System Number: 07684
Date: [26 September 1899][1]
Author: JW
Place: Pourville-sur-Mer
Recipient: Elizabeth Robins Pennell[2]
Place: London
Repository: Library of Congress
Call Number: Manuscript Division, Pennell-Whistler Collection, PWC 273/3/1
Document Type: ALS[3]
Pavillon Madeleine -
Pourville-sur-Mer,
pres Dieppe.
Dear Mrs Pennell -
This certainly is the moment! - just the moment -
All the schools are opening - and the Academie Carmen[4] greatly exercises the people - Especially would the Interview[5] trouble all the good people you meet on the Sunday - and in short, it [p. 2] ought to come out at once! - But now I cannot get over to London yet - indeed not for some time - and as to Joseph[6] I do not believe that he has the slightest intention of coming near Dieppe! -
I am to run up to Paris on Wednesday evening - for a day or two only - hoping to get back here by the end of the week - and stay possibly until the 10 or 15th of October - Do you think you could have a copy of the article (so as not to risk the original) sent over here? It must get here[7] before the 30th, as the lease of this place ends then - and we may go into Dieppe - Voila! They are talking, by the way, of the Academie in America - though as usual I never get the paper itself which I have seen only quoted scrapily [sic]! - Some art paper it appears - Have you got some of the lithographed "Propositions[8]" in the "Interview"? - I think that would be well worth while -
This[9] goes in rather a hurry, but I will write again - Only send me a word to the Hotel Chatham Rue Daunon - Paris -
Always sincerely & with our kindest regards
[butterfly signature]
This document is protected by copyright.
Envelope:
ToMrs Joseph Pennell -
14. Buckingham Street
Strand
London
[stamp:] POSTE / 25 / REPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE
[postmark, illegible]
Notes:
1. [26 September 1899]
Dated from the address, and JW's imminent return to Paris (see #07685).
2. Elizabeth Robins Pennell
Elizabeth Robins Pennell (1855-1936), née Robins, JW's biographer [more].
3. ALS
The paper has a mourning border.
4. Academie Carmen
The Académie Carmen was opened in Paris in 1898 under the name of Carmen Rossi, model, proprietess of the Académie Carmen [more], and was supervised at intervals by JW and also, at first, by Frederick William MacMonnies (1863-1937), sculptor [more]. Inez Eleanor Addams (fl. 1898-1927), née Bate, painter [more], became the woman's massiére. It was closed in 1901.
5. Interview
Towards the end of July JW had asked her if she was 'doing anything' about an interview with Inez Addams to discuss the Académie Carmen in Paris (#07679). The interview seems to have taken place in mid-September (see JW to Inez Addams, #00020).
6. Joseph
Joseph Pennell (1860-1926), printer and illustrator, JW's biographer [more].
7. here
Double underlined.
8. Propositions
JW was occupied in revising, transcribing, and in some cases getting translations of his artistic statements, including the Propositions early in 1899 (see JW to T. Duret, 30 January 1899, #09659). The Pennells note that an English version and Duret's translation of A Further Proposition were hung on the walls of the Académie Carmen in Paris in February 1899, and that the lithographed text, #06825, was hung there the following month (see Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 2, p. 236). All these copies were probably made to hang on the walls of the Académie, for a letter from JW in London to Inez Eleanor Addams (fl. 1898-1927), née Bate, painter [more], in Paris, asks for the papers on 'low tone' ([6 May 1899], #00014). JW himself asked E. R. Pennell if the lithographed Propositions had been recorded in an article on the Académie Carmen ([26 September 1899], #07684). The translations and references to JW's texts are at #13379; #00991; #06826; #13818; #00992; #13816; #06825; #09659.
9. This
Continued in the left margin of p. 1.