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Marvin, I often receive similar letters, typically from China. I erased one just this morning or I'd go back and refresh my memory regarding exactly what they thought they were offering me. Normally I just read far enough to see what I've gotten and then hit the "bounce" or "delete" button. I imagine that any artist with a website gets these things, and occasionally someone must respond, one supposes, or else why would they send them out at all?
Having an apprentice in your workshop who helped with the cleaning of brushes and the preparation of canvases and eventually, most wonderful of days, the painting of the occasional backdrops during the period when this was common is very different from allowing some foreign entity to paint most of your picture for you off-site. Apprenticeships were once the only way a young and aspiring painter (like Van Dyke!) could learn the craft, so there was some justification for the practice. However, I wonder whether some (but obviously not all) of the great masters would be amused at our discussion, because they tended to view their work as a product which would put food on their table and silks on their backs, rather than as high expressions of art which merited their best efforts and reflected on their integrity. How much do we know of the psychology of those times?
I like the inclusion of that sentence in your contract and will probably add it to my own.
Leslie
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