Letter from Charles Eastlake to Seymour Kirkup

Discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using meguilp, that 'in a year or two it becomes something between varnish & dullness - appannato - & it is not a legitimate hard, dry surface to receive additional varnish'. Eastlake speaks, by comparison, favourably of the effect of 'vernice liquida', which after a year is 'glorious, giving shadows lucid depth & remaining permanently clear'. He notes in relation to old materials and the attempt to discover what materials painters in the past employed: 'In the history of such articles it is necessary to be without predilections - it matters not how good or how bad the vehicle was which the old fellows used the historian's duty is to get at it, as a mere fact, if he can'. Eastlake confirms he is getting married and that the event is due to take place the following week, so that, due to time to be spent in Devonshire [on honeymoon], he will not be able to 'look after your portraits of Lord Surrey for some time'. Eastlake says Kirkup will be receiving a few copies of Bezzi's translations of Eastlake's 'first volume' [presumably Eastlake's 'Materials for a History of Oil Painting', first published in English in 1847]. He notes that although the 'book swarms with errors in proper names & dates & sometimes more important things ... in the mere argumentative portions in plain Italian it reads well. It is fortunate for me that the original is not unknown in Italy otherwise I should be made responsible for more blunders than I need own'.

Includes an envelop addressed to the bookseller Ernest Seligman (postmarked 7 Jun 1963) upon which Robertson has jotted down the addresses of various contacts, bibliographical references and a draft chpater outline of his proposed book on Eastlake.