UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

System Number: 13621
Date: [13 August 1888]^[1]
Author: JW
Place: Paris
Recipient: Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac^[2]
Place: Paris
Repository: Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris
Call Number: Nouv. Acq. Fr. 15335, f. 30
Document Type: W/ANS^[3]

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'WHISTLER-GODWIN^[4] - On the 11th inst. at St. Mary Abbot's Kensington, by the Hon. and Rev. F. E. C. Byng^[5], James McNeil [sic] Whistler, of Tower House, Tite Street, Chelsea, to Beatrice^[6], widow of the late E. W. Godwin.'
Observer^[7]

Hôtel du Helder
Rue du Helder

[butterfly signature]

où nous vous attendons tous - je dis 'tous' mon très cher ami à cause du petit papillon en or^[8] et soleil que vous avez fait voltiger à travers la Manche à notre rencontre et qui ne nous quitte plus! -

This document is protected by copyright.

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Translation:

Where we all await you - I say 'all' my very dear friend because of the little butterfly of gold and sunshine that you sent flitting across the English Channel to meet us and which no longer leaves us! -

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Envelope:

Monsieur Le Comte
Robert de Montesquiou de Fezensac
41 Quai d'Orsay
PARIS
13 AOUT [88] P[ARIS]

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Notes:

1.  [13 August 1888]
Dated from postmark.

2.  Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac
Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac (1855-1921), Symbolist writer and poet, and collector [more].

3.  W/ANS
Published in Newton, Joy, La Chauve-Souris et le Papillon. Correspondance Montesquiou-Whistler, Glasgow, 1990, no. 13, p. 50.

4.  WHISTLER-GODWIN
Press-cutting.

5.  Observer
'Observer' written in JW's hand.

6.  Byng
Rev. Francis Edmund Byng (1835-1918), Vicar of St Peters, Kensington [more].

7.  Beatrice
Beatrix Whistler (1857-1896), née Beatrice Philip, artist [more].

8.  papillon en or
Montesquiou gave the couple a gold and glass butterfly brooch (probably made by René Lalique (1860-1945), jeweller, glassmaker and designer [more]) as a wedding gift, which is now in the Hunterian Art Gallery. See Newton, 1990, repr. fig. VIII; and Munhall, Edgar, Whistler and Montesquiou. The Butterfly and the Bat, New York, 1995, p. 62, 64, fig. 56.