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[[preprinted]]
RITZ HOTEL
LONDON, W.1.
[[image - Ritz Hotel logo, initials R H within a rectangle, caption, HYDE PARK 8181]]
TELEGRAMS: RITZOTEL,LONDON.
[[/preprinted]]

[[underlined]] Your letter 24th [[/underlined]] rec'd and noted.

Friday a.m. March 28 1958

Dear Germain:

This is the letter that I intended to write last night but when I got in from Strasbourg by train to Basel and Basel to London and through tough flying and drenching rain here, I was really all in. So as it will not be possible to send the photostats of Friedlander and Panofsky's [[underlined]] letter to Prof. Schone [[/underlined]], until tomorrow or Monday, I am sure your patience will not have been under too much strain.  Dr. Weninger will [[strikeout]]xxx[[/strikeout]] airmail the photostats probably today, certainly Saturday.

I arrived Strasbourg five p.m. Wednesday, telephoned Dr. Weninger who fired fifteen questions at me in two minutes....all questions anticipated in your letter of 21st.  Who was I, where did I hear of his "collection", what references did I have, etc etc.  I finally said why not let me come and see HIM and then we would talk about whether he felt that it would be safe to even discuss seeing his pictures.  So it was arranged.  He turned out to be, NOT an old grouch, but a very pleasant 50ish., a doctor and a dental surgeon....and he had no collection, but one Petrus Christus.  He had spent his life accumulation on it, had sold his Nestlé shares, his Brown-Bovari shares, everything, to buy it, this about 1953, from a Czech who had brought it out of his country after buying it at the auction of the Baron Hoschek, previous owner.

The picture was not at his office or house, but in the Museum vault for safe keeping.  However, we went to his house and there he showed me the Friedlander 1957 expertise, short but calling the painting P. Christus and with a covering note also referring to it as Petrus Christus.  Then he produced a photostat of a long letter from Panofsky to Professor Schone who had written the monograph.  (I am assuming that you have that monograph as your photostat of the 3 Marys came from it.  I am also assuming that your detective work involved a chat with Panofsky????)  I am not assuming however, that you saw the letter he wrote enthusiastically agreeing with Schone's change of opinion (1942 opinion) that the work was by Outwater but instead is P. Christus.

By this time, Weninger had agreed to let me see the picture and had decided to have dinner with me.  At dinner we talked of his position in regard to parting with it if I liked it and felt that my New York friend might buy it.  He told me that the robe had been repainted, the front of the "sarcophe" also and that the sky from which overpainted clouds had been cleaned, remained a bit thin.  That he had seen it under infra red lamp and that no other repaints showed up.  The picture had been cleaned and repaint of clouds removed long before he bought it.  No work had been done by him on it.  He finally said that he would consider selling it and would reflect on what he would take.