1182. Benjamin Robert Haydon to EBB

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 13.

London

March 16, 1843

My dearest Friend /

I saw the Ecce Homo to day, [1] & there is very great merit in it—the expression is subdued without being heavy, the head carefully painted & correctly drawn & it is a work (if the artist be young) on which to calculate.

The faults are hardness, bad color, & not elevated & refined character—but still it is of very great merit—the half tints are green instead of pearly—but your Friend may be proud of his protogé [sic]. I have got through both Cartoons, [2] & now comes the relaxation of the String—I must be at something else–

Goodnight

B R Haydon

Miss B Barrett

Address: Miss B, Barrett / 50 Wimpole St.

Publication: EBB-BRH, p. 48.

Manuscript: University of Vermont.

1. The painting praised by EBB and bought by Kenyon (see letters 1126 and 1128).

2. Despite this statement, Haydon’s diary entry for 22 March 1843 read: “Got my Adam & Eve Cartoon quite right … & tomorrow complete the Black Prince by revising it” (Pope, V, 255). Both were shown in the cartoon exhibition in Westminster Hall in June 1843.

___________________