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[[preprinted]]
[[image - drawn image of lion]
HOTEL BAUR AU LAC ZURICH
ADRESSE TELEGR.: BAURLAC TELEPHONE: (051) 23 16 50
PROPR. H. KRACT'S ERBEN
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[[strikethrough]]and[[/strikethrough]]with this possibility (however remote) and that of Harewood, who according to another clipping which I have, is selling off all his properties, and the word that I got today that Ellesmere has sold many paintings (but not his first class ones) it would seem that it is reasonable to spend some time in London investigating.

[[underline]]Today's developments[[/underline]] are as follows. Bollag contacted me at eight o'click this morning to tell me of [[underline]] a GOYA which [[/underline]] I could see at 3 p.m. ^[[margin]] [[handwritten]]Goya[[/handwritten]][[margin]]at a bank with the owner. I agreed finally to go. The owner is a Norwegian named Wm. SEMCESEN (of Roumanian descent). We met at the bank in Paradplatz where the painting was brought out of the vault where it arrived a few days ago. It is the portrait of Cardinal Borbon at full length in his robes with decorations. I enclose the data on it and had the photostats made of the Catalog of the Goya Exhibition of 1928 made. The picture is very fine and in apparently pure state. The price he asked was first $120,000. but came down to $100,000. out of which he will pay Bollag $2,500. and we the same over the purchase price. I held out no hopes to him that you would be interested by got him to talk about any other things he could suggest. He said that Altesse [[underline]]Prince Hesse^[[n]] [[/underline]] owns the [[underline]] HOLBEIN[[/underline]] ^[[margin]][[handwritten]]Holbein[[/handwritten]][[/margin]] "Jakob Meyer and Family" in the Basel Museum where it has been hanging for five years for safety. That Mellon wanted it twenty years ago but Hesse^[[n]] would not sell. Offered over a million then. Now it may possibly be negotiated for about $750,000. Semcesen has sold two pictures for the Prince and is willing to get an option for five or six months so we can offer it [[underline]]safely[[/underline]] in New York. He even suggest^[[s]] himself that it would be possible to send the picture to a bank..(the Bankers Trust would do well)...so it can be shown. All of the details were discussed away from Bollag of course. I have noted references on the back of the GOYA detail paper herein. The owner would have to ask the German Govt if it wants to buy the ptg first and will get a [[underline]]NO[[/underline]]. Then he must offer it to the Basel Museum for the price...and they have [[underline]]no[[/underline]]money, although they have the detail drawings for each figure in the painting themselves. Then he will [[strikethrough]]give[[/strikethrough]] give Semcesen the option and the picture can be sold from the many books in which it appears, or it can be sent to N York. 

This man, who seems to be the most intelligent picture man I've met in many years, is very scientific in his point of view, has had the Goya under the quartz lamp, for instance, before paying for it. Got it out of spain over the protest of the Director of the Prado who held it under lock for four months before releasing it. The son of the Norwegian Minister appears to have gotten it to Belgium.

In addition he tells me he has the right to sell Renoir's "Piazza St. Marco" formerly in the collection of the Museum at Munich which was traded for a lot of German national painters, all bad. He is going to Paris tomorrow and I have given him your address, to try to get an interview with you. (I hope this meets with your approval; if not I'm sorry) He told me quite spontaneously that he [[underline]] was [[/underline]] going  to write to Mr Henschel of M K & Co. with whom he has done some business. But will not as he finds H. a bit hard as to prices, so is reserving the Goya for your answer. It is a damn [[underline]]fine[[/underline]] picture but must stay in Switz for the present at least, and I saw it being wrapped up by the bank officials and sealed with lead seals.