MILLET (Jean-François). Autograph letter... - Lot 18 - Osenat

MILLET (Jean-François). Autograph letter signed to the art critic Théophile Silvestre. Barbizon, August 3, 1870. 3 pp. in-8. "Your request touches us singularly in that it comes from the simple pleasure that you have in our daughter Louise. Also, our hearts, which are not hearts of rock, have softened to the point that we are leaving her with you for another eight days, despite the need her mother has for her at home... We trust that by then you will have enough of her, and that you will consider this a nice way to get rid of her. I don't know what the Feuardents will say to you [Félix-Bienaimé Feuardent was a close friend of Jean-François Millet, and the father-in-law of the latter's daughter], & whether their hearts will be harder or softer than ours, but I think they must count on the fact that very soon you will also have enough of Mathilde [Félix-Bienaimé's daughter], who, if you take it right, is not much better than Louise. This is the esteem in which I hold her... I STRONGLY REGRET NOT HAVING SUCH BEAUTIFUL RED ENVELOPES AS MR BARBEY D'AUREVILLY, & TO MAKE WITH THIS THE ADMIRATION OF THE FACTORS. However, I & we wish you the continuation of your amusements during the 8 days that we grant you (is that haughty enough!) & the good luck to see, even if from afar, the little friends, that Louise so much desires to consider, without, I imagine, being apperciated... " 1870 WAS FOR MILLET THE YEAR OF HIS CONSECRATION: he, the painter who had been refused entry to the Salon in his youth, was then called to sit on it. Théophile Silvestre, who had met him in 1864, was among his supporters and friends from 1867.