PIETRO

1p., 12mo. Fair, on lightly-aged paper, with short closed tear to one edge and traces of mount on blank second leaf of bifolium. Signature slightly smudged. Brassey writes that he has been 'detained at the House of Lords, where I have been acting as chairman of a private committee', and as a result 'found it impossible to go down to the Albert Docks yesterday afternoon'. The letter almost certainly relates to the Albert Dock Seaman's Hospital, which was officially opened the following year, as a branch of the Dreadnought Seamen's Hospital, Greenwich.

Printed on piece of thick paper 31.5 x 22.5 cm. Dimensions of image 24 x 18 cm. Removed from mount, and with glue adhering to reverse and in thin strip at head (not affecting image). Small closed tear in border at foot, just beneath Mascagni's dating of his note. Soft-focus black and white head and shoulders shot, showing a firm-jawed jowlly bow-tied Mascagni staring abstractedly to his right, with a medal in his buttonhole.

Dimensions of print roughly ten inches by six and a half wide. Mounted on a slightly larger piece of laid paper. Rubbed, worn and heavily aged, with small wormhole at foot. Ornate tomb with sphinxes, ivy, masks, palette, laurel wreath, etc. Central head and shoulders image of Carracci, above caption 'ANNIBALI CARRACCIO BONON. AETATIS SVAE ANN.XLIX Romae MDCXLVI'. 'A. Del.' in bottom left-hand corner. This is NOT the engraving by Pietro Aquila, after Carlo Maratta, in Aquila's 'Galeriae Farnesianae Icones' (1674).