System Number: 02983
Date: [1 December 1895][1]
Author: JW
Place: [Lyme Regis]
Recipient: Marcus Bourne Huish[2]
Place: [London]
Repository: Glasgow University Library
Call Number: MS Whistler LB 3/45
Document Type: ALS
Now I will tell you what I will do, my dear Huish - & I told you at the beginning how it would be! I for[e]saw that if once I got into this thing I could not stand by and take no part in it! - Well I will come up [to] town and see to the perfect hanging of the little gallery - Only this will have to be the way of it - First you will hang the whole gallery - all the things - on tuesday - or Wednesday morning - and I will come [p. 2] in the evening of Wednesday - and rearrange them in their final groups - It will have to be a night affair - The workmen must stay on - After dinner - say nine o'clock, we will all turn up and before 12 - it will be finished -
I remember once we hung the whole of the the large Gallery at George Petit[3] in the same way - in no time and a great success it was by the bye -
I shall have to come back here! - So you may judge that all the hours of my couple of days stay in London will be "placed" - and if I could have arranged this hanging differently, and more pleasantly for the convenience of yourself & Mr Brown[4] I would have done so - You had better tell Pennell[5] to be there - we can have a final look at his preface - The manuscript goes to him by this post -
It will do I think excellently & I have suggested the way in which I think it might end - this entre nous[6] -
Flag - All right - by same post -
I should have been delighted to be your guest my dear Huish - & it was very nice of you to ask me - but you will of course understand that I shall be with my wife[7] who is still not well -
Dont say that I am coming - & tell Pennell also to keep it to himself.
Always
[butterfly signature][8]
This document is protected by copyright.
Notes:
1. [1 December 1895]
Dated by M. B. Huish's reply, on the following day, 2 December 1895, #01326, and preparations for Mr Whistler's Lithographs, The Fine Art Society, London, 1895.
2. Marcus Bourne Huish
Marcus Bourne Huish (1843 - d.1921), barrister, writer and art dealer, Director of the Fine Art Society [more].
3. George Petit
Georges Petit (1856-1920), Paris art dealer [more], organiser of the Exposition Internationale de Peinture et de Sculpture, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 1887.
4. Mr Brown
Ernest George Brown (1853 or 1854-1915), assistant manager at the Fine Art Society [more].
5. Pennell
He was writing a preface to the catalogue.
6. entre nous
Fr., between ourselves.
7. wife
Beatrix Whistler (1857-1896), née Beatrice Philip, artist [more]. She was ill, with cancer.
8. [butterfly signature]
The following text is written at right angles to the main text, 'I would ... better' in the left margin of p. 1, and the remainder in the right, top and left margins of p. 1.