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April 12th., 1938.

Dear Mr. Castano:

I am in receipt of your interesting letter of April 9th., for which I thank you, and herein you will find two photographs of the pastel by DEGAS. In connection with this, will you allow me to tell you that I personally am absolutely against trying to interest possible customers through photographs. My experience has been that with the exception of drawings - which reproduce well - collectors get no idea whatsoever from photographs, and the impression is generally an erroneous one. However, to comply with your desire I am sending you these prints. I leave it naturally, to you to handle this matter as you deem best.

Answering your queries as regards Mr. John Nicholas Brown of Providence, we have of course done business with him in the past, but this particular painting has not been offered to him. On the price of Thirty Thousand Dollars ($30,000.) I am perfectly willing to pay you a commission.

Mr. Siple of Cincinnati, to my knowledge, has not seen the DEGAS but only a photograph of it.

Now, to come to your inquiry about a Gainsborough portrait, I am sorry to say we have none, but we have a whole group of English portraits and I am sending you herein a photograph of one which I think should be of particular interest, if you have a client for it. It is, as you will see, a man portrait by HOPPNER, of extremely fine quality, representing "Sir Henry Goodricke", fully recorded.

Hoppner, as you know, is one of the leading English portrait painters. We are asking $9,000. (Nine Thousand Dollars) for it - which, I hasten to say, could even be shaved down - though the owner paid, I think some 19 or 20 years ago, around $18,000. for it.

On the back of the photograph you will find all of the data and the sizes. However, as I said above, we have other English portraits, but this one - in view of its composition, landscape, size, record and its small price, seems to me particularly attractive.

Looking forward to hearing from you further,

Believe me to be,

Yours very sincerely,

(Germain Séligmann)


Giovanni Castano, Esq.,
171 Newbury St.,
Boston, Mass.

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