Documents associated with: 2nd Exhibition, Society of Portrait Painters, London, 1892
Record 2 of 8
System Number: 05751
Date: 25 June 1892
Author: David Croal Thomson[1]
Place: London
Recipient: JW
Place: [Paris]
Repository: Glasgow University Library
Call Number: MS Whistler T96
Document Type: ALS
[Royal coat of arms]
THE GOUPIL GALLERY
BOUSSOD, VALADON & CO.
116 & 117, NEW BOND STREET, W.
TELEGRAMS, - BOUSSOD, LONDON.
London
25 June 1892.
Dear Sir,
I hope to be in Paris on Wednesday or Thursday & would like to come to see you about 3 o'clock in the afternoon. I shall be in Paris only a very short time but if this hour is inconvenient please [p. 2] write & let me know, as it is to see you as one of the chief objects of my visit that I come.
'The Princess' from Leylands[2] is in the place of honour in the Portrait Exhibition[3] just opened. This exhibition is really very good, but the chief artistic attraction is the Princess. The critics are singularly pleasant about it & even 'The Times' has omitted to have a rude remark for the painter.
[p. 3] Menpes[4] has sold nearly all his little works. Many of them are like the old Birket Foster[5] style & eminently suited to the taste of the ordinary British buyer - Here & there, very far between, there is an indication of artistic feeling coming from long past days, but as a rule they are hard & commonplace. He has a work of the Church at Venice[6] the same subject as the one you did which Mr Gallimard[7] has. It has every detail showing & in every sense & chiefly in quality at the [p. 4] opposite extreme from yours. He got about £150 for it. & it is truly dreadful.
Yours faithfully
[stamped:] BOUSSOD VALADON & CO.
D C Thomson
MANAGER.
Mr J McN. Whistler
This document is protected by copyright.
Notes:
1. David Croal Thomson
David Croal Thomson (1855-1930), art dealer [more].
2. 'The Princess' from Leylands
La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine (YMSM 50), originally bought by Frederick Richards Leyland (1832-1892), ship-owner and art collector [more], and sold after his death.
3. Portrait Exhibition
2nd Exhibition, Society of Portrait Painters, London, 1892.
4. Menpes
Mortimer Luddington Menpes (1860-1938), artist [more]. He made numerous etchings and watercolours of Venice. Venice, illustrated with Menpes's watercolours, with text by Dorothy Menpes, was published by Adam and Charles Black, London, 1912.
5. Birket Foster
Myles Birket Foster (1825-1899), artist [more].
6. Church at Venice
On exhibition at Dowdeswell and Dowdeswell's in Bond Street (see #05750). Birkett Foster's views of Venice were popular, and had been etched and published; for instance, a steel etching by A.Willmore of Birkett Foster's painting of San Marco from the lagoon, was published in Picturesque Europe, c. 1860.
7. Mr Gallimard
Sebastien-Paul Gallimard (1850-1929), collector, publisher and patron of the arts [more], owned Nocturne: Blue and Gold - St Mark's, Venice (YMSM 213).