No. '75 DEAN STREET.
[To vnx Emma or van "Srocravon.".1
SIE,—In your recent note on the house at 75 Dean Street, Soho, you state that it does not so much matter whetheeThornhill really lived and worked there. This is not the opinion of most of those people who have asked the public to bay the house. The sentimental association bee been emphasized, and as we now know, there is absolutely no definite evidence that the "Covent Garden Caravaggio" ever occupied' 75 Dean Street, or that Hogarth painted or• helped to paint the decoration on the stair- case. As a matter of fact, the evidence as to Hogarth's share in the work goes to prove that he never touched the pictures. Sir James Thornhill, if he was ever .a tenant at this house, must have left it some years before 1724, and at that data Hogar•th had not begun seriously to paint. Quite as conjectural is the story that Jane Thornhill eloped with Hogarth from No. 76 Dean Street ; even more so, the alterna- tive legend that the event happened 'at the little " country box" at Chiswick. The incorrectness of this, tale has been proved by Mr. Austin Dobson in the eighth chapter of his Life of Hogarth. In regard to the present condition of the
house compared with what it was some years ago, I would refer you to Memorable London Houses, the third edition of which was published by Messrs. Sampson Low in 1890. At p. 92 there is a drawing which is said to represent the house when the book was issued. If the sketch is correct, there is absolutely no resemblance between the house as it then stood and as it appears to-day.
I am not opposed to the purchase of the house. On the contrary, in the Morning Post of December 20th, 1912, 1 suggested that it would make an admirable clubhouse, a small museum, or a home for the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society. By all means let what remains of the original house be preserved, but in justice to the public, who are urged to buy it at a cost of £15,000, the fullest information should be given as to its real history.-,I am, Sir, ire., JAMES GRAIG. Savage Club.
[We agree that the fullest information should be given as to the real history of the house, but there is reason to believe that every source at present available has been searched, and the information has been printed. The question of price is also important, and we hope that the figures of its last purchase, &e., will be disclosed. No doubt this will be done to any person or committee that desires to secure the building; for the present owner, we believe, has declared that his chief object in purchas- ing the building was to preserve in its entirety so noble a piece of old London. As to the identity of the house, a plaster face was taken off it, and its original brick face dis- closed, within the past few years, and there are sufficient mentions of this particular house and its associations in Soho books, apart from oral tradition, which is remarkably strong in Soho, to show that at least for sixty years the house has been associated with Thornhill. The case for the house was gone into in the original article in the Spectator, where it was also stated that there is no documentary evidence of Thornbilrs tenancy.—En. Spectator.]
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