Dear Sir

Downing May 6^th 1789.

excuse my impertinence in pestering you with another letter.¹ You gave me a fine copy of the Death's dance of Hans Holbein with the prints of The Triumph of Poverty & Riches at the end & told me some story about them. Pray inform me were they engraven from the originals which were once in the Hall of our Steel yard (see M^r Walpole I) or were they from the drawings by Zucchero: But I think the originals after being long lost, were recovered: if so, in whose possession. Pray favor me with a speedy answer & let me know you are well.

Adieu
Y^rsmost truely

T Pennant

As you must know many royal academcicians. Be so good as to ask whether they are not incorporated² & whether they were not originally of the Painter stainers Company.³

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Editorial notes

1. Bull's letter to Pennant, dated 13 May 1789 (1085), suggests that he received two letters in succession from Pennant, and failed to answer the first before the arrival of the second. The earlier letter does not appear to have survived; the later is the one edited here (NLW 5500C, no. 76). The letter from Bull to which Pennant refers here has not survived either, making the information mentioned here incomplete.
2. The Society of Artists of Great Britain, was founded in 1760 and granted a Royal Charter in 1765, which lead to its re-naming as the ‘Incorporated Society of Artists of Great Britain’.
3. The Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers existed from 1268, and was incorporated under a Royal Charter in 1581.