Written from 19 Hyde Park Gate South, Kensington [London]. Manuscript
He has received the packet of tessera samples, a letter and copy of the 'Builder'; with regard to the tessera he asks if certain reds, yellows and blues are available; he asks if it would be possible to produce tessera of enamelled colours; he has looked over the subjects in his (Cope's) fresco at Westminster Palace and thinks that the painting of the execution of the group of Lara might scare Maw for an experiment; the size would be about three by two-and-a-half feet; he has an experimental study of a child looking up, which he could lend to him if Maw would like to try it as a small specimen; it is not done for the purpose but conventional treatment of the hair might make it suitable; if Maw thinks the sketch of the group of Lara's death is too complicated to begin with, he suggests instead a single figure or half figure designed on purpose; he would like to see any works Maw can spare him on mosaics, as the only ones he has seen are from a church of St Sophia in Constantinople [Istanbul, Turkey] and St Mark's, Venice [Italy], though he will also look in the British Museum; with regard to Maw's criticisms on the design for Kensington [a design by Cope for a mosaic in the Victoria and Albert Museum (the 'Kensington Valhalla')], the choice of colour is not his, as he proposed a warm brown or terracotta hue on a blue ground, not 'that mud colour', but they are only rough enlargements to try the scale of figures at this stage; he heard a scientific friend once remark that tessera divided into triangles were the most versatile. With ink drawing of a woman kneeling, and envelope