| Description | Volume XI is made up of correspondence to/from Watts and his Victorian contemporaries and includes correspondence relating to portrait commissions.
The correspondence includes letters with Henry Wentworth Acland regarding Mr Stanhope, Mr Jowett's health, the physical sciences, Ruskin, includes a Christmas card; with James Martineau regarding portrait sittings, Martineau's 90th birthday, Mary Seton Watts' sister; with Frederick Roberts regarding portrait sitting; with Thomas Carlyle regarding portrait sittings; with Matthew Arnold regarding portrait sittings, publication 'Nineteenth Century', Mr Barnett, public speaking, Arnold's role as a school inspector; with Frederic Harrison regarding a visit to Watts' studio to see his paintings; with Sir Charles Lock Eastlake regarding Watts submitting art to the Houses of Parliament, Watts' 'Alfred' painting, portrait sittings, Watts' fresco at Lincoln's Inn, Eastlake as the director of the National Gallery; with Hubert von Herkomer regarding a drawing and etching of Tennyson, an engraving of 'Love and Death', includes an etched drawing of a man (likely to be von Herkomer), von Herkomer teaching in an art school, possibility of Watts lending paintings to art school, the progress of von Herkomer's pupils, the Royal Academy, Watts sitting for a portrait, a message from Princess Louise regarding Watts, the bad behaviour of a young American Miss Vanderbilt Wackerman; with Frances Elena Low regarding Watts' paintings, educating the people of Whitechapel via the medium of art; with Joseph Joachim regarding concert rehearsals at St. James's Hall and an invitation to Watts, introducing Watts to the secretary of the Berlin Royal Academy of Arts; with Olive Emilie Alberta Schreiner regarding her departure to South Africa, Watts' painting of a white horse, the painting 'Love and Death' and her gifting it to the man she intends to marry, requesting that Watts donate art works to South Africa to begin a national collection, Watts' painting 'She shall be called woman', 'Minotaur' and 'Mammon'; with Henry Edward Manning, Archbishop of Westminster, regarding portrait sittings; with W. A. Bower regarding the copying of Watts' portrait of Henry Edward Manning; with François d'Orléans, Prince de Joinville and Henri d'Orléans, Duke of Aumale, regarding invitations to Watts to visit them in England.
Material is made up of bound and loose letters arranged in intellectual order referring to the running order of letter numbers, awarded prior to the collection's dismantlement. Items sold in separate lots not bought by the National Portrait Gallery may be held at other institutions or in private collections. |