Documents associated with: Royal Jubilee Exhibition, Manchester, 1887
Record 3 of 9
System Number: 02979
Date: [1/18 April 1887?][1]
Author: JW
Place: [London]
Recipient: Marcus Bourne Huish[2]
Place: [Manchester]
Repository: Glasgow University Library
Call Number: MS Whistler LB 3/41
Document Type: ALS
My dear Huish -
I meant to have answered your note[3] at once - but such a lot of things happened that my capacity as a correspondent quite gave way!
Kindly let the Gentlemen of the Manchester Committee[4] know, from me, why I refuse to send them any picture of mine for Exhibition - At [p. 2] their own request, I lent them the Portrait of my Mother[5] - and I learned that they hung it disgracefully -
This I have on the best possible authority - Doubtless the Committee does not think that the picture was at all badly placed - and this makes it all the more important that I should never entrust them with any other work of mine - for surely you will acknowledge that it is folly indeed that I should again submit to their judgement a painting[6] that has established for itself a reputation that entitles it to respect, so that after hanging on "the line" in a place of honor in the Salon, I should find it in the Provinces relegated to the second or third tier, because the Manchester Committee have thought fit to place it according to their opinion instead of accepting it as an honored loan, requiring no further sitting in council on their part -
Show the Gentlemen of the Committee this letter with my compliments and oblige me -
Sincerely Yrs
J McN. Whistler
This document is protected by copyright.
Notes:
1. [1/18 April 1887?]
Dated by reference to exhibition (see below).
2. Marcus Bourne Huish
Marcus Bourne Huish (1843 - d.1921), barrister, writer and art dealer, Director of the Fine Art Society [more].
3. your note
Not located.
4. Gentlemen of the Manchester Committee
Royal Jubilee Exhibition, Manchester, 1887.
5. Portrait of my Mother
Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter's Mother (YMSM 101).
6. a painting
Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 2: Portrait of Thomas Carlyle (YMSM 137), which had been well hung at 101st exhibition, Ouvrages de peinture, sculpture, architecture, gravure et lithographie des artistes vivants, Palais des Champs Elysées, Paris, 1883.