Letter from David Wilkie, London, to Sir George Beaumont, 1816 December 12 : autograph manuscript signed.

Relating details of his trip to Holland and discussing his current work; describing the works the Old Masters that he saw on his travels and commenting "I thought I could trace the particular districts in Holland where Ostade, Jean-Stein [sic] Cuyp & Rembrandt had studied, & could fancy the very spot where pictures of other Masters had been painted; indeed nothing seemed new to me in the whole country, for I had been familiar with it all upon canvas & what one could not help wondering at was that these old masters should have been able to draw the materials of so beautiful a variety of species of art, from so contracted & monotonous a country...The Field of Waterloo was to me as to every Englishman the subject of deepest interest. Whatever ones pursuits might be it was impossible to visit such a place but with the keenest association. I did not expect that to a common observer the genius displayed in the choice of the ground would be so apparent but it gave me a more striking idea of the powers of our great general...As I know you will feel interested in any circumstance of a pleasing nature that occur'd to me in my practice I cannot refrain from mentioning that The Duke of Wellington has commissioned me to paint him a picture & that when he was last in England he called upon me with some friends to give me the subject. He wants it to be a number of soldiers of various description seated upon the benches at the door of some Public House with porter & tobacco talking over their old stories;" relating news of what work is currently hanging in the Gallery and at the Academy; adding "When you come to town you will most likely find two of my pictures at the gallery the one is Dr. Baillies & the other is a scene of sheep washing from a sketch I made in Wiltshire. The Breakfast party I am now at work upon & have got far advanced with it. With respect to the sheepwashing, it is of course being a landscape entirely new to me, I certainly wish to get practice & try to obtain some kind of proficiency in this way but my ambition is not more than that of enabling myself to paint an out of doors scene with facility & in no respect whatever to depart from my own line;" sending his regards to him and to Lady Beaumont.