System Number: 06728
Date: [1/10 February 1894][1]
Author: JW
Place: Paris
Recipient: Helen Euphrosyne Whistler[2]
Place: [London]
Repository: Glasgow University Library
Call Number: MS Whistler W722
Document Type: ALS
110. Rue du Bac.
My dear Nellie -
We are awfully sorry to hear of all the worries you & Willie[3] are vexed with to say nothing of his having been down again with this cold and black weather -
I do wish you were well & out of England - It is this continued waiting for things that is so terribly trying - What a shame it is about the Joe Whistler[4] not paying what he owes him! -
I suppose by the way you [p. 2] would not like to write Mrs Reveillon's address[5] on the enveloppe of a short & pleasant note of mine to her - Therefore you had better simply send me her address and I can put it on my self -
We heard from Willie that Nettie Carpenter[6] is coming to Paris - I doubt not she is already here - and intends calling upon us - A most impudent business! and it would have been almost wiser to have let her understand, when she told you, that it is quite useless - as we certainly will not have her - a bold baggage! - It has always seemed to me that she was properly dealt with by Mrs. Sophie[7] when she was sent by her out of Wimpole Street through the area! - and I have always remembered it with pleasure! -
What is the matter with Luke[8] - that he should be selling his house - and stopping at Mrs. Sophie's? -
You heard, did you, that Gerald Potter[9] sold the "Little White Girl", and his "Nocturne Blue & Silver"[10] in a lump for fourteen hundred pounds?
He gave me for the two, £200, or less - so that he has made a clean sweep of twelve hundred pounds out of me[11]. - I am also writing him a letter" -
Things still a bit hard here[12] as well as with [p. 3] you - and this cold spell doesn't make it any better -
However we most all keep a stiff upper lip - and the spring may bring better luck!
Write me a line with the Reveillons address -
Love to you both, from both[13] of us -
Always affectionately
[butterfly signature]
This document is protected by copyright.
Notes:
1. [1/10 February 1894]
Dated from the reference to the Revillons (see below).
2. Helen Euphrosyne Whistler
Helen ('Nellie') Euphrosyne Whistler (1849-1917), née Ellen Ionides, JW's sister-in-law [more].
3. Willie
William McNeill Whistler (1836-1900), physician, JW's brother [more].
4. Joe Whistler
Possibly Joseph Swift Whistler (1865-1905), art critic, JW's nephew [more].
5. Mrs Reveillon's address
Julia de Kay Revillon (1855-1930), née Whistler, JW's niece [more]; the letter may be JW's letter of [11 February 1894], #02679. JW was irritated that she had sold his work for a profit.
6. Nettie Carpenter
Nettie Carpenter (later Mrs Stearn), virtuoso violinist [more]; see #06724.
7. Mrs. Sophie
Sophia Eustratius Manuel (1853-1905), née Ionides [more].
8. Luke
Lucas ('Luke') Alexander Ionides (1837-1924), stockbroker and businessman [more]. Ionides had just lost his money, the result of a disastrous share purchase, and separated from his wife, Elfrida Elizabeth Ionides (1848-1929), née Bird, wife of Luke A. Ionides [more]. See Ionides, Luke Memories, Paris, 1925, reprinted with an afterword by Julia Ionides, Ludlow, 1996, pp. 90-1.
9. Gerald Potter
John Gerald Potter (1829-1908), wallpaper manufacturer and patron [more].
10. 'Little White Girl', and his 'Nocturne Blue & Silver'
Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl (YMSM 52). The second picture is probably Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Cremorne Lights (YMSM 115), which was owned by Potter. JW told the Glasgow dealer Alexander Reid that Potter had bought it for £20 or less.
11. me
Double underlined.
12. Things still a bit hard here
Possibly a reference to the increasing illness of Beatrix Whistler (1857-1896), née Beatrice Philip, artist [more].
13. both
JW and B. Whistler.