System Number: 04013
Date: 3 November 1902
Author: Howard Mansfield[1]
Place: New York
Recipient: JW
Place: [London]
Repository: Glasgow University Library
Call Number: MS Whistler M284
Document Type: ALS
49 WALL STREET
Nov. 3, 1902
Dear Mr Whistler:
When Mrs Mansfield[2] and I were in your studio in the summer of two years ago, we saw an unfinished painting of a young girl or youth in a red cap, which we greatly admired. Our friends Mr and Mrs Babbott[3] told us on Saturday [p. 2] evening that they thought that this must be the painting which they recently saw in your studio and which had been exhibited by you in Paris under the title of The Little Cardinal[4].
If this be so, Mrs Mansfield and I would like to know for what [p. 3] price we can acquire the painting and to ask if you will kindly send us a photograph of it that we may be sure that it is the painting which we have in mind.
Mr Babbott was very glad that he and Mrs Babbott had the pleasure of meeting you. He is the gentleman for whom I obtained from [p. 4] you some etchings two years ago, and by whom, through my intervention, th your painting of Little Miss Brown[5] was acquired. He has since materially increased his collection of your etchings. and desires derives no end of pleasure from the painting.
Trusting that you are quite yourself again in health and asking you to accept the cordial greetings of Mrs Mansfield and Miss Margaret[6] as well as myself,
I am, Faithfully yours,
Howard Mansfield
To Mr J. McNeill Whistler[7]
This document is protected by copyright.
Notes:
1. Howard Mansfield
Howard Mansfield (1849-1938), New York lawyer, print collector [more].
2. Mrs Mansfield
Mrs Howard Mansfield, wife of the print collector.
3. Mr and Mrs Babbott
Frank Lusk Babbott (1854-1933), collector [more] and Lydia Richardson Babbott (1858-1901), née Pratt, wife of the collector.
4. The Little Cardinal
Grenat et or: Le Petit Cardinal (YMSM 469). JW exhibited the work at the 12th Exhibition, Ouvrages de Peintures, Sculpture, Dessin, Gravure, Architecture et Objets d'Art, Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1902 (cat. no. 1195). The painting was not sold, and was in JW's studio at his death.
5. Little Miss Brown
Rose and Gold: 'Pretty Nellie Brown' (YMSM 451).
6. Miss Margaret
Margaret Mansfield, daughter of Howard Mansfield.
7. To Mr J. McNeill Whistler
Written in the left margin of p. 4.