ROBERT BROWNING. English poet.
Autograph Letter Signed, three pages, octavo, London, February 14, 1882. To “My dear Leighton,” the British painter Sir Frederic Leighton. “I do more indeed than ‘care to have’ a copy of that address which I certainly had ‘interest enough in to listen to.’ I think, did the case relate to any other than yourself, you would readily imagine – I must say, the pride one cannot but feel at finding that all one ventured to foretell of a painter’s capabilities both literally and artistic some quarter of a century ago has been fulfilled and perhaps exceeded by his subsequent performance. I hope that you may go on and give Sir Joshua’s lecture the supplement of which they stand in need – but I do not wish this – a single page of it – to be written at the expense of a picture’s production. I wonder whether it is worth while to say that I read with disgust enough a recent article in which, after the fashion of such critics, it was found impossible to crown one great painter without robbing another of his rights – and the consolatory answer that occurred to me was that, in grateful remembrance, I fancied myself taking Mr. Quilter by the ears (an excellent hold-fast) and putting his face before picture after picture in a gallery of my fancy, and asking whether his eyes played him as falsely as his memory (to take the more charitable supposition) would seem to have done. Even this brief notice of a plain injustice is so many words to much; but the artist himself is clearly debarred from speaking on such an occasion – and an outsider may take the liberty perhaps: at any rate you will forgive an old friend and (quite apart from influences arising from that circumstance) a still older lover of art who is not insensible to injustice done to those who have been devoured in its exercise.”
Matted in beige and brick with a bust-length portrait engraving of an older Robert Browning with white hair and beard. Framed in gilt measuring 21 inches wide by 14 inches high.
Price: $4,750
This item is associated with the following category in our inventory:
- Literature – English/Irish
