE HALF PENNY
[stamp:] POSTAGE & INLAND REVENUE / 6d
[postmarks x 2:] CONTINENTAL NIGHT MAIL / SE 20 / 01
[on verso:] 24 Boul des Capucines 243. 43.
[postmark on verso:] PARIS R. BLOMET / 1E / [...] / 21 /01Notes:
1. 20 September [1901]
Year dated from postmark.
2. Inez Addams
Inez Eleanor Addams (fl. 1898-1927), née Bate, painter [more].
3. ALS
Writen on deep-bordered mourning paper.
4. Messrs. Bodington & Alexander
Oliver Eaton Bodington (1859-after 1936), barrister and author [more], Henry Addison Alexander, notary and advocate [more].
5. he
Double underlined. JW was probably referring to Kelly, lawyer, partner in Boddington and Kelly (see JW to Kelly, #00316, and R. Birnie Philip to I. Addams, #04834).
6. Lemercier's
Lemercier, lithographic printer in Paris [more].
7. Montesquiou
Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac (1855-1921), Symbolist writer and poet, and collector [more]. The lithographs are Count Robert de Montesquiou, No. 2 (C.84) and Count Robert de Montesquiou (C.85).
8. my wife
Beatrix Whistler (1857-1896), née Beatrice Philip, artist [more]. Beatrix made two lithographic studies from Montesquiou's portrait, B. Whistler, Comte Robert de Montesquiou (z411) and B. Whistler, Comte Robert de Montesquiou (z412) (see MacDonald, Margaret F., Beatrice Whistler Artist and Designer, Glasgow, 1997, p. 34 and Spink, Nesta R., The Lithographs of James McNeill Whistler, gen. eds Harriet K. Stratis and Martha Tedeschi, Chicago, 1998, pp. 263-6).