System Number: 06005
Date: [July/October 1885][1]
Author: JW
Place: [London]
Recipient: [Susan Charlotte Granville, Lady Wharncliffe[2]?]
Place: [London]
Repository: Glasgow University Library
Call Number: MS Whistler W2
Document Type: ALd
I have[3] been hitherto unable my dear Lady [Wharncliffe?] to write my thanks with my own hand - for up till the other day I was simply a shattered wreck and complication of splints and sprains, - the upshot of my sad result of my expidition [... text breaks off]
Now however[4] I hasten to assure you that I never [... text breaks off]
[p. 2] Every where I went on my journey I was most met with all that was kind and delightful - still I was perhaps less carefully guarded & protected than at [Wortley[5]?] - so that the inevitable happened in the & catastrophe was brought about in due course - Eluding the eye of my hostess I had managed to stray away from the lawn and of very shortly came to grief in a neighbouring meadow - tumbling ignominiously over a stile (I think they call it)
My wrist altogether out of drawing - and presenting an ensemble like nothing in the world but an anatomical study in the Slade School[6]
[a small portion of text appears at the edge of the page where the sheet has been torn away, but remains illegible]
This document is protected by copyright.
Notes:
1. [July/October 1885]
Dated from references to Wortley Hall and E. W. Godwin, (who died in October 1886). Also dated from E. G. Brown to JW, #01179.
2. Susan Charlotte Granville, Lady Wharncliffe
Possibly Susan Charlotte Granville (1834-1927), née Lascelles, wife of E. M. S. G. Stuart-Wortley [more].
3. I have ... expidition
Text is roughtly scribbled over.
4. Now however ... never
Written upside down at foot of sheet.
5. Wortley
Perhaps Wortley Hall, near Sheffield, the Wharncliffes' country estate. JW stayed there and painted a watercolour, Gay Paget in the garden of Wortley Hall, Yorkshire (M.854). He also painted an oil, Note in Green: Wortley (YMSM 303), which he exhibited at 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1884.
6. Slade School
London school of fine art, founded in 1871 and named after the philanthropist Felix Slade. JW's former associate Alphonse Legros (1837-1911), painter, etcher and art teacher [more], taught there from 1876-92.