Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Autograph letter signed with initials : Hastings, to William Allingham, [1854 May 7].

BIB_ID
305398
Accession number
MA 381.7
Creator
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 1828-1882.
Display Date
[1854 May 7].
Credit line
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1909.
Description
1 item (4 p.) ; 18.4 cm + envelope
Notes
Dating from postmarks and Fredeman.
Mourning envelope with postmarks and addressed to "William Allingham Esq / 1 Queen Square / Bloomsbury / London."
Part of a large collection of letters from Dante Gabriel Rossetti primarily to William Allingham. Letters have been cataloged individually; see collection-level record for more information.
Ruskin was alluding to his separation from his wife, Effie Gray; their marriage was annulled on 15 July 1854.
Written on mourning paper from "5 High Street, Hastings."
Provenance
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan from the London dealer J. Pearson & Co. in 1909.
Summary
Reporting on Miss Siddal's health, noting that she appears no worse "either by her own account or in appearance" and that they took a walk with Barbara [Smith] and Anna Mary [Howitt]; inviting Allingham to visit him in Hastings and thanking him for the woodblocks (from Routledge), mentioning a drawing by Miss Siddal that "promises to be beautiful when drawn on the wood." Mentioning that Ruskin has hinted about "some grievous family misfortune" about which he presumes Rossetti has "perhaps heard already or at any rate will soon hear," and asking whether Allingham knows what Ruskin is alluding to.