System Number: 01277
Date: [14 August 1894][1]
Author: JW
Place: Paris
Recipient: Marcus Bourne Huish[2]
Place: [London]
Repository: Private collection
Document Type: ALS[3]
110. Rue du Bac. Paris.
Tuesday -
Dear Mr Huish -
How very nice and kind of you to think of sending us the Grouse[4] - which will be, as you may well imagine, a great treat in these "foreign parts"! - I shall look out a bottle of some wonderful old Pouilly[5] - which one of these days I hope to make you taste - for the occasion! et je vous en donnerai des nouvelles[6] -
[p. 2] I am much pleased at your appreciation of the care I have taken with the proofs[7] -
These four are certainly beauties and had been set aside as I told you at the time of my last printing for "Crowned Heads" or Museums!
But I could not resist your appeal, and though it went to my heart I sent them to you! -
Therefore you must choose your man - & not let them go to the premier venu[8]! - Also, as I have told Mr Browne[9] over & over again, plates are as whimsical and as difficult to deal with as horses! and when I do take up these two or three remaining ones, the Lord knows how they may jib and shy and buck & bolt with me - the trouble they will give I know well - and the amount of coaxing and persuasion & light handling required before I get them back into anything like training again! - !! -
Now the lithographs - Mr Brown I am sure will like them - and I have three or four still later ones - which I shall send on directly -
You will agree with me I dare say that hitherto I have charged too little for my lithographs. Two guineas is really ridiculous - for works that are of course as personal, in their way, as are the etchings in their own -
The foolish notion that I [p. 3] must have had in my head was that a much larger public would want them - But practically I find that it [is] absolutely the same little group of collectors! - and though there should be a difference of price between etchings and lithographs because of the difference of cost in their production - [but?] beautiful proofs on rare old Dutch paper or chosen Japanese - wait until you see them - certainly can no longer go at two guineas - So you might let it be known that any more of those you already have, will be 3, or 4 - or 5.
These quite new, absolutely just from the printers[10] I send tomorrow will be of those prices -
Very Sincerely, et avec mille remerciements[11]
J McN Whistler
This document is protected by copyright.
Notes:
1. [14 August 1894]
Dated from the day of the week and from #01276 (M. B. Huish to JW, dated 12 August 1894) to which this letter is a reply.
2. Marcus Bourne Huish
Marcus Bourne Huish (1843 - d.1921), barrister, writer and art dealer, Director of the Fine Art Society [more].
3. ALS
A copy of this letter was published in Sotheby's sale catalogue, London, 17 July 1973 (lot 611).
4. Grouse
Huish had offered the grouse in his letter to JW (#01276).
5. wonderful old Pouilly
Whistler is referring to wine produced in the Loire valley at Pouilly-sur-Loire.
6. et je vous en donnerai des nouvelles
Fr., I will give you the news of it.
7. proofs
On 8 June, Huish had asked JW to print two proofs each of The Doorway (K.188) and The Beggars (K.194), etchings from Mr Whistler's Etchings of Venice, 1880 (the first 'Venice Set') (K. 183-189, 191-195). (excat 5) (see M. B. Huish to JW, #01270, #01271). They had just arrived at the Fine Art Society (L. W. Earle to JW, #01275).
8. premier venu
Fr., first buyer.
9. Mr Browne
Ernest George Brown (1853 or 1854-1915), assistant manager at the Fine Art Society [more].
10. printers
Thomas Way (1837-1915), lithographic printer [more]; and Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913), printer, lithographer and painter [more].
11. et avec mille remerciements
Fr., and with thousand thanks.