WCP1517

[1]¹

NO.

635 MAYFAIR

TELEPHONE NO.

3570 CENTRAL

TELEGRAPHIC ADDRESS,

"ZOOLOGICAL, LONDON"

ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON,

3, Hanover Square, London, W

40 St. Lukes Road W

Dec. 21 <1903>²

Dear Dr Wallace

Some days ago I promised a friend — Mr. W. Rothenstein³ to write to you & ask if you would be willing for him to take your portrait, in black & white, to be lithographed.

Mr. Rothenstein is undoubtedly very successful in portraiture. Some years ago he featured "Oxford Portraits", [2] & a couple of years ago "English Portraits" — a series of lithographs of well known persons. He is now working on another series on the same lines, to include about twenty or twenty-five men of the time whose names in Science, Literature & other deportments stand highest in the world’s estimation. He is very anxious to be allowed to include your portrait; & of course he knows that unless he succeeds in getting the face he wants his work will not be what he intends to make it. He [3] has just made an excellent portrait of Sir Joseph Hooker,⁴ who is close at hand, & is now doing, or going to do shortly, Lord Kelvin’s.⁵ The other two in the world of Science he desires are yourself & Sir Oliver Lodge.⁶

Mr. Rothenstein would of course go down to you, anytime during the winter or spring months when it would be convenient for you to give him a sitting.

I so most sincerely hope that you [4] will make a favourable reply — one I could ^should be delighted to convey to the artist; &, further, I do think it most important that there should be good portraits — not only photographs — of those who have been and are the leaders of thought of their time.

Believe me, dear Dr. Wallace, with the season’s good wishes | Yours very truly | W. H. Hudson⁷ [signature]