Letters of Frederick Sandys

The material comprises:

• (a) numbers 1-142, letters from Frederick Sandys to Charles Augustus Howell, c.1869-1887;
• (b) numbers 143-154, letters from Sandys to various correspondents, arranged in alphabetical order of writers. Number 143 is to Rosa Corder (1882), numbers 146-8 to Mrs (Kitty) Howell (n.d.), and number 152 to Dante Gabriel Rossetti (n.d.);
• (c) numbers 155-157, letters from Emma Sandys to her brother (1) and to Howell (2) (n.d.);
• (d) numbers 158-163, letters to Sandys from various correspondents, arranged in alphabetical order of writers, c.1869-82. Numbers 160-1 are from George Augustus Sala;
• (e) numbers 164-176, cheques, receipts and financial documents concerning Sandys and Howell, 1866-84. Number 166 is a letter from Howell to a debtor of Sandys (1871);
• (f) number 177, small album of photographs of Sandys and members of his family, with additional photographs inserted at the front (Cruikshank, Darwin, Disraeli, Millais, George Richmond, R.A., Dante Gabriel Rossetti, J. Watts).

Frederick Augustus Sandys (1829-1904), painter and illustrator, was born in Norwich on 1 May 1829. In 1845 he started work for his most important early patron, the Reverend James Bulwer, for whom he illustrated a number of articles in Norfolk Archaeology and Bulwer's extra-illustrated version of Francis Blomefield's Topographical History of the County of Norfolk (11 volumes, 1805-1810). In addition he painted portraits of James Bulwer and his family. By 1857 he published, anonymously, a caricature print entitled A Nightmare. During the 1860s the Norwich industrialist William H. Clabburn commissioned at least eight family portraits and was the owner of many other pictures painted by Sandys, including Oriana (1861) and the large drawing Spring (c.1860). The majority of Sandys' portraits also dates from the 1860s, including Mrs Susanna Rose (1862) and Mrs Jane Lewis (1864). Sandys also designed illustrations for the new literary magazines, the Cornhill Magazine, Good Words, and Once a Week. He died at 5 Hogarth Road, Kensington, on 25 June 1904, and was buried at Brompton cemetery.

Source: Betty Elzea, 'Sandys, (Anthony) Frederick Augustus (1829-1904)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. By permission of Oxford University Press - http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/35937.