Reference
SL2/1/1899/12
Title
Letter from George Agnew regarding various Pictures
Date free text
28th March 1899
Production date
From: 1899 To: 1899
Scope and Content
Letter from
George W. Agnew
39b Old Bond Street
London
to Major Shuttleworth, Old Warden Park
Dear Sir,
Your letter of the 26th inst. was forwarded to me this morning from Manchester. I have sent instructions to them that they are to be most reasonable in their charges for doing up the pictures.
I am much obliged to you for the manner in which you patronised our Sale and we quite appreciate that you helped it along. I think you made some very good bargains and I hope the pictures will look well when they hang at Old Warden Park.
I met your brother in London yesterday and he expressed a wish that he had been in Manchester, as he would like to have picked up some of the things there.
I wired you this morning that the Poole picture sold for five hundred guineas in the Munro sale at Christie's. Mr Munro was a great friend of J.M.W.Turner R.A. and was always regarded as a man of taste, and the picture should be well worth one hundred guineas even at the present time. I am rather surprised that it was bought as cheaply because a member of the Art Gallery Committee in Manchester told me that they would probably buy it at anything up to two hundred pounds. For some reason or another, they must have changed their minds.
If you could get it at a reasonable profit on the cost I would advise you to buy it. Up to the time of the pictures having been finally fixed upon for sale by Auction we certainly should not have felt ourselves entitled to sell it at anything under two hundred pounds.
With regard to 'The Grey Lady' by Millais, my father has written from Florence to say that he thinks it and the Dicksee were frightfully slaughtered. He always had a great liking for the 'Grey Lady' and Millais had one thousand pounds for it. If you can only give it a good light, it is a picture that will grow upon you.
There is a wonderful charm and mystery about the figure, and it is beautifully drawn. I heard that a Yorkshire gentleman was bidding against you for it through one of the agents or a London Dealer. I do not know which.
I am going up to Scotland for a few days tomorrow night, but if there is anything further you wish to know, my brother will I think be here on Thursday morning, but he will be going away for two or three days then for Easter.
Yours very truly George W. Agnew
Level of description
item