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 June 26.

BIB_ID
305405
Accession number
MA 381.9
Creator
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 1828-1882.
Display Date
1854 June 26.
Credit line
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1909.
Description
1 item (4 p.) ; 17.8 cm + envelope
Notes
Dated at head "26th (?) June 1854." The query is Rossetti's, and the postmarks (JU 26 and JU 28) support this as the correct date.
Envelope with stamp and postmarks and addressed to "William Allingham Esq / New Ross Ireland."
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.
The "cordial stunner" was probably a Bell Savage Inn waitress, with whom Rossetti had "an innocent flirtation." --Cf. Fredeman, letter 54.51, n. 6.
Written on mourning paper.
Provenance
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan from the London dealer J. Pearson & Co. in 1909.
Summary
Mentioning that Miss Siddal has "benefited a good deal by her stay in Hastings" and has been working on sketches to illustrate the ballads. Discussing "the mighty Mac Cracken" and his recent attempted sale of several pictures by Hunt, Millais, Brown, Hughes "& several other pictures." Mentioning that MacCracken noted "that he should part with neither of mine," and stating "Full well he knows that the time to sell them is not come yet." Noting that he urged MacCracken to place reserves (most of which were not met) on the pictures he attempted to sell through Christie's, and that "he seems hard up." Describing a crier going up the street and wishing that one could "put all one's plagues & the skeletons of one's house into his hands, & tell them & sell them without reserve.'" Mentioning an encounter with "the cordial stunner." With a postscript on the envelope.