Documents associated with: photograph
Record 57 of 69
System Number: 10659
Date: [October 1897?][1]
Author: JW
Place: London
Recipient: Marion Farquhar[2]
Repository: Library of Congress
Call Number: Manuscript Division, Pennell-Whistler Collection, PWC 1/34/24
Document Type: ALS
TELEGRAMS,
DELICIOUS,
LONDON,
GARLANT'S HOTEL,
SUFFOLK STREET,
PALL MALL.
Dear Mrs. Farquhar -
I am having the picture[3] photographed - so thats all right! - It is entirely because of my devotion to you! - for a work like this ought really never to be reproduced, and so engraved in history, as who should say, in a transitory and imperfect state. However your [p. 2] Mama[4] - to whom I beg that you will present my compliments - will I take it kindly give me back this intermediate misrepresentation of the Duchess - and the picture - when the beautiful lady is finished -
Then we will have it properly engraved - Now it must go to the Champ de Mars this time! so if you make your arrangements over the winter you will let me know something like a couple of weeks beforehand when you think you could be in London -
Pray tell your husband[5] that I rely upon him to bring you to the Studio -
You will be pleased to know that the famous white dress[6] is guaranteed perfectly new, and beautiful as when you first put it on!
With kindest regards to yourself and Mr Farquhar
Very Sincerely Yours
J McNeill Whistler
You will readily understand that I could not entrust the picture to the usual photographer - as we would have had it in all the illustrated papers! - before the time[7]!!
That is why it has taken an age to find the possible person!! -
This document is protected by copyright.
Notes:
1. [October 1897?]
Dated from the address, the reference to the Salon, and related correspondence between JW and Mrs Farquhar, especially #10640.
2. Marion Farquhar
Marion Farquhar (b. ca 1872, m. 1897), née Peck [more].
3. ALS
Written at right-angles to the printed address.
4. picture
Portrait of Miss Marion Peck (YMSM 439), begun in March 1895 but never completed.
5. Mama
Annah B. Peck (b. ca 1850), patron [more].
6. husband
William Richman Farquhar (m. 1897), husband of Marion Farquhar [more].
7. white dress
Pennell described Mrs Farquhar in the portrait posed 'in evening dress with her long white green lined cloak thrown back [...] the colour was a harmony in silver and green' (Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 2, p. 157). See also JW's letter to M. Farquhar, #09359.
8. before the time
Double underlined. 'You will readily ... person' is written at right-angles to the main text, in the left-hand margin.