UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

System Number: 08651
Date: [20 April 1884]^[1]
Author: JW
Place: [London]
Recipient: Charles William Dowdeswell^[2]
Place: [London]
Repository: Library of Congress
Call Number: Rare Books and Manuscripts Division
Document Type: ALS

Dear Mr Dowdeswell -

With pleasure - Wednesday then, the 30th - only do not for heavens' sake propose the dinner before 8 o'clock -

Now - I must have the van again - probably tomorrow - and what I want is that it should be in readiness so that it might come down, on receipt of a telegram from me, at once to the Studio -

It is to take a picture to the Grosvenor for which they are I believe waiting - and I had a telegram from Sir Coutts^[3] this afternoon to say they could not keep the place for me any longer - Now I shall probably have it ready to go, somewhere about one or two o'clock tomorrow or perhaps later on - & then I shall wire to you - Kindly send some one who will be very careful with the whole thing as the picture is of course [p. 2] still quite wet -

More shortly -

Mean while Very sincerely Yrs

J McN Whistler

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Notes:

1.  [20 April 1884]
Dated by sequence of correspondence (see below), and by the almanac, which confirms that 30 April was a Wednesday in 1884.

2.  Charles William Dowdeswell
The recipient was almost certainly Charles William Dowdeswell (1832-1915), art dealer [more], rather than his sons.

3.  Sir Coutts
Sir Coutts Lindsay (1824-1913), Bart., co-founder of the Grosvenor Gallery [more]. No telegram has been located, but he had written on 18 April 1884 asking JW to withdraw Arrangement en couleur chair et noir: Portrait de Théodore Duret (YMSM 252) from the forthcoming show, 8th Summer Exhibition, Grosvenor Gallery, London, 1884. Arrangement in Black: La Dame au brodequin jaune - Portrait of Lady Archibald Campbell (YMSM 242) was accepted. It may be that he intended to substitute another picture, such as Arrangement in Black: Portrait of Señor Pablo de Sarasate (YMSM 315).