Artists
Collection of letters by artists, mainly French and Italian, 1795-1870 and n.d.
Together approximately 24 letters. Provenance: Sotheby's, 17 November 1988, lot 156.

A collection of letters by artists including Canova, David, Delacroix, Corot, Millet, Thorvaldsen and others

The letters include:
Antonio Canova, [1795], announcing the completion of a commission,
Jacques-Louis David, (26 December 1805, to a senator, requesting the payment of a salary of 2,000 francs to his son in Civitavecchia),
Eugène Delacroix, n.d., thanking a friend for a gift: 'je vais avoir l'air d'un élégant avec un aussi joli petit meuble qui a l'air tout étonné de se trouver au milieu de mes paperasses',
Camille Corot, to Mr Yvon, 1855, regretting not having been to see his pictures, having been detained at his studio because of work,
Jean-François Millet, 1870, on trying to finish two paintings for the Salon,
Bertel Thorvaldsen, 1831, on the execution of two bas-reliefs,

Also Francesco Bartolozzi (1808, to his son in London), Paul Delaroche, Giovanni Belzoni (1821, inviting Mr Stirling to inspect 'the Models in wax of of [sic] Egypitan Antiquity'), Pierre-Jean David ('David d'Angers', 1833), Horace Vernet (1853), Jean-Baptiste Isabey (demanding that the secretary of the Musée royale de peinture et sculpture either return his portrait of the Prince of Parma or pay 600 francs, 1820), Ernest Meissonier, Ludwig Vogel (1839), Louis Gallait, Moritz Retzsch, Heinrich Maria von Hess (a curriculum vitae signed), Carlo Marochetti (1856), and others.