Sunday Oakdene, Guildford My dear Mr Wood of Christie very kindly sent me marked catalogue last night1 - I am very pleased the pictures brought fair prices. I don't know who has bought the 'Caritas'2 and 'Temperantia'3 - in the name of Redford. My uncle the old gentleman of Skelmorlie got the Fides4 - and the Sperantia5 was not sold so I suppose Ellis had a high reserve on them. I consider they brought their fair value in present state of the market for pictures, and I feel happy in the confidence that this sale will make it easier for me to fix prices of work in the future for hitherto I have been a little at a loss as to any but important first class works like the Fortune,6 Cophetua7 etc. which I saw my way more clearly to put a fair estimate on. By and bye I hope the demand for good work generally will again improve but meantime it is important to have it on record that your work has so held its own in the worst market there has been. I shall be glad if by any chance you happen to hear why the 'Sperantia' was not sold the bought in price being so high as 590 gs. The Rossettis did badly as I expected. I am awfully vexed to find my Uncle bought the 'Donna della Finestra'!8 It is a wretched potboiler and if I had had the smallest idea he was going to buy at all I would have stopped him.9 I want you to keep in mind that the hawthorn flower will soon be in and if you require nature at all to complete the 'Merlin and Nimue'10 replica you must not let this May time pass without doing all that you need to it in that way. I want it finished - it is too much invested work to be allowed to be idle any longer - please see to this. I am so glad you are happy about the briar rose picture11 and my first visit to town Agnew must come to N. End and we set about it - it is the most important transaction you have had yet and I want it made all the more definite as one feels the years creep on and life so uncertain. I think you said [bi?] was ready to go to Grovr. Place and if so I should like her to go while Frances pleasure to them I know. I am much the same. Weary days and nights rather and the pain at times pretty nice little home, and it might all have been so much worse that I should be ashamed that come and indeed I am. Goodbye my dear. Love to you all. Your affect W.G. It will be so nice if you can come spend one afternoon with us and it is very easy. 1 Sale at Christie's, 16 May 1885, of pictures belonging to Frederick Startridge Ellis (1830-1901), friend and publisher of the Pre-Raphaelites. On Ellis, see Macleod, 1996, p. 412. 2 Lot 92, bought by Lady Lloyd Lindsay (now private collection, West Germany): see B36. 3 Lot 94, also bought by Lady Lloyd Lindsay (now private collection, West Germany). 4 Sold as lot 88 in John Graham's sale (Vancouver Art Gallery). 5 This was in fact bought by John Graham and sold as lot 89 in his sale (Dunedin, New Zealand). See Bume-Jones and his Followers (Tokyo Shimbun, Japan, 1987), no. 15 (illus.). 6 Wheel of Fortune. 7 King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid. 8 Lot 91 (Surtees 255), not in John Graham's sale (Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Mass., 1943.200). 9 Cf. A85: 'one of your most successful single figures' 10 The Beguiling of Merlin: replica not completed. 11 This is probably the first in the large Briar Rose series (Buscot Park). The other three pictures were not completed until after WG's death. See Chapter 4 above and The Reproductive Engravings after Sir Edward Coley Bume-Jones (Julian Hartnoll, London, 1988), pp. 42-45.