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ROYAL ACADEMY ARTISTS
A unique archive of approximately 400 unpublished letters from Royal Academicians, all to the collector Thomas Miller of Preston, dated 1845-1865. This remarkable correspondence highlights the struggles experienced by contemporary artists in their attempt to secure patronage and gain admission to the Royal Academy. The most prolific correspondent is WILLIAM POWELL FRITH (1819-1909) who gives a remarkable insight into the artistic life of his contemporaries. He discusses the Old Masters and reveals his own insecurities and aspirations, especially at the time of the Royal Academy elections. One 7pp. a.l.s., dated February 10th 1857, describles the anguish of waiting for the results of the election: 'those precious Academicians are assembled and the fate of the wretched associates is being decided ... up to the present moment my confidence has got weaker and weaker ... the show is without exception the worst that has ever been there ... one can't help feeling angry at seeing what used to be a charming little gallery turned by mismanagement into a receptacle for the most execrable trash.' He goes on to describe the poor quality of his colleagues' work in detail and concludes: 'there are but at most half a dozen admirable pictures in the place the rest are rubbish of the vilest description ... it is worth seeing the last room, the Chamber of Horrors is nothing to it. Someone was suggesting the desirableness of recommending to the Directors to provide restorative Brandy or smelling salts ... to remove the nausea ... that the visitors seem to feel'; and on learning the result: 'the decision of the Royal Academy puts us all tight, we are a set of miserable matched sticks and the public will look at and buy our pictures as a set of flats (I bag your larder).' WILLIAM HOLMAN HUNT (1827-1910) describes in detail the inspiration of his painting 'The Scapegoat' in a 7pp. a.l.s., dated 49 Claverton Terrace, Lupus Street, Pimlico, March 31st 1856: 'I made a journey along the plain of the Dead Sea to select a fitting spot which I decided upon at Asdoom ... and I located myself until I had painted the Mountains of Edom and the lake and salt encrusted marsh below ... I have supposed the goat to have been wandering three days, driven from all resting places within sight of man to this desolate region - which is the probable sight of Sodom - and there while the sun is sinking and the full moon is rising behind the reddened Eastern Mountains the weary animal has turned towards some calm land-locked water from the shore on to the treacherous surface of salt ....' DAVID ROBERTS (1796-1864) in a 4pp a.l.s., dated 7 Fitzroy Square, London, February 12th 1851, discusses 'a very beautiful subject upon which I have been long engaged -- an Interior of one of the magnificent Temples of upper Egypt'. WILLIAM DYCE (1806-1864), in a collection of 8 a.l.s. dated 1851-57, discusses his painting of Jacob and Rachel from its original commission through to its final completion, relating all the problems encountered. CHARLES LESLIE (1794-1859), in a collection of 27 a.l.s. dated 1849-1857, discusses a vast range of subjects including a painting by Ingres 'which I did not like -- the subject is "The Charge to Peter" and I cannot understand how any painter could think of attempting it after Raphael -- Even Nicholas Poussin failed woefully in comparison with Raphael'. THOMAS WEBSTER (1800-1886) states in one of 21 a.l.s dated 1849-1854 that 'I do not think you greedy, but am much pleased with your appetite for my work.' Other correspondents in a similar vein include John Everett Millais, Noel Paton, Frederick Goodall, Thomas Creswick, John Herbert, John Linnell, John Frederick Lewis, Richard Ansdell, Daniel Maclise, Alfred Elmore, Paul Falconer Poole and William Mulready. In sum this unique correspondence reveals the mood and the conditions of the art world at a crucial period in British art history and the unique relationship that existed between artist and patron, their motives accurately summed up in the words of Frith: 'so we go on in the ardent pursuing of the beautiful and the true and after all what a happy chase it is.' Also included in the collection are a quantity of settlement statements relating to Miller's collection, including those from Thomas Agnew.
