Lot 367: [ Books ]

* Wallis (Henry, 1830-1916). A series of twenty-four autograph letters signed 'Henry Wallis' to his son Felix, c. 1885-1906, writing from Cairo, Rome, Turin, Alexandria, Exeter, etc., with talk of his travels, plus general domestic matters such as plumbing problems, payments, correspondence, organizing of books and proofs, also occ. details of artefacts found or bought including antiquities, textiles, glass and curios, with mentions of sending these home and references to contacting the British Museum, a couple of letters in pencil, a total of approx. 73pp., mostly 8vo, together with two autograph letters to his mother, n.d., 7pp., two letters to Violet, one dated 26th December 1913, 3pp., Henry Wallis's passport with numerous stamps and two pencil sketches at rear, a signed note, a receipt (1868), a signed inventory, 1912, a lock of "father's hair" (in an envelope postmarked 1866), plus a small group of related letters and papers belonging to Felix and family including correspondence from Laurence Binyon at the British Museum. Henry Wallis was a notable painter and ceramics expert. 'By early 1855 Wallis was acquainted with the novelist and poet George Meredith. This led to Meredith's posing for the face of the dead poet Thomas Chatterton in Wallis's painting Chatterton (Tate collection), which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1856. This picture made Wallis famous overnight: John Ruskin, for example, described it as 'faultless and wonderful' (Parris, 144). Its continuing fascination for the public owes much to the way in which it is inextricably linked with a real-life 'romance': in the summer of 1857, if not before, Wallis and Meredith's wife, Mary Ellen, daughter of Thomas Love Peacock, became lovers. Mary Meredith left her husband, and had a son with Wallis, Harold (Felix) Meredith (later Wallis) in April 1858. Mary Ellen died in October 1861.' (DNB). In 1859 he came into a comfortable inheritance and, though he remained a Royal Academy exhibitor until 1877, he never again made the same artistic impact. His energies were then largely spent travelling abroad and writing on archaeology, ceramics, and Renaissance, much of which was published in the Art Journal between 1882 and 1890. He also published twenty volumes on Persian, Egyptian, Greek, and Byzantine ceramics often using his own illustrations. He died, unmarried, at his home in Croydon and was buried in Highgate cemetery. (a folder)
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