Manuscript letter from architect Sydney Williams Lee to artist John Seymour Lucas, March 1879, with an offer to purchase “The Gordon Riots”, the painting which was acquired by the Art Gallery of New S

A$175 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Manuscript in ink on wove writing paper, octavo bifolium (179 x 112 mm), [4] pp, written on the first side only; headed 4 Burston Road, Putney. March 5th 1879 ; signed at the foot Sydney W. Lee ; the note is addressed My dear Lucas (John Seymour Lucas, English historical genre painter, 1849-1923); Lee offers to buy the artist s latest painting, The Gordon Riots , for the sum of £300; the letter is in fine condition. Lucas completed The Gordon Riots, 1780 an oil painting measuring 126 x 184 cm in 1879. The paint had barely dried on the canvas when architect Sydney Williams Lee sent this letter, acting as an intermediary for a friend, offering the artist £300 for the painting, with copyright and frame included a sum approximately equivalent to £35,000 in today s money. Lee mentions that his friend previously purchased Lucas s Ambuscade (i.e. An Ambuscade, Edgehill ). The architect was a close personal friend of the artist: he had designed Lucas s purpose-built South Hampstead studio, and Lucas had named his son Sydney, born in May 1878, after his talented friend. It seems certain that Lee viewed The Gordon Riots as soon as the painting had been framed, but presumably he would also have seen it while it was a work in progress and still on the easel. It is not entirely clear whether Lee was successful in acquiring the picture on behalf of his anonymous friend in 1879, but considering that Lucas had been delighted to receive an identical sum of money from Lee for Ambuscade just a

• Binding: Hardcover

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