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Clearly the Meserve Collection, encapsulating as it does portrait photographs of important Americans from a major epoch of our national history, belongs in the National Portrait Gallery. Selections of the glass plate negatives, backlighted, would constitute a visually dramatic exhibition of historical artifacts made in the living presences of the subjects they portray. Contemporary prints could be made from many of the negatives, all of which are fully identified, for other institutions in the United States and abroad. 

The Meserve Collection is the property of the Dorothy Meserve Kunhardt Trust, which became irrevocable on the death of Mrs. Kunhardt last December, and is thus includible as part of her gross estate for estate tax purposes. Thus, although the Executors of her estate asn the Trustees of the Trust desire that the Collecition come to the National Portrait Gallery, they are not free to give it as a charitable contribution. Instead, they have proposed an arrangement under which the Smithsonian would seek private legislation to relieve the estate of taxes in an amount not to exceed the appraised value of the Collection ($1,260,000), and would pay the estate an amount equal to the difference between this tax credit and the value of the Collection if the value exceeds the amount of the credit; in no event, however, would the Smithsonian pay more than $560,000.