Adrien GUIGNET (1816-1854), Orientalist painter.... Lot 406

[Adrien GUIGNET (1816-1854), Orientalist painter]. Letter from the Société des Amis des Arts de Marseille addressed to A. Guignet. 2 pp. ½ in-8. Society letterhead, address on back. Interesting letter about the Société des Amis des Arts de Marseille, founded six months earlier, and its museum where Adrien Guignet exhibited at the first show. "Hélas non, Monsieur, il n'y a rien à attendre de notre conseil municipal. It's a bunch of oysters who don't even suspect that paintings exist and that there are people who spend their lives making them. But he intends to use his influence on his father-in-law, who has been first deputy for 16 years, to change things. "But our museum is a kind of cellar, abominably lit, in which not even all the paintings belonging to the town can be housed. How do you expect us to think about new acquisitions? I won't conceal from you that during our exhibition, I made some representations to the municipal administration to keep your work with us, invoking the opinion of our co-director [Loubon] of the museum, who said everywhere that your painting was more beautiful than a Salvador Rosa [...]. I must tell you, however, that there is talk of building a museum, of suitable proportions, and, having done that, I think that by pushing the envelope, we could obtain from the Council an annual allocation applicable to the purchase of modern paintings. This will undoubtedly be a further benefit of our Society of Friends of the Arts: the impetus it has given has already borne fruit, since in addition to its purchases amounting to 35 objects, I have tractatively placed over thirty, almost all of them paintings. Not bad, I think, for a first year [...]. If you can't dispose of a work as important as the one you sent us, I hope you won't want to deprive us entirely of your support for our 2nd exhibition [...]". Guignet: see also n°154