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[[preprinted]]
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS
[[line]]
BOSTON . MASSACHUSETTS . 02115
Office of the President
[[/preprinted]]

December 12, 1978

Mr. S. Dillon Ripley
Secretary 
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, D. C. 20560

Dear Mr. Ripley: 

Mr. Augustus P. Loring of the Boston Athenaeum has been kind enough to share with me recently a copy of your letter to him of October 23, 1978. I know that you will understand the disappointment of those of us from the Museum of Fine Arts. We had hoped that the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian and the National Portrait Gallery Commission would agree, as the Athenaeum has proposed, that there is an equity in the Boston region in these portraits. It had been my understanding, following the luncheon to which you were kind enough to invite Jeptha Wade and me, that this would be your recommendation. I can only conclude that there may have been a failure on the part of the two governing bodies you refer to, given the time constraints of any meeting, to fully understand our view of the factual background. For that reason I would like to summarize briefly our views in this letter.

First, with respect to the safeguarding of the portraits, it would always be our position that they must be adequately cared for and safeguarded. The Boston Museum has cared for these portraits for more than one hundred years. They are in excellent condition now because of the care and concern of generations of staff members of the Boston Museum. I have difficulty conceiving of our failure to agree on any change in their treatment which was recommended by the technical conservation staffs of our respective institutions. Certainly, if there were a disagreement as to their adequate protection, that disagreement would be (and can be made explicitly) subject to the review of the appropriate court.