Lacock Abbey, Chippenham
June 7. 1839
My Dear Sir,
I have sent you a small packet of photogenic drawings, but not being sure that you are still in Town I have not sent it to Gordon’s Hotel<1> but to 31 Sackville St, <2> if you will be so good as to send for it there.
Yours very truly
H.F. Talbot
L.W. Dillwyn Esq
Gordon’s Hotel
Albemarle St
London
[Dillwyn forwarded this letter to his friend, Dawson Turner (1775-1858), botanist, author and banker. The cover letter is also in the Eastman House collection - both came from the collection of Albert E. Marshall:]
My dear Turner
I find that the best way not to forget a thing is to do it at once & so I enclose one very good photogenic Leaf which Mr Talbot has marked to be his own, & also another by the same hand to shew a somewhat different stile which I have cut from a group as the whole would have been too large for a Letter- I have also part of Talbot's note which accompanied them, & while in Parliament he had such an aversion to Autograph Hunters that when applied to for a Frank he would never give one without ascertaining the use that was to be made of it.
I have a Copy of your first Edition of Rubens & unless it contains some new matter I need not to rob you of a second.<3> Among the few pictures at Sketty there is a comparatively small one of two Ladies which I bought from Capt. Marriott the Naval writer,<4> & it is considered to be a study by Rubens for his great picture of the Conversion of St. Bouvon at Ghent,<5> into wheich they have been accurately copied-
In great haste very sincerely Yrs
L W Dillwyn
Sketty Hall<6>
June 30. 1839
[address panel:}
London July 3 1839
Dawson Turner Esq
Yarmouth Norfolk
? Vivien
Notes:
1. Gordon's Hotel, at 1 Albemarle St in London, was conveniently close to the Royal Institution and not far from the Linnean Society.
2. 31 Sackville Street, London residence of the Feildings, often used as a London base by WHFT.
3. This was the second, enlarged edition of Turner's Catalogue of the works of art: in the possession of Sir Peter Paul Rubens: at the time of his decease (Yarmouth: privately printed, 1839); the first was published in 1832.
4. He probably meant Capt Frederick Marryat (1792-1848), a co-author with the naval painter Clarkson Stanfield.
5. More commonly, St Bavo. Ruben's 1624 painting now hangs in the Sint-Baafskathedraal in Ghent.
6. This Georgian mansion still stands in Swansea, operated as a local entertainment venue.