Bakkehussamlingen

London Bolton Gardens Russellsqr
12 November 1858

Dear Madam Jerichau
            I had the pleasure of receiving your letter last Monday week; & mine to Mon^s. Jerichau & your’s to me must have passed each other on the Road. I should have replied to it for the […?]; but my letter to your excellent Husband explained the most important portion as regarded myself: & I have delayed an answer // in hopes of giving you some information in regard to your observation about M^r Gambard to whom I wrote the same day but he has not deigned to acknowledge my note although I sent him a 2^nd as a reminder.
I conveyed your hint about the diplomas to Cockerell, Barry & Eastlake. The last had just returned from a trip to Italy. Barry had been out of town & Cockerell away. Hence they had not received the announcement of the honorable distinction conferred on us by the Academy of Fine Arts at Copenhagen & so had not sooner replied // but they did then at once. I also had not received my diplomat as soon as it reached England, as it was directed to the Royal Institute of British Architects, & being vacation time, all the officers were scuttered hither & thither, & I had been to Switzerland. There it has not arisen from any want of respect or absence of appreciation of the high honors conferred, that they should have remained so long unacknowledged. I do not personally know Sir Edwin Landseer, & therefore was not able to put myself in communication with him, as I did with the other three.
[Skrevet med anden pen: Miss Donaldson] My Sister is now in Florence, & purposes passing the winter in Italy. I shall beg her to find you out when she goes to Rome, & I am sure you will love each other; there will be so many kindly sympathies mutually felt by both. //
            I quite envy M^r Jerichau & yourself your visit to dear old Rome. How many charming associations are there mixed up with that magic name. Artistic-monumental – his trial – as the scene of one’s youthful studies it is also full of interest.
If it please God, I hope to pay a visit thither next year with M^rs. D; & to roam among it’s ruins & it’s museums, & it’s churches; & to renew the inspirations, which the contemplation of the works of the great geniuses of past times is due to give rise to.
Adieu dear M^me. Jerichau. Present my kindest regards to my Coupère y^r. noble husband, & accept from my wife, as well as from myself, the assurance of the faithful esteem with which I am
            Most faithfully y^rs
            Tho. L: Donaldson