ELIA

A significant letter, filling gaps in the provenance of Bellini's Crucifixion, now in the Louvre. All that has been known hitherto about the painting's provenance is that at the beginning of the twentieth century it was in the Paris collection of the banker Rodolphe Kann, and that before the Second World War it was owned by the Florentine dealer Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, from whose heirs it was acquired by the Louvre in 1970.

Three pages, 12mo, bifolium, two pages browned, not affecting text, mainly good condition. "Concluding from the tenor of your note, that you desire to have my autograph, in compliance with the implied wish I have annexed my signature on the other side & Mrs Liston has subjoined hers.| Very truly yours | J.L."

12mo, 3 pp. Forty-two lines of text; clear and complete. On aged and lightly-stained paper, with pin holes and short biographical details typed at head. The Lambs and the Mathews were friends, and the letter begins with a reference to Lamb's celebrated collection of essays, which Anne Mathews had presumably presented to Carr: 'Many thanks my dear Mrs Mathews for the pleasures I have derived from Elia.' Discusses introducing 'two old Devonshire female friends' to the Mathews: 'They do not like to return to Devonshire [...] without this gratification.