?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 700 - $ 1,000
WRITTEN SOON AFTER GRADUATING FROM PA ACADEMY OF THE FINE ARTS PARRISH, MAXFIELD. Autograph Letter Signed, to illustrator Elisha Brown Bird ("My dear Mr. Bird"), sending a study for a painting entitled "Humpty Dumpty" [not present; likely the work that became an illustration for L. Frank Baum's book, Mother Goose in Prose (1897)], promising to send any available works to [Will H. Bradley's short-lived magazine] Bradley, His Book, and thanking Bird for sending two lithographic prints of his illustration entitled "The Red Letter" (1896). 2 pages, 4to, written on separate sheets; folds, minor scattered staining, owner's ink stamp at lower edge verso of each leaf. Windsor, VT, 14 October 1896
"I herewith send you a preliminary study for a painting called 'Humpty Dumpty.' The reason I send it so much ahead of time is due to the fact that I must have it back again . . . because it is to be exhibited in the coming exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts . . . . I would advise painting this in plain black ink with no addition of color . . . . "I have heard nothing from Bradley as yet--As the August number of 'His Book' does not seem to be out, it is a matter of some speculation when the September number will make its appearance. . . . I shall write and ask him for such material as he may not be using and let you have it: though Heaven forbid that it find its way into your book. I thank you for the two copies of 'The Red Letter' . . . ."
