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June 14th, 1943

Dear Mr. Francis:

From what I have gathered at the Metropolitan Museum library, it does look as if the "B.D." auction took place on December 12th, 1945.

Off hand, I can see two reasons for Barret-Decap to have held this sale: The more obvious one is that, as you will recall, it was right after the financial crash and he may have been caught - but then, why would have bought the Renoir in? The other one looks at the auction from an entirely different angle. As I believe I wrote you, only sixteen paintings were included, among which were such uninteresting works as Caillebotte, Guillaumin, late Monet and late Sisleys. I would say there were three paintings of importance - the Renoir, the early Monet "The Wooden Bridge" and a Corot, and I am wondering whether the original idea behind the auction was not to get rid of thos [[those]] uninteresting paintings, reenforcing [[reinforcing]] the group by the three great ones.

Whatever the reason may have been, the Renoir was evidently bought in, as, as I wrote you, three years later it was exhibited in London under the name of Barret-Decap, and it is from him that I purchased it in 1939. Thus the only conclusion to come to is, as I say above, that he bought it in. It fetched, from the only document I found any indication in, Frs. 330,000., to which had to be added probably 17% or 18-1/2% for auctioneers' and experts' fees, etc., which as you may recall it was the custom to charge in Paris, bringing at 17-1/2%, the total to Frs. 387,750. The early Corot "Saintry" brough

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