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33, Cadogan Square,
London, S.W.1.

2nd March, 1953.

Germain Seligman, Esq.,
Jacques Seligmann & Co., Inc.,
5 East 57th Street,
New York 22, N.Y.

Dear Mr. Seligman:

When I got your air mail letter of the 10th I was a bit puzzled about your reference to an article by me in the "Art News" of February, as I had written none! But I knew that Denys Sutton had written something about collectors of Italian Seicento pictures in London, so I thought that before replying I had better wait until a copy of the paper arrived in this country, which it has now done after an unusually long period in transit. Denys Sutton is of course perfectly correct in saying that there are a number of art-historians, museum men and so on in England today who have realized that the unfavorable view of Italian Seicento painting which was taken for granted about the beginning of this century is quite unjustifiable (though I am afraid he gives me too prominent a place among them). The need is of course to look at this type of picture objectively, so you can imagine with what interest I read your book, which arrived by the same mail!

First, let me thank you very much indeed for the gift, which I greatly appreciate. I remembered, of course, that you had told me about it last summer, and have looked forward to seeing it ever since though I did not realize that it had yet come out. So it was a delightful surprise! As it happened I was engaged in a dreary and uninspiring bit of research at that moment, with the result that it was nothing short of a tonic to be taken firmly by the hand and conducted through a discussion of a number of diverse but important artistic topics by so experienced and culture ^[[d]] a guide. It was a special pleasure to find what I may call the point of view of the French tradition set out with exactly those qualities which you so rightly see in French art. On the issue of terminology I think there is material for a stimulating discussion which can hardly be carried on in a letter, but which I hope we may be able to pursue verbally one of these days!

The question you put to me about the "Assumption" is not easy to answer in correspondence, but I will do my best. If you have a good photograph of the Bologna copy, it ought to be possible by careful comparison to isolate those characteristics in your picture which give me cause for misgiving. What worries me is a certain imprecision of accent which here and there leads to a definite vagueness in the grasp of structure.  This softness or sfumato effect appears in most parts of your picture, and, if due to [[/strikethrough]] xxx [[/strikethrough]] another hand ^[[,]] must have been done to modify the (to some tastes) rather harsh and angular asperities to which Lodovico is sometimes prone. The effect is to make the whole [[strikethrough]] xxx [[/strikethrough]]

Transcription Notes:
Reviewed -- note: Ludovico is misspelled in letter