< Back

Maxwell, Herbert Eustace.
Autograph letter and two ink drawings addressed to one of the Faed brothers.
Publisher: Monreith;
Date of Publication: 1879
Stock Code: 14922
One half-sheet of headed telegraph paper, folded to form a pamphlet of 4 pages. Manuscript letter to pages 1-2, two ink sketches of officers to pages 3-4. Loss to upper corner, not affecting text; light soiling; historic folds. Generally well-preserved. A letter from Herbert Eustace Maxwell (1845-1937), described by his biographer as ‘the most prominent of scholarly country gentlemen in Scotland’ to one of the Faeds, a family of Scottish portraitists, regarding a sitting for a painting. Maxwell accompanies his letter with two original pen sketches of army officers, one looking rather frumpy and dishevelled, the other a buff ideal of Victorian masculinity. Amusingly, Maxwell captions the sketches ‘No 1 is as I feel after a sitting but No 2. is as I hope be handed down to posterity!’ The Faed family included the painters John, Thomas, James and Susan Faed, all of whom enjoyed success in their lifetimes. Maxwell was a Scottish politician and author, he entered parliament as Conservative member for Wigtownshire in 1880, a post which he held until 1906. Maxwell wrote novels as well as biographies, natural, local, and antiquarian histories, as well as books on horticulture, sport, and science. He was president of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (1900-13) and Chairman of the National Library of Scotland (1925-32). Maxwell sat for a number of portraits across his lifetime, but we locate no examples in public hands painted by a Faed. An amusing memento of a learned Scottish gentleman.


£95.00