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1349 Washington Avenue, Springfield 2, Missouri
6 February 51

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Dear Germain Seligman:

Thanks very much for our talk and that good lunch. You know, somehow when I get home and get out from under the accumulation of mail and find everything rocking along not so badly, I feel far less concerned about this & that & Francis Taylor. But I have been thinking, of course. I believe it would be silly for me to make any sort of move at all: it would be provocative, no matter how it was done. I do think that as between us, Francis is doubtless the injured party, but I think I must leave any healing to some chance or pseudo-chance encounter in person, and not write requests for apologies or any sort of letters. "Let sleeping dogs lie" is a good motto. I am frank to say that I should be happy to have the refusal of a curatorship of drawings at the Metropolitan or the Morgan Library; but I am by no means sure that I wouldn't in fact refuse if I had the refusal. I very much dislike being tied to a big city.

I am beginning to do a little snooping in books and sale catalogues about Christophe Huet, etc. On the way, I noticed two little sixteenth-century portraits at Chantilly that are an interesting comparison with your Lagneaus. They are illustrated in a little picture-book that Henri Malo did up: "Cent Designs de l'Ecole Française" from the Chantilly collection (Paris, Braun, 1933); these two are No. 9 of the illustrations.

Needless to say, I can't keep the Watteau out of my mind's eye. But I never could pay more than about 30% of such a price (fair though it is) for any drawing I ever bought. If I were a European rather than an American I might think of putting capital into so sound a value as a Watteau, but now that  am earning no money the Ames family needs income from every cent of capital. I hope that good thing will land in a good place.

Yours ever sincerely,

[[signature]] Winslow - [[/signature]]

Winslow Ames

[[right marginalia]] W. Ames [[/right marginalia]]