8vo. 1½ pages on bifolium. With autograph address verso.

Literature: Correspondance générale I, 37.

In English, to the painter Charles Soulier at the Hôtel de l'intendance du domaine extraordinaire in Paris, regretting his being unable to see him on Saturday, being otherwise engaged, and confessing his desire to improve his English skills, also mentioning his collaboration with the writer Horace Raisson and the painter Pierre-Narcisse Guérin: "I am very displeased to cannot to go Saturday to pass the night in your pleasant company: for I have promised another person to see her that day; it is not, as you shall imagine and Mester Horace also, without a great discontent; but I hope it will not be the last time, we shall have the opportunity of coming together. I thank you at your Italian-English-french and grateful letter: I conjure you to excuse my bad english language. I dare, a little time past, with your obligeant lessons, I will better speak and write in that fair tongue, in which I am so desiderous to be readily instructed. Should Mester Raisson, have the complaisance to go on Saturday in the morning at M. Guérin's house, or Sunday at my own, likewise in the morning, we could together so resolve, in what day we can to begin our undertaking of colorage, which I wish to see quickly terminated. Your sincere friend and thankful disciple [...]".

Soulier met Delacroix in 1816 through their friend Horace Raisson. Having spent a long time in England, Soulier had been introduced to watercolour by Copley Fielding, and he in turn introduced Delacroix, in the studio of Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, to the technique including executing drawings of machines for patents.

A small hole near right margin, not touching text; top left corner of the address page clipped away.