Letter from Alice Creelman to Henry Clay Frick, 18 August 1919
Scripto
Transcription
RECEIVED NY
SEP 11 1919
H.C. FRICK
131 EAST SIXTY-SIXTH STREET
New York
August 18, 1919
Dear Mr. Frick:
I am sending under separate cover a copy of Sunday's Tribune of August 10 with a colored reproduction of Romney's Lady Hamilton as "Bacchante" sometimes called "The Girl with the Goat."
Of course this print is crude and vivid where the portrait is soft and beautiful in color but it gives an idea of the vivacity and charm of the portrait which is really lovely. The Romney Catalogue Raisonne by Humphrey Ward and Roberts gives
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[beginning of page 2]
give a most interesting story of the painting of this picture which is the most famous of all the Lady Hamilton portraits.
When in England I went to visit at Tankerville Chamberlyne's and saw this picture and many others in his beautiful Adam drawing room. The old man has several portraits of Lady Hamilton by Romney and Sir Joshua and a beauty of her by the French woman, Madame Vigee Le Brun. He would part with the others perhaps but he does not want to let go the "Bacchante." I should not like to see the
[end of page 2]
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other in your collection (unless it should be the Lady Hamilton reclining, full length by Vigee Le Brun which is very fine) but if you can secure the "Bacchante" I hope you will, for it is perfectly charming and is the greatest of all the Romneys.
I do not know who put this in the Tribune, nor if it is really true that $250,000 have been offered to Mr. Chamberlyne for the picture but I do know that every dealer in London and New York have tried to buy it and recently the leading dealer of New York (recently knighted) was there, ostensibly to purchase Mrs. Chamberlyne's
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Chinese vases but really to secure the Bacchante - and failed.
Mrs. Chamberlyne confided some inside facts however that make me believe that if $250,000 or such a sum were offered by me then her husband privately and without the intervention of a dealer and to pass from wall to wall he would part with his treasure. He had one son killed in the war and the other hopelessly shell-shocked.
The picture is worth it. It is not only famous but it has beauty and romance attached.
Very sincerely
Alice B. Creelman
SEP 11 1919
H.C. FRICK
131 EAST SIXTY-SIXTH STREET
New York
August 18, 1919
Dear Mr. Frick:
I am sending under separate cover a copy of Sunday's Tribune of August 10 with a colored reproduction of Romney's Lady Hamilton as "Bacchante" sometimes called "The Girl with the Goat."
Of course this print is crude and vivid where the portrait is soft and beautiful in color but it gives an idea of the vivacity and charm of the portrait which is really lovely. The Romney Catalogue Raisonne by Humphrey Ward and Roberts gives
[end of page 1]
[beginning of page 2]
give a most interesting story of the painting of this picture which is the most famous of all the Lady Hamilton portraits.
When in England I went to visit at Tankerville Chamberlyne's and saw this picture and many others in his beautiful Adam drawing room. The old man has several portraits of Lady Hamilton by Romney and Sir Joshua and a beauty of her by the French woman, Madame Vigee Le Brun. He would part with the others perhaps but he does not want to let go the "Bacchante." I should not like to see the
[end of page 2]
[beginning of page 3]
other in your collection (unless it should be the Lady Hamilton reclining, full length by Vigee Le Brun which is very fine) but if you can secure the "Bacchante" I hope you will, for it is perfectly charming and is the greatest of all the Romneys.
I do not know who put this in the Tribune, nor if it is really true that $250,000 have been offered to Mr. Chamberlyne for the picture but I do know that every dealer in London and New York have tried to buy it and recently the leading dealer of New York (recently knighted) was there, ostensibly to purchase Mrs. Chamberlyne's
[end of page 3]
[beginning of page 4]
Chinese vases but really to secure the Bacchante - and failed.
Mrs. Chamberlyne confided some inside facts however that make me believe that if $250,000 or such a sum were offered by me then her husband privately and without the intervention of a dealer and to pass from wall to wall he would part with his treasure. He had one son killed in the war and the other hopelessly shell-shocked.
The picture is worth it. It is not only famous but it has beauty and romance attached.
Very sincerely
Alice B. Creelman
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To transcribe
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100100
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“Letter from Alice Creelman to Henry Clay Frick, 18 August 1919,” Transcribe Frick, accessed April 25, 2024, https://transcribe.frick.org/items/show/200.