Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898) - photo 1

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898)

Lot 34
30.07.2020 00:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Starting price
£ 2 800
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 381242
Lot 34 | Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898)
Estimate value
£ 2 800 – 3 500
DODGSON, Charles Lutwidge (‘Lewis Carroll’, 1832-1898). Autograph letter signed (‘C L Dodgson’) to Mr Ellison, 5 East Terrace, Whitby, 18 September 1866.

Three pages, 180 x 114mm, bifolium.

Writing from the seaside, seeking an introduction to Edith Jebb – who would become one of his ‘child friends’ – and her siblings. The weather in Whitby is exceptionally lovely and Dodgson wishes Ellison were there with him, not least to enquire whether any of the latter’s relations by the name of Jebb might be visiting from Doncaster. ‘There is a Mr and Mrs Jebb here, with 3 children, 2 girls & a boy: the 2 former remarkably pretty. We should much like to have a good pretext for making their acquaintance – not only on social grounds, but (in my case) on artistic grounds, as I might perhaps some day get them as subjects for the camera’. He continues: ‘I see that the little group I did of your young trio figures in a very conspicuous place outside Mr Braithwaite’s shop. I suppose he is rather proud of it as an emanation from his studio’.

The Ellison children sat for Dodgson during his visit to the family home in 1862 – a series of photographs taken at South Bank, Malvern are recorded in the catalogue raisonné (The Photographs of Lewis Carroll, 2015) – and shortly after writing the present letter, Dodgson was to succeed in securing the acquaintance of the Jebb children: photographs of Florence and Edith, along with their brother Alvery, were taken in Braithwaite’s in Whitby on 25 September 1866. Edith Jebb was to become one of Dodgson’s ‘child friends’ – a pair of affectionate letters written to her in 1870 survive – and she went on to sit for Dodgson again in 1874.
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
Preview
09.07.2020 – 30.07.2020
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