System Number: 03612
Date: [16/19 May 1893][1]
Author: JW
Place: Paris
Recipient: Ernest George Brown[2]
Place: [London]
Repository: Glasgow University Library
Call Number: MS Whistler LB 9/20
Document Type: ALS[3]
110. Rue du Bac - Paris -
Dear Mr Browne -
I cannot & must not be made responsable [sic] for your Whitsuntide trip across the Channel. -
You will I trust come over - and have a "good time" in Paris - but certainly you can't have the proofs[4] yet awhile - I have work of the utmost importance[5] - involving hundreds of golden guineas - (which is the clearest way of putting [p. 2] it to the Fine Art Society!) that cannot be put aside at this moment - in order that I should print for that Society what they might have had long ago, & in splendid condition, Of [c?] but for their own folly -
The next couple of weeks are absolutely filled with work -
Also the devil of it is that it will doubtless give me endless trouble to get these two plates into working order - You see, as I have told you over & over again, when one once stops - it is the very devil to start again - and all my precious time that goes - It is too bad that your people should have behaved so foolishly! - I cant tell you how angry it makes me every fresh time I think of it! -
Upon my word there is no use ever doing any thing for you - You get on much more comfortably with common things & common place work - All this great over refinement and anxiety for the perfection of quantity is dead loss & vexation - for my own reputation, the complete beauty of one proof is enough - & the production of scores of the same plate is really a madness! - than which nothing could be madder excepting your stopping me in the midst of it! or madder still just on the very eve of my absolutely [p. 3] getting through with all - & handing it over to you - the whole lot - full up to the last destroyed proof! -
Your Japanese paper I got all right - and it will be just the thing -
I wish you would let me know how I can get some exactly like it myself. -
I suppose you will come over all right - in which case you will let me know -
Very faithfully
J McN Whistler
This document is protected by copyright.
Notes:
1. [16/19 May 1893]
E. G. Brown first suggested a Whitsun trip in his letter of 1 May 1892, #01260, and finally replied to JW's letter on 20 May 1893, #01265.
2. Ernest George Brown
Ernest George Brown (1853 or 1854-1915), assistant manager at the Fine Art Society [more]. Brown had written to JW a few days earlier telling JW that he would come over to Paris to collect the proofs; see #01264.
3. ALS
'Over' is written in pencil in an unknown hand at foot of page one; '211 Clapham Rd' is written in the same hand in the left margin of p. 3; and 'Whistler.' is written in another hand at the top of p. 3. Published in Thorp, Nigel (Editor), Whistler on Art: Selected Letters and Writings 1849-1903 of James McNeill Whistler, Manchester, 1994, and Washington, 1995, pp. 137-38.
4. proofs
JW had not yet finished printing Mr Whistler's Etchings of Venice, 1880 (the first 'Venice Set') (K. 183-189, 191-195). (excat 5), which he still owed to the Fine Art Society. It would not be completed in his lifetime.
5. work of the utmost importance
JW had recently received a new commission, Study for three decorative panels representing 'The Landing of Columbus', 'Queen Isabel la Catôlica of Spain', and 'Queen Elizabeth of England' for Boston Public Library, Massachusetts (M.1356). He was also working on portraits of Edward Guthrie Kennedy (1849-1932), dealer with H. Wunderlich and Co., New York [more] (Portrait of E. G. Kennedy (1) (YMSM 403)) and John James Cowan (1846-1936), paper manufacturer and collector [more] (Arrangement in Grey and Green: Portrait of J. J. Cowan (YMSM 402)) in Paris.