Documents associated with: 81st exhibition, Ouvrages de peinture, sculpture, architecture, gravure et lithographie des artistes vivants, Palais des Champs Elysées, Paris, 1863
Record 8 of 16
System Number: 08033
Date: [23 April 1863][1]
Author: JW
Place: Amsterdam
Recipient: Louis Martinet[2]
Place: [Paris]
Repository: Library of Congress
Call Number: Manuscript Division, Pennell-Whistler Collection, PWC 1/33/12
Document Type: ALS[3]
Hotel Brack[4] - Amsterdam -
'1863'
Jeudi -
Mon cher Monsieur Martinet -
Si l'on a "refuse" aux "Beaux Arts[5]", un tableau de moi, qui a pour titre "La fille blanche[6]," je voudrais l'exposer dans vos salons du Boulevard[7] - Vous seriez bien aimable, si il y a des formalites auxquelles il faut se conformer, de regarder ceci comme une autorization de ma part, de faire venir le tableau du palais de l'Industrie.
Recevez d'avance mes remerciements et agreez mon cher Monsieur Martinet l'assurance de ma consideration la plus distinguée
James Whistler
This document is protected by copyright.
Translation:
Hotel Brack[8] - Amsterdam -
Thursday -
My dear Mr Martinet -
If one of my pictures, entitled "The White Girl" is "rejected" at the "Beaux-Arts", I would like to show it in your Boulevard salons - If there are formalities to be complied with, please accept this as an authorisation from me to take the picture from the Palais de l'Industrie.
Please accept my thanks in advance.
Yours faithfully
James Whistler
Notes:
1. [23 April 1863]
JW was in Amsterdam in April and May 1863. He enclosed this letter, dated 'Thursday', in his letter of [22 April] to Fantin, which is dated 'Wednesday' (#08034). Although the letter to Martinet could have been written the previous Thursday, 16 April, it is possible that JW wished to give the impression that it was written later than it was and wrote 'Thursday' accordingly. Fantin did not deliver the letter immediately to Martinet; JW, in his letter to Fantin of 3 May (#08035), asked him to destroy it. '1863' was added in another hand at top right.
2. Louis Martinet
Louis Martinet (1814-1895), history painter, Directeur des Beaux-Arts [more].
3. ALS
'9' is written in another hand in the top right corner.
4. Hotel Brack
Brack's Doelen Hotel, on the Doelenstraat. JW was visiting Amsterdam with Alphonse Legros (1837-1911), painter, etcher and art teacher [more]; see Heijbroek, J. F. and Margaret F. MacDonald, Whistler and Holland, Zwolle and Amsterdam, 1997, p. 49.
5. Beaux Arts
The Société Nationale des Beaux Arts. The exhibition did not open until July.
6. La fille blanche
Symphony in White, No. I: The White Girl (YMSM 38). When it was rejected at the Salon, JW appears to have wanted it to be submitted to the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts; if rejected there, as this note anticipates, then it was to be shown at Martinet's gallery. He then, however, cancelled this authorisation in favour of the Salon des Refusés, which opened at the Palais des Champs Elysées on 15 May, where it was shown as 'La Dame Blanche' (cat. no. 596). It was shown subsequently at Martinet's gallery in July; see Fantin to JW, 19 July 1863, #01082.
7. Boulevard
Martinet's gallery was on the Boulevard des Italiens; JW had exhibited his Thames etchings there in January 1862.