“THE CARPENTER’S SON”
Hitherto unpublished photograph of the painting by Edward Simmons, now hanging on the walls of the home of Miss Amelia Jones, New Bedford, Massachusetts
Copyright by Edward Simmons; from a Copley Print, Copyright by Curtis & Cameron, Publishers, Boston
My final letter ran something like this:
Dear Sir—In my country, when dealing with gentlemen, I get an answer. In dealing with you, I do not. I appeal to the law.
I received a most pathetic letter from “Pants Exclusively” and a large, formidable parchment apology from the trustees of the Academy.
In the meantime the London papers burst out with indignant articles against the person who had dared to sue the Academy, calling him all sorts of names and saying it was a bit of “cheap American advertising.” Immediately a flock of reporters came down to Cornwall, all ready to start a beautiful fight. I produced my parchment apology, resulting in the gentle fading away of newspaper representatives and a lovely article about me in the next morning’s papers.
This carelessness of the Academy had been going on for years. I had known of several similar cases where the artist supposed his work had been sold and was afterwards told it was a mistake. One year a friend of mine, with true artistic optimism, gave a large dinner party to celebrate his good luck, and, of course, expected to settle for it with the check he was to receive. He was months paying for that dinner. At that he may have been lucky. He at least got his picture back. There were many lost and never returned, and any protest from the painter only met with indifferent silence.
The English are sentimental, though—especially where they do not understand—and, yes, I shall have to admit it, so are we of New England. Sitting in the drawing-room of a prominent British woman, I was astonished to hear her say, upon the announcement that a pianist was about to play a well-known selection of Mendelssohn: “Songs Without any Words! What a pity!” In painting they prefer canvases that have some literary significance; a story with a heart appeal frequently attracts more attention than a far greater work that is more abstract.
The year after Sargent had exhibited his “El Jaleo” in the Salon, his close friend, Ralph Curtis, was bothered to death by all the busybodies who wanted to know what the next picture would be. One day Curtis answered:
“I’ll tell you. Sargent is painting, for the Salon, a circle of naked women sitting on red velvet cushions, called ‘Daughters of Sin.’”