BIB_ID
436583
Accession number
MA 3315.72
Creator
Doyle, Henry Edward, 1827-1892, sender.
Display Date
London, England, between 1840 and 1845.
Credit line
Purchased on the Fellows Fund with the special assistance of Mr. and Mrs. Walter H. Page, 1974.
Description
1 item (2 pages, with address) : illustrations ; 22.8 x 18.4 cm
Notes
Location and date of writing inferred from contents of the letter.
Illustrated on page 1 with 3 dancing bugs; illustrated on the top of page 1 with Emperor Mehmed II looking at his portrait by Bellini; illustrated on the bottom of page 1 with an enslaved person on his knees about to be beheaded while the Emperor Mehmed and Bellini look on; an indecipherable illustration on page 4.
Part of a large collection of letters from Richard Doyle (51 items), Henry Edward Doyle (25 items), and Charles Altamont Doyle (3 items) to their father, John Doyle. See collection-level record for more information.
High reserve.
Illustrated on page 1 with 3 dancing bugs; illustrated on the top of page 1 with Emperor Mehmed II looking at his portrait by Bellini; illustrated on the bottom of page 1 with an enslaved person on his knees about to be beheaded while the Emperor Mehmed and Bellini look on; an indecipherable illustration on page 4.
Part of a large collection of letters from Richard Doyle (51 items), Henry Edward Doyle (25 items), and Charles Altamont Doyle (3 items) to their father, John Doyle. See collection-level record for more information.
High reserve.
Provenance
Richard Doyle; Arthur Conan Doyle; Adrian Conan Doyle. Purchased from House of El Dieff, 1974.
Summary
Stating that he is reading "Pilkington" (probably Matthew Pilkington's General Dictionary of Painters); sharing an anecdote about Ottoman Emperor Mahomet II having seen some of the works of Gentile Bellini and inviting him to Constantinople to paint his portrait; adding that Bellini was received with praise, but the Turkish monarch ordered the head of an enslaved person's head to be struck off in front of him to show the inaccuracy in his picture of the beheading of St Thom., which traumatized Bellini.
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