Beschreibung:

Manuscript legal document signed by Mrs. Piozzi and her husband Gabriele Piozzi, giving power of attorney to John Cator, Jeremiah Crutchley and Henry Smith to sell her late husband's brewery and settle other matters relating to his will.
Rome: 1 April 1786. 3pp., large bifolium sheet (395 x 255 mm). Signed and with two armorial red wax seals on the third page, additionally witnessed and signed by William Coxe and Thomas Jenkins Lengthy docketing to the bottom of the third page and the entire fourth page, the latter with a paper-covered seal. Condition : usual folds, minor separations, minor soiling to the final page. Provenance : Sotheby's London, 23 July 1987, lot 24, £4200, Quaritch; Quaritch, catalogue 1038, item 31. document signed by both piozzis relating to the sale of henry thrale's brewery . According to the terms of Henry Thrale's will, if "the brewery were sold, Mrs. Thrale was to receive £30,000 outright, and the rest of the proceeds was to be held in trust for the daughters" (Thraliana, I: p.491, footnote 1). Samuel Johnson was opposed to her doing so, however, and her decision was among the reasons for the degradation of their relationship. Although the terms of the sale of the brewery to Robert Barclay and John Perkins were brokered at the end of May 1781 for £135,000 (see Thraliana , I: p. 498), the deal was not finalized until years after this 1786 document gave the estate's guardians absolute power of attorney to do so. See Piozzi Letters , I: p.378, footnote 2 for a reference to this important document. See Hyde, The Thrales of Streatham Park , pp. 227-232 for a discussion of the will and the sale of the brewery. [With:] Manuscript letter from Barclay and Perkins concerning the completion of the sale. Southwark: 12 September 1797.