To Joseph Wolf 3 March 1871
Down, Beckenham, Kent:
March 3, 1871.
Dear Sir,—
You said that you would be so kind as to endeavour to make a sketch for a wood-cut of a monkey’s face when laughing, as the keepers express it. The Barbary ape would have been incomparably the best, but is dead.1 I found, however, in the Zoological Gardens a species that does fairly well, viz. the Cynopithecus niger of Celebes, though it unfortunately has permanent transverse wrinkles on the face.2 It can be easily caught, and Mr. Bartlett3 said could be put in a separate cage to be drawn. There ought to be a drawing of the face when tranquil and the mouth closed; and another of the same size and in the same position, whilst laughing. When Sutton4 the keeper allows this monkey to play with his hair, it chuckles or laughs, and keeps moderately still. The face then becomes a good deal wrinkled, and as far as I could see under disadvantageous circumstances, the skin is especially raised and wrinkled under the lower eyelids. When I asked Mr. Bartlett whether he thought you could possibly draw the laughter of so restless an animal, he answered that “Mr. Wolf has got an eye like photographic paper, it will seize on anything!”
I enclose the size of my page for any figures.
Also a drawing of a leopard which (excepting that the mouth is here more widely opened) shows fairly well the appearance of a cat when savage, and not at all frightened, as I have occasionally though rarely seen.5
I hope to get a photograph of Herring’s picture of a savage horse and another of a pleased one.6 Your willingness to assist me as far as lies in your power has relieved me from much difficulty.—
Dear Sir, Yours very faithfully, Ch. Darwin.
Footnotes
Bibliography
Expression: The expression of the emotions in man and animals. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1872.
Prodger, Phillip. 2009. Darwin’s camera: art and photography in the theory of evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Summary
Asks for a drawing from life of a "laughing monkey" (Cynopithecus niger) for Expression [p. 136].
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-7535
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Joseph Wolf
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- Palmer 1895, p. 193
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 7535,” accessed on 23 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-7535.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 19