Letter from WM Hodgkins to Isabel Field
Date
18 Jan 1889
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Object Detail
Date
18 Jan 1889
Transcript
Ravensbourne 18 Jany 1889
My dear Cissy
I was glad to get your letter & to hear that the Rembrandt had reached you. I think you have heard me say what their history is but lest you have forgotten this is it.
The Oil was given to me by old Captain Ian Robertson who in the “Forties” traded between London & Amsterdam & told me that it had been presented to him by the friends of a Political Refugee who he had helped across the Channel, in recognition of that and several other similar services he had rendered. It is a small replica of a larger portrait by Rembrandt now I think at the Hague. But Mr Smith who is [?] judge well up in the literature of paintings will be able to tell you what he thinks of it. I know the old Captain valued it very much & gave it to me when he left in 1867 for Japan as one of his choicest little art treasures.
The etching speaks for itself. You will find in the Melbourne Library in a book describing Rembrandts Works the full history of this & you will remember that Mr Colin Hunter was good enough to get it inspected in London where it was pronounced genuine. As to the price for them the first thing to do is to see if there is any demand for if not of course the price is no use bothering about. The last occasion upon which a copy of this print was sold was I think at the Hague or Antwerp or somewhere when it fetched 2000 marks = about £100 there was one sold in England some time before for £78 I forget out of whose collection but every year they get scarcer.
Your Mother & Fanny are very well. Your Aunt was with her this week. Give my kindest love to Aunt Jane & your cousins & believe me Your affc Father
My dear Cissy
I was glad to get your letter & to hear that the Rembrandt had reached you. I think you have heard me say what their history is but lest you have forgotten this is it.
The Oil was given to me by old Captain Ian Robertson who in the “Forties” traded between London & Amsterdam & told me that it had been presented to him by the friends of a Political Refugee who he had helped across the Channel, in recognition of that and several other similar services he had rendered. It is a small replica of a larger portrait by Rembrandt now I think at the Hague. But Mr Smith who is [?] judge well up in the literature of paintings will be able to tell you what he thinks of it. I know the old Captain valued it very much & gave it to me when he left in 1867 for Japan as one of his choicest little art treasures.
The etching speaks for itself. You will find in the Melbourne Library in a book describing Rembrandts Works the full history of this & you will remember that Mr Colin Hunter was good enough to get it inspected in London where it was pronounced genuine. As to the price for them the first thing to do is to see if there is any demand for if not of course the price is no use bothering about. The last occasion upon which a copy of this print was sold was I think at the Hague or Antwerp or somewhere when it fetched 2000 marks = about £100 there was one sold in England some time before for £78 I forget out of whose collection but every year they get scarcer.
Your Mother & Fanny are very well. Your Aunt was with her this week. Give my kindest love to Aunt Jane & your cousins & believe me Your affc Father
Pages
2 pages
Institutional No.
MS-Papers-0085-49
Credit Line
Letters
to
Isabel
Field.
Field,
Isabel
Jane,
1867-1950
:
Correspondence
of
Frances
Hodgkins
and
family
/
collected
by
Isabel
Field.
Ref:
MS-Papers-0085-49.
Alexander
Turnbull
Library,
Wellington,
New
Zealand.
https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22832495
https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22832495