29 Aug 1826
Dear Henry
My telling you your pictures wd soon be packed arose from the American figure of anticipation vulgarly called counting chickens before they are hatched – The Marchesa <1> will not come to terms so there is an end of that till she gets poorer which may be about the time you are going to Sicily. I have been talking to Mr Irvine about the packing he has been so good as to recommend me a packer, & a merchant in London & to superintend it himself – The Ezekiel <2> I mean to send with the copy of the Medusa you saw which I have got for 6£– with the frame he asked 12£½– I think it not a bad bargain as there is a great deal of work in it & it will be a fit companion to a copy I have with much ado persuaded him to make of his curious Angel by Leon. dV: he thought it would hurt the sale of it but I have convinced him it would promote it. Wallis’s <3> will not be ready to go with the Ezekiel I shall leave him therefore to send it according to the way he is used to with mine.
I will enquire about the insurance <4> I think it should be done in London – but you puzzle me by talking of sending it to Paris it cannot be in England before the 1. Octr I think it will be safer in Sackville St <5> I hope Kit <6> has a taste for pictures he could so conveniently carry home any quantity. I have a long letter from Tenore <7> who has been botanising in Calabria & is puzzled about oaks. he has found some fine Mountain Crocuses on Mte Pollino 6000 ft above the sea – I shall send him some of my new one is it not a Chariessa æstivalis –
Yr Aff
W T H F S
Henry Talbot Esqr
31 Sackville Street
London
Notes:
1. The Marchesa Grimaldi. [See Doc. No: 05083, Doc. No: 01450 and Doc. No: 01563].
2. Possibly a copy of Raphael’s Vision of Ezekiel (in the Pitti Palace). [See Doc. No: 01450].
3. Probably George Augustus Wallis (1770-1847), Scottish born painter resident in Florence who also was an art dealer and served as a representative of art dealers.
4. See Doc. No: 01478.
5. 31 Sackville Street, London residence of the Feildings, often used as a London base by WHFT.
6. Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot (1803–1890), immensely wealthy landowner, mathematician & politician; WHFT’s Welsh cousin.
7. Michel Tenore (1780–1861), Italian botanist & traveller.
8. Text torn away under seal.