Details
RUSKIN, John (1819-1900). Seven autograph letters signed, including five to an unidentified correspondent ('Dear Sir'), Amiens, Brantwood, and n.p., 26 October [1848] and n.d.; one to Miss Corkran, Herne Hill, 31 March, n.y.; and one to Philip Massey, Brantwood, 22 August 1883, together 13 pages, 8vo.
Ruskin gives his uncompromising opinion of restoration, and supports the Pre-Raphaelites: 'If I had entire authority in such matters I should have no difficulty, my code being a perfectly simple one. Never restore sculpture. Not an atom. Not so much as a dogtooth, broken from a row of a thousand ... Preserve your building by any unsightly process, props, buttress of mere block, beam across arch. Anything to keep it together'. 'Turner is the greatest landscape painter in the world and the Pre-Raphaelites the only good figure painters in the world'. Writing from Amiens, he admonishes his correspondent that 'Nothing can be begun on borrowed money' and advises him to buy a handpress and print the good news from other papers, 'The News of Good', once a month. Another blunt piece of his mind goes to Miss Corkran, 'I had rather a daughter of mine was a country scullery maid than a London hack artist', but with a kinder postscript; and the letter to Massey offers to accept his Turner drawing not for himself but for the Sheffield Museum. (7)
Ruskin gives his uncompromising opinion of restoration, and supports the Pre-Raphaelites: 'If I had entire authority in such matters I should have no difficulty, my code being a perfectly simple one. Never restore sculpture. Not an atom. Not so much as a dogtooth, broken from a row of a thousand ... Preserve your building by any unsightly process, props, buttress of mere block, beam across arch. Anything to keep it together'. 'Turner is the greatest landscape painter in the world and the Pre-Raphaelites the only good figure painters in the world'. Writing from Amiens, he admonishes his correspondent that 'Nothing can be begun on borrowed money' and advises him to buy a handpress and print the good news from other papers, 'The News of Good', once a month. Another blunt piece of his mind goes to Miss Corkran, 'I had rather a daughter of mine was a country scullery maid than a London hack artist', but with a kinder postscript; and the letter to Massey offers to accept his Turner drawing not for himself but for the Sheffield Museum. (7)
Special notice
This lot will be subject to VAT at the rate of 17.5% on the buyer's premium