ALS, one page both sides, 4.5 x 6, personal Mensil-Beaufrense letterhead, no date but likely July 1913. Letter to Forbes Watson. In full: “I have just sent you a wire, which you may not understand. I am fourty [sic] miles from Paris, and some distance from the main line—therefore it is better to come to luncheon. I haven’t the table with me, but if you take the morning train for Chaumont en Vequin leaving the Gare St. Lazare after 10—you will reach Chamount before 12—the return train leaves between four and five. My car will meet you at Chaumont. Hoping to have the pleasure of meeting you and Mrs. Watson on Monday.” In fine condition, with some show-through from writing on reverse.
Forbes Watson was a prominent art critic and expert on Cassatt who first met her face-to-face while traveling in France in 1913. He described the meeting in his 1932 monograph on the artist, writing: ‘When I first actually knew Mary Cassatt and visited her at her chateau at Beaufresne, Mesnil-Theribus, a pleasant automobile drive from Beauvais...She began to talk the instant that I alighted from the motor which she had sent to the station and the talk went on all that day.’ The corresponding content between Cassatt’s letter and Watson’s description of their meeting implies the 1913 date, which was the same year that two of Cassatt’s works were exhibited at the influential Armory Show in New York. A fabulous letter with several outstanding artistic associations. Pre-certified John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA.
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