5198. Walter Savage Landor to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 221–222.
[Florence]
April 3 [1863]
Dear Browning,
This is about the time when pictures are sold by auction in London. Perhaps it may be well to consign mine to Christie the auctioneer. [1] I designed the profits for Mrs Linton, but her husband declined the acceptance– [2] When you have repaid yourself for the carriage, let me have the rest. I am become almost blind, and quite deaf, but ever affectionately
Your obliged
W S Landor
Kindest regards to Robert and his charger[.] [3] Christie is a better judge of paintings than Boxall is[.] He may, however, if he thinks proper, advertise this as having been the property of Bishop Baynes, given to him by Cardinal Pacca, [4] and thought to be by Michele Angelo. Whoever has seen his Holy Family, in the Tribuna at Florence, will be of this opinion[.] [5] The coloring, smoothness, &c are exactly the same, and several of the figures are the same as in his Last Judgement. The composition is better. Some have thought it by Bronzino. [6]
Publication: BBIS-5, pp. 56–57.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. George Henry Christie (1811–87), eldest son of James Christie (1773–1831) and his wife, Mary (b. 1780). At this time the auction house was known as Christie, Manson & Woods, William Manson having become a partner soon after the elder Christie’s death. Thomas Wood joined the firm in 1859.
2. According to RB, the painting was refused by Mrs. Linton because she had no “place for it” (letter to Robert Eyres Landor, 7 December 1864, ms at Yale).
3. Stella, Pen’s Sardinian pony.
6. Agnolo di Cosimo di Mariano Tori, called Agnolo Bronzino (1503–1572), Florentine mannerist painter.
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