System Number: 07923
Date: [19 March 1888][1]
Author: JW
Place: [London]
Recipient: Charles William Deschamps[2]
Place: London
Repository: Library of Congress
Call Number: Manuscript Division, Pennell-Whistler Collection, PWC 1/23/11
Document Type: ALS
'15'[3]
Well then, mon cher, it is very simple after all - My letter to Sir Coutts[4] was directed to Grosvenor Square - It was written at the Beefsteak Club, like the one to yourself, and posted at the same moment -
[p. 2] It was doubtless delivered the next morning by the second post like your own, and probably remembered & forwarded, a few days afterwards, in the enclosed envelope, (which by the way, will have been a good deal about from pillar to post!!) Voila tout! -
I am awfully sorry all this trouble should have come out of it -
Tell Sir Coutts that I hope yet to manage a little evening here before long - and before Archie Wortley[5] leaves town -
Now about Aubrey Hunt[6] - I want Sir Coutts very much to see his picture[7] - I am sure that it will be charming and really most [p. 3] important in the Grosvenor - His work is most brilliant and full of delightful quality - far more artistically rare than all the Ellis[8] and Easts[9] and Wyllies[10] and [illegible] put together - However this you will see at once - Only do put yourself in communication with Hunt that he may bring his work up town if Sir Coutts cannot see it in his own studio - Though Hunt explains to me that the journey is really less troublesome and shorter than the usual rush in a cab accross [sic] town -
Always
J McN Whistler
This document is protected by copyright.
Envelope:
ToChas. Deschamps. Esq.
Grosvenor Gallery
New Bond Street
[stamp:] POSTAGE AND INLAND REVENUE / ONE PENNY
[postmark:] LONDON / 5 7 / MR 19 [...]
[postmark:] LONDON W / 7 / MR 19 / 8[...]
Notes:
1. [19 March 1888]
Dated from the postmark and a related letter from C. W. Deschamps to JW, #07915.
2. Charles William Deschamps
Charles William Deschamps (1848-1908), art dealer [more].
3. '15'
Added in another hand.
4. letter to Sir Coutts
Sir Coutts Lindsay (1824-1913), Bart., co-founder of the Grosvenor Gallery [more]. The letter is unidentified but it is also referred to in #07915.
5. Archie Wortley
Archibald James Stuart-Wortley (1849-1905), painter, first President of the Society of Portrait Painters [more].
6. Aubrey Hunt
Edmund Aubrey Hunt (1855-1922), landscape and rural painter [more].
7. picture
Hunt showed only one work at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1890, a riverscape entitled On the Thames (cat. no. 183).
8. Ellis
Probably Edwin Ellis (1841-1895), marine and landscape painter [more], a regular exhibitor at the Royal Society of British Artists.
9. Easts
Alfred East (1849-1913), landscape painter and etcher [more]. East was known for his idealised landscapes, influenced by Barbizon painters such as Charles-François Daubigny (1817-1878), landscape painter and printmaker [more].
10. Wyllies
Charles William Wyllie (1853-1923), land and seascape painter [more] and his brother William Lionel Wyllie (1851-1931), marine painter and etcher [more]. Both were regular exhibitors at the Society of British Artists.