(ARTISTS.) Group of 4 Autograph Letters Signed: John Quincy Adams Ward * Felix Octavius Carr Darley (2) * Daniel Chester French. Together 7 pages, 8vo or 4to, Darley and French on personal stationery, most on folded sheet; condition generally good. Vp, 1865-1915 Ward. "J.Q.A. Ward," to the wife of astronomer Lewis Morris Rutherfurd ("Mrs. Lewis M. Rutherfurd"), in pencil, sending a sketch of Mr. [William Cullen?] Bryant to indicate size of a medallion and hoping to avoid delaying the book. [New York], 9 March 1865 • Darley (2). "F.O.C. Darley," to "My dear Mrs. Rutherfurd," suggesting that she send letters to [Hammat] Billings in care of Ticknor & Fields, and proposing to illustrate the Longfellow poem "The Ropewalk" instead of "Sheridan's Ride" [by Thomas Buchanan Read]. Np, "Wednesday morning"; 8 December no year • French. "Daniel C. French," to Bashford Dean, thanking for his book [Bibliography of Fishes (1916)?] and requesting that he convey thanks to Mrs. Rutherfurd Stuyvesant. New York, 5 December 1915.
With--Small graphite sketch, unsigned, showing bust portrait of bearded man in profile [Williliam Cullen Bryant?] possibly by Ward, on an oval-shaped sheet of tracing paper. Np, nd.