Documents associated with: sea pieces
Record 12 of 30
System Number: 00245
Date: 8 December 1891
Author: John Chandler Bancroft[1]
Place: Paris
Recipient: JW
Place: [London]
Repository: Glasgow University Library
Call Number: MS Whistler B19
Document Type: ALS
Paris -
December 8. 1891
My dear Whistler
I was delighted to get your note - Of course you go to the Louvre, in time: the only drawback is that you have got to die first!
I shall go & see the pictures at Goupil's[2] as soon as the doctor will let me get out & unless he bundles me off to the South in the same heartless way, in which perhaps I hurried a Whistler off to America. I confess my sins you see, but they shall be exhibited and [p. 2] well shown there and I think some echo will come back. I shall wait for my marine[3], undoubtedly - For as you say yourself of the bad light in Goupil's rooms, so is it also of the average private house, mine no exception, your nocturne[4] gets no chance except at those odd hours when a bit of stray sunlight is reflected on it: the rest of the time it hangs in gloom.
One things occurs to me about which there is no harm in my saying a word - It is quite possible that with [p. 3] this endorsement by France, collectors may think it a duty to have a Whistler on their walls and that there may be a new scale of prices in '92 or 93 & so on which might easily take them out of my reach. On which I draw my conclusion first that my order is on the standard of '91, where I know what I am able to do, and secondly that you are not in any way bound or committed to me and have entire freedom in the matter -
I have gained so much in the last three or four [p. 4] days, that I think there is every prospect of being able to go South next week - In this latitude apparently I cant stay - There will be no room for grief: four weeks in a small apartment of the Rue St Roch are a stiff dose of dulness -
Mrs Bancroft[5] wishes to be remembered to Mrs Whistler[6] as do I
& believe me
Very sincerely yours
J. C. Bancroft
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Notes:
1. John Chandler Bancroft
John Chandler Bancroft (1822-1907), politician, diplomat and collector [more].
2. Goupil's
Boussod, Valadon & Cie., Paris art dealers.
3. marine
Bancroft bought a watercolour, Silver and Blue: Southampton (M.1142).
4. nocturne
Nocturne: Blue and Gold - St Mark's, Venice (YMSM 213).
5. Mrs Bancroft
Harriet B. Bancroft (b. ca 1843), née James [more].
6. Mrs Whistler
Beatrix Whistler (1857-1896), née Beatrice Philip, artist [more].