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A holograph letter, 8 July 1751, from the painter Richard Wilson, Venice, to [Admiral] Thomas Smith, London, touching on Wilson's studies of Titian, Francesco Zuccarelli, his portrait of the German ambassador, and various acquaintances in Venice (ff. 3-4). Also included is a letter, 7 November 1750, from the painter's sister E[lizabeth] Wilson, Bristol, to Smith, apparently on behalf of her brother, concerning a dispute with a Mr Harris arising from 'the pictures of the two Miss Jenkins' (ff. 1-2).
Both letters were first published in Maud M. Wyndham, Chronicles of the Eighteenth Century: Founded on the Correspondence of Sir Thomas Lyttelton and his Family, 2 vols (London, 1924), II, 66-69; they have subsequently seen print in Adrian Bury, Richard Wilson, R.A.: The Grand Classic (Leigh-on-Sea, 1947), pp. 17-18, W. G. Constable, Richard Wilson (London, 1953), pp. 19-22, and elsewhere. This is one of only three holograph Richard Wilson letters known to exist (see Constable, pp. 1, 13).