A.R.M.T. [A. R. Middleton Todd], to Mr Richards, Price Waterhouse & Co.

1 piece

Draft letter in which Middleton Todd states that he will arrange for the portrait of Sir Nicholas Waterhouse to be collected and varnished. His practice for many years had been to have portraits covered with 1/8" picture plate glass, which was the way the portrait had been exhibited at the RA and delivered to Richards' firm. Middleton Todd goes on: "There are in offices & boardrooms in the city acres of black canvasses from which pale faces peer through gloom. All this black g[l]oom could have been avoided but for the persisting Victorian notion that an oil painting should not be glazed." He concludes by saying "I feel very strongly about this insistence on 'removing' the glass". However, he erases the following addition: "[so strongly . . .] that I will not undertake another commission to paint a portrait for any boardroom in the City." The reverse bears a draft letter to Mr Gardiner, Lloyds Bank Ltd., Hobson St., Cambridge, thanking him for a letter stating that Middleton Todd had received a legacy under the will of Mrs Phyllis L. Murray.