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September 23, 1946

My dear Mr. Haug:

I happened to hear a few days ago about your vivid interest in painting; as we have for sale a very important painting by VERMEYEN, I thought you might appreciate our proposing it to you.

Many years ago we bought it upon the recommendation of Professor Von Bode who, as you certainly remember, was General Director of the Kaiser Freidrich Museum in Berlin. Our painting has been reproduced since in the book "Die Altniederlandishche Malerei", Vol. XII, Pl. LXXXIII, by Dr. Friedlander, which I suppose you own.  Should that not be the case, I would be very glad to send you a photograph of the painting. Anyhow, here is a short description of color; the eyes of the sitter are blue, his beard brown-blond,; his beret black. His left hand rests on a black table.  He wears a rose-red doublet. The background of drapery is gray. The dimensions are 38" x 27".

Originally the painting belonged around 1850, to Von Harnier, Brugomaster of Frankfort. At that time it was exhibited in Germany and in England. It was almost bought by the King of Bavaria at that time, but finally they could not agree on the price.

I suppose that you know about the career of VERMEYEN. He was extremely well known in his time. He was first painter to the Statthalterin Margerete von Halsburg; later on he became Charles V's court painter and as such accompanied him when the letter made the conquest of Tunis.  At that time he drew from the cartoons of the tapestries, which are amongst the most admired ones in the Museums of Vienna and Madrid.

The scarcity of his work makes our portrait the more interesting and precious. Please let me know whether a painting of this sort might be of interest to you. We bought this painting for a very high price at that time when Dr. Bode recommended it to us pointing out all its importance because of his close connection to Holbein. We sold it and bought it back a short time ago, thus enabling us to part with it now for the price of $16,500.

Outside of paintings of that period and of various other schools, we also handle paintings and drawings of French, English, and Italian 19th century, as well as modern and contemporary paintings, mainly of the French School..

Should you be coming to New York, as I hope you will, please do me the favor of dropping in. I would be very glad to greet you here. Thanking you beforehand for your answer,

Very sincerely yours,

(Georges E. Seligmann)

Mr. Ludwig Haug 
Country Club
Caracas, Venezuela

^[[GS]]