Lot 542: AUTOGRAPHS: D'ORSAY ALFRED: (1801-1852) French

AUTOGRAPHS: D'ORSAY ALFRED: (1801-1852) French Dandy and Amateur Artist. A.L.S., A D'Orsay, one page, 8vo, Gore House, (London), 30th August 1848, to a gentleman. D'Orsay announces 'I think that you will find that I have much improved the likeness. Lady Blessington and the Misses Tower are of this opinion. I hope that you will let me have a few copies of it, when printed.' In concluding he refers to an engraving which Lord Chesterfield had given him and which he found admirable. With blank integral leaf. VG D'Orsay experienced a peculiar relationship to the Blessington family; in December 1827 he married Lady Harriet Gardiner, a girl of fifteen, the daughter of Lord Blessington and his first wife. D'Orsay and Gardiner's marriage was an unhappy one, and the couple legally separated in 1838 when Lady Harriet Blessington paid over £100,000 to his creditors in exchange for D'Orsay giving up all claims to the family estate. After the death of Lord Blessington, in 1829, the widowed Countess lived in London with D'Orsay, firstly at Seamore Place and then at Gore House. It was here, a resort of the fashionable literary and artistic society of London, that D'Orsay first met his friend Benjamin Disraeli.