Letter from Elizabeth Eastlake to [Cosmo] Monkhouse

Thanks Monkhouse for sending her a copy of his biography about Sir Charles Eastlake ['Pictures by Sir Charles Eastlake, with a Biographical and Critical Sketch of the Artist']: 'Few works c[oul]d interest me more deeply, for, as you well know, Sir Chas Eastlake was the chief purchaser of the Trecentisti & Quattro-Centisti for the Nat: Gallery - & almost every one you mention takes me back into the past. He felt it necessary for the gallery to have there early masters, & most of them were supplied by the Lombardi Baldi Collection. The plates are perfect as to drawing, being taken from photographs, tho' much of them from that cause [are] darker than the originals. Our old household God - the Annunciation by Fra Filippo (NG666) - is charming'. Talks about various changes in attribution, not least that 'the real Gio: da Bruggia was Jan Memling, & he doubtless was Antonello's master'. She notes that she has ordered two more copies of it, one for Sir Austen Henry Layard, the other for Mrs Richard Boyle. She notes that she would love a visit from him so that they might discuss the Eastlake art collection: 'I am now an old woman & confined to a wheelchair, but I should be at any time glad to see you & hear your remarks on the pictures with wh[ich]: I am surrounded'.