Documents associated with: Ouvrages de peinture, sculpture, gravure, lithographie et architecture, refusés par le Jury de 1863, et exposés, par décision de S. M. l'Empereur, au salon annexe, Palais des Champs Elysées, Paris, 1863
Record 5 of 31
System Number: 10693
Date: 16 March [1863][1]
Author: JW
Place: London
Recipient: George Aloysius Lucas[2]
Place: [Paris]
Repository: Library of Congress
Call Number: Manuscript Division, Pennell-Whistler Collection, PWC 2/17/31
Document Type: ALS
7a Queens Road West
Chelsea.
Monday March 16
Lucas mon cher ami!
It is my fate to come always to you for kindnesses which it is also my good fortune to have always granted to me - Now my dear Lucas I want you to help me about the "Salon[3]" in Paris - I am going to send the "White Girl[4]," to the exhibition in P there and see if better luck awaits it and [p. 2] whether it may not be by chance accepted by the Jury - -
Do receive it for me and see it safely into the Palais de L'Industrie and make me more grateful than ever for the jolly lot of trouble you have taken for me - .
I have set my heart upon this succeeding, and it would be a crusher for the Royal Academy[5] here, if what they refused were received at the [p. 3] Salon in Paris and thought well of - so my dear Lucas let us do all we can to succeed. I am touching the painting up a little, so that it will be fresh when it reaches the Custom House and therefore I beg above all things that you will meet it and prevent any harm coming to it when they open the Case - There is no time to be lost as I wish to send the picture off by "Grande Vitesse[6]" on Monday or Tuesday next - So write [p. 4] by return of Post and say if I shall direct it to 41. Rue de l'Arc de Triomphe - I shall of course write when I send it, and by what agency so that you can [deleted word, illegible] warn the Company at their office to let you know directly the case arrives so that you may be by, when opened, and from the Custom House you might have the Picture taken directly to the Palais de L'industrie without bringing it home or any further trouble - In your answer send me the printed forms[7] necessary to be filled up for the "Salon"
Ever yours
Jim Whistler
This document is protected by copyright.
Notes:
1. 16 March [1863]
The letter relates to the Paris Salon in 1863. 16 March was a Monday in 1863.
2. George Aloysius Lucas
George Aloysius Lucas (1824-1909), art dealer in Paris [more].
3. Salon
81st exhibition, Ouvrages de peinture, sculpture, architecture, gravure et lithographie des artists vivants, Palais des Champs Elysées, Paris, opened on 1 May 1863. The last date for submission was 1 April 1863.
4. White Girl
Symphony in White, No. I: The White Girl (YMSM 38).
5. Royal Academy
It was rejected by the 94th Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts, Royal Academy, London, 1862; see Spencer, Robin, 'Whistler's 'The White Girl': Painting, Poetry and Meaning.' Burlington Magazine, CXL, no. 1142, May 1998, pp. 300-11.
6. Grande Vitesse
Fr., fast goods service.
7. forms
Lucas went to the Palais de l'Industrie on 18 March to collect an entry form for the exhibition for JW (Diaries, Lucas Collection, Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore; see Randall, Lillian, ed., George A. Lucas: An American Art Agent in Paris, 1857-1909, Princeton, 1979, vol. 2, p. 152). The 'Salon des Refusés', Ouvrages de peinture, sculpture, gravure, lithographie et architecture, refusés par le Jury de 1863, et exposés, par décision de S. M. l'Empereur, au salon annexe, opened at the Palais des Champs Elysées, Paris, on 15 May 1863.