BIB_ID
421361
Accession number
MA 1352.306
Creator
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870.
Display Date
London, England, 1852 December 23.
Credit line
Purchased with the assistance of the Fellows, 1951.
Description
1 item (3 pages) ; 18.1 x 11.3 cm
Notes
Signed with initials.
The letter is part of a collection, MA 1352, which consists of letters from Charles Dickens to the Baroness, to her companion Hannah (Meredith) Brown, or the latter's husband, William Brown; with 70 letters written by others to Miss Coutts or to Dickens in his capacity as her unofficial almoner; and a few others. See the collection-level record for more information.
Written from "Tavistock House / Twenty Third December 1852."
The letter is part of a collection, MA 1352, which consists of letters from Charles Dickens to the Baroness, to her companion Hannah (Meredith) Brown, or the latter's husband, William Brown; with 70 letters written by others to Miss Coutts or to Dickens in his capacity as her unofficial almoner; and a few others. See the collection-level record for more information.
Written from "Tavistock House / Twenty Third December 1852."
Provenance
The letters formed part of the Burdett-Coutts sale (Sotheby, 17 May 1922); they were purchased for Oliver W. Barrett in whose collection they remained until it was sold by his son (Parke-Bernet, 31 October 1951).
Summary
Relating the experience of his portrait sittings with a photographer, John E. Mayall; saying "I am happy to say that the little piece of business between the Sun and myself, came off with the greatest success [...] The Artist who operated, is quite a Genius in that way, and has acquired a large stock of a very singular knowledge of all the little eccentricities of the light and the instrument. The consequence of which, is, that his results are very different from those of other men. I am disposed to think the portrait, by far the best specimen of anything in that way, I have ever seen. Some of the peculiarities inseparable from the process - as a slight rigidity and desperate grimness - are in it, but very greatly modified. I sat five times. It is not come home yet, as it is waiting for a case; but I hope you will be pleased with it. I shall have a request to make to you when you come back to town again, if you think well of the picture, which I hope and trust you will not refuse;" mentioning his Household Words responsibilities.
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