Dear Henry
Since I wrote last, Colzi <1> has shewn me another copy of the Ezechiel <2> done to imitate the original exactly with an old cracked varnish & a faded look about some of the clouds & mounted in an old frame it is one of the best things I ever saw – he says if you like you may have it instead of the other but I shall take advice & I fear that tho it looks more like an old copy now – it will not be so good ten years hence, at least that is the reason he gives for the fresher colouring of the other – so do all painters & I suppose there is something in it – & these perfect copies are only kept as Mems – Wallis <3> has done the same. I cannot tell yet when or where I go it will be somewhere in the direction of Illyria or Noricum. <4>
Yr Aff
W T H F S
Henry Talbot Esq
31 Sackville Street
London
Notes:
1. One of the painters who copied Renaissance paintings for connoisseurs. [See Doc. No: 01478].
2. Possibly a copy of Raphael’s Vision of Ezekiel (in the Pitti Palace).
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. Styria (between the Danube and the Alps).