From Briton Riviere   3 April 1872

16 Addison Road, | Kensington. W.

April 3/72

Dear Sir

I shall be very glad indeed if I can succeed in drawing the two expressions that you want.1 I think that I understand your descriptions perfectly, whether I can carry them out is another question.

Will you kindly ask your wood engraver2 to send me a couple of blocks of the size required, as if I can manage the expressions I may as well put them at once onto the wood. This will be no inconvenience to me & will I think be better for the drawings.

I quite understand your objections to Landseers “Alexander” in reference to expression No 1.3

Trusting that I shall not cause delay & then fail in my part of the work I am Dear Sir | Yours truly | Briton Riviere

The German drawing shall be taken care of4

Charles Darwin Esq

CD annotations

End of letter: ‘Orpington’ pencil
James Davis Cooper engraved the woodblocks in Expression (see Expression, p. 26).
Riviere refers to the figure of the white dog (‘Alexander’) in the painting ‘Alexander and Diogenes’ by Edwin Henry Landseer. The expression referred to as ‘No 1’ was of a dog in a hostile attitude (see letter to Briton Riviere, 1 April 1872 and n. 1).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-8271,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-8271