American Historical Ephemera & Photography

2 pages, 8vo, with envelope. RUSKIN WRITES ABOUT J. M. W TURNER, CLAUDE LORRAIN, AND DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI: "It is seldom that falsehoods are so direct, pure, and foundationless, as those which you have given me the opportunity of contradicting. Every year of my life shows me some higher and more secret power in Turner: and deepens my contempt for Claude. I believe at this moment the Pre-Raphaelite school of painting...to be the only vital and true school of painting in Europe, and its English leader, Dante G. Rossetti to be, without any compare, the greatest of English painters now living....If I have not shown that Turner is greater than Claude (quite infinitely greater) my life has been wasted." Letter appears to be secretarial and is docketed on verso "John Ruskin / to C.H. Moore / Geneva, Feb 16 / 63 / (a page for page, & line for line copy.)"

[With:] RUSKIN, John (1819-1900). Autograph letter signed ("J. Ruskin") to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Denmark Hill, 12 September 1867. 

1 page, 8vo, with envelope. RUSKIN WRITES REGARDING ARCHITECTURE: "I have just received the book of photographs...All that you have done & desire to do seems to be beautiful & exemplary. Its faults & shortcomings I see by what you say in your preface that you know yourself. ...I am particularly pleased by your receiving so justly the relations of naturalism to conventionalism...Educate your workmen as you are doing & to see that tall your work is sound: and in stone or brick -- not iron. Don't be led astray by dreams about this accursed metal." -- RUSKIN, John (1819-1900). Autograph letter signed ("J. Ruskin"), to the Editor of the New Path. Denmark Hill, 5 April 1864. 2 pages, 8vo, with envelope. Ruskin thanks the editor for acknowledging his work: "Perhaps I think as little as most people of what I have been able to do -- and the fear of wasted life hangs heavily on me -- for this very reason...though I suffer all of us like praises for a simple acknowledgment from anybody that I have been useful to them." -- Together, 3 items.