Walter Dowdeswell held two exhibitions of Whistler's work in his gallery in 1884 and 1886, the second of which he admitted made him an absolute loss. In 1887 he published a short biography of Whistler in Art Journal of which Oscar Wilde wrote, 'Mr Dowdeswell displays a really remarkable power, not merely of writing, but of writing from dictation, especially in his very generous and appreciative estimate of Mr Whistler's genius'.
The second letter is to David Croal Thomson of the Goupil Gallery. He had shown Whistler's portrait of Carlyle, and in 1892 held a major show of his work including the notorious Falling Rocket, famously attacked by Ruskin. Whistler moved to the Rue de Bac in January 1893 and lived there until 1895.