56. Sketch-portrait of Robert Doncaster.
On the same mount with no. 40. A tracing is among the miscellaneous papers given to St. John’s. This sketch of Robert was done, I suspect, with the camera lucida, and if so its date must be about 1882-3. Robert Doncaster was the husband of Mrs. Corrie; that is to say Mrs. Corrie, who was Butler’s laundress in Clifford’s Inn, “lost” her husband. After a suitable interval it was assumed that he was dead and she married Robert Doncaster and was known as Mrs. Doncaster. Robert, who was a half-witted old man, used to hang about the place, do odd jobs, and make himself fairly useful. He died in 1886.
57. Water-colour: Pinner. 1883.
SAMUEL BUTLER
58. Oil Painting: Edward James Jones.
Inscribed thus: “Portrait of E. J. Jones, Esq., of the Indian Geological Survey, Aet. Suae 24, painted by S. Butler, November, 1883.” The date is not clearly written, but it must be 1883, because my brother Edward, born 5th September, 1859, was twenty-four in 1883, and in November 1883 he went to Calcutta, having obtained an appointment on the Geological Survey. Butler painted the portrait just before he started.
59. Oil Painting: Chiavenna. 1887.
It looks in some lights like 1881, but in other lights 1887, and it must be 1887. Butler did not go abroad in 1881 and he was at Chiavenna in 1887. This is one of the pictures given by Alfred.
THOMAS SADLER
60. Black and white drawing: Butler and Scotto in 1888.