Description
Letter from the art historian A.J. Finberg to the printmaker Sir Frank Short, referring to J.M.W. Turner's 'Liber Studiorum' and to the arthistorian Martin Hardie.
Colltn: Alan Cole.
Inscription
[printed] 2 Scarth Road, Barnes Common, London, S.W.13Telephone: Prospect 2535.
[handwritten] 22 Dec / 38
My dear Sir Frank,
Many thanks for your charming Christmas card. It is one of the few real works of art that has come our way this Christmas but you must not get into the habit of disobeying the Doctor's orders. They are sometimes in the right, though not always.
Curiously enough I am writing by this post to thank Hardie for his volume on your 'Liber' engravings, of which he has nobly sent me a copy, and which I am reading with unfeigned pleasure. I have long thought that I treated you rather [indec] when I did my catalogue of Turner's 'Liber Studiorum'. Hardie's work does much to make good my defects. Besides drawing attention [to] your good work he has produced a most interesting [indec] which must give pleasure to all good men and true who need it. And I appreciate the gentle digs at me in defence of the engravers which, I think, are fully deserved.
Like you I don't like this weather. Our discomforts are intensified by having our water-supply cut off, so our cistern has gone and frozen itself. And my poor wife had to spend nearly 3 hours at St. Pancras on Tuesday as my son's train was late. This is his first holiday from his boarding school - [indec]. Fortunately he doesn't mind the cold weather nearly so much as his parents.
With all good wishes for Christmas and the New Yesar to Lady Short and your self, in which my wife joins.
Yours most sincerely
A.J. Finberg.
Notes
Alan ColeAlexander Joseph Finberg (1886-1939) was commissioned by the Trustees of the National Gallery to complete the arrangement and inventory of the Turner bequest, begun by John Ruskin.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Joseph_Finberg
Francis Job Short (1857-1945) was a British printmaker and teacher of printmaking.
See https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/personExtended/mp04097/sir-francis-job-frank-short?tab=biography
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