UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

System Number: 03626
Date: [21 September 1895]^[1]
Author: JW
Place: Lyme Regis
Recipient: Ernest George Brown^[2]
Place: [London]
Repository: Glasgow University Library
Call Number: MS Whistler LB 9/32
Document Type: ALS

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Royal Lion Hotel - Lyme Regis
Dorset -

Dear Mr. Brown -

It was by chance that I was in London for a day and evidently fate would not have it that I should listen to your pretty plottings! -

You see I came to you! - and though I had only just had a letter from you which read as though you were fast [p. 2] in Bond Street, behold you had strayed away - perhaps sojourning "on the heights of Hampstead"!! - and the danger is past! - We are all free as before and no one is committed to any thing! -

I enclose cheque for F. A. S. - which please give to Mr Dunn^[3] with my kindest thanks as he was good enough the other day to be my banker -

With best wishes
Always

[butterfly signature]

Go and see a little head^[4] I have sent to the New Gallery - (Society of Portrait Painters Exhibition) -

An early brown paper drawing [p. 3] was bought in for me at "O. Wilde's" sale^[5] -

It was said to be portrait sketch of Sara Bernhardt^[6] - and she wrote on the glass that she considered it very like!!

I gave 15. gs. for it -

If you see your way to place it, you can have it for 25 or 30 -

This document is protected by copyright.

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Envelope:

To
Ernest G. Brown Esq -
The Fine Art Society -
148. New Bond Street
London -
[stamp:] POSTAGE AND INLAND REVENUE / ONE PENNY
[postmark:] LYME·REGIS / B / SP 21 / 95

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Notes:

1.  [21 September 1895]
Dated from postmark.

2.  Ernest George Brown
Ernest George Brown (1853 or 1854-1915), assistant manager at the Fine Art Society [more].

3.  Mr Dunn
A. Homeyer Dunn, employee of the Fine Art Society.

4.  little head
Crimson note: Carmen (YMSM 441), cat. no. 16 at the the 5th Exhibition, Society of Portrait Painters, London, 1895.

5.  'O. Wilde's' sale
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wilde (1854-1900), writer, critic and playwright [more]. Wilde's bankruptcy sale took place on 25 April 1895, in the aftermath of Wilde's failed libel suit against the Marquess of Queensbury. Wilde was subsequently found guilty of gross indecency on 25 May following a Crown criminal trial against him.

6.  Sara Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923), née Henrietta Rosine Bernard, actress [more]. The model for the drawing r.: Maud Franklin; v.: Study of Maud Franklin (M.693), was in fact Mary Maud Franklin (1857- ca 1941), JW's model and mistress [more]. See correspondence between D. C. Thomson and JW in April 1895, #05817, #05818.