| Description | <2, Holland Park Road,
Kensington, West.>
Dear Stewart
Young Britten, an artist of great talent and high aims - who has been lately enlarging for me, to a colossal scale, a design of St Paul's - has lately lost his three best friends. [-] (MP) for whom he had done large pieces, and was about to begin an important picture has died as you know. Hills the great collector of Brighton & staunch friend & 'patron' of his, has gone mad, and a third friend Mr Bethel, who had ordered four works of his has also just died. He now finds himself with several works begun on the easel (he is a slow worker) and without a penny to go on till they are finished (and they are not commissions) except a trifle I have found a pretext to give him for work to be done. If he can get nothing he will of course be turned out and his things will be seized. I can't help writing this to you who are generous & like to befriend the talented. Perhaps you or some friend may care to do something. He lives at 13A Bloomfield Place, Ebury Road. I leave him in your hands.
Sincerely yours always
Fred Leighton
I may say that I have been employing him but my work is now virtually done. He has a wife and family - a good thrifty little woman. |