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RS ES

November 18, 1926

✓✓

Dear Dr. Valentiner,

I just want to tell you that I am quite upset about the way the publicity on the HOLBEIN picture came out. We gave stories to be published in the Detroit papers for last Monday, and not a word which we gave to Detroit came out. We especially had the news cabled from Paris. One of the papers published a story with which we had nothing to do. The New York papers to whom we had not given any information, published on Sunday, that the Metropolitan Museum had bought a HOLBEIN from us. Some papers published that Mr. Edsel Ford was the purchaser of the picture. Of course, Mr. Ford's name was never even mentioned. The exaggerated price of -- $225,000.00 published by the same paper at the same time was, of course, not given by us. As I told you before, we did not publish any price. Some papers called us up about it, and we answered that we did not care to disclose it and that we refer them to the purchaser.

We do not understand how any paper can build up a story and publish, without any grounds, facts which are so far from the truth.

We would like the HOLBEIN Picture published in "Art in America" and we are wondering if you could be kind enough to take this matter up and how much they would charge to publish the picture. We are also wondering if it would not be a good thing to have Prof. Ganz write an article especially for "Art in America". I suppose you know him very well and you could ask him to do that. If not, we feel that we could ask him ourselves.

When we were in Detroit, we quite forgot to speak to you about the Swiss tapestry representing the Two Lions. We were glad to see that your Museum was interested in so rare and so fine a piece. We have been, at one time, in negotiation with some of the Swiss Museums who wanted to buy that tapestry and also with Dr. Zimmermann who wanted that tapestry for the museums in Nurenburg. This tapestry is reproduced in a book by Rudolf F. Burckhardt "Gewirkte Bildteppiche des XV and XVI Jahrhunderts in Historichen Museum zu Basle", and is considered as a piece of the 15th century. We 

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