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THE DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS
Detroit 2, Michigan 

ARTS COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF DETROIT

K.T. KELLER, President - ROBERT H. TANNAHILL, Vice-President - SELDEN B. DAUME - Mrs. EDSEL B. FORD  LESLIE H. GREEN - DOUGLAS F. ROBY - JAMES S. WHITCOMB

EDGAR P. RICHARDSON, Director
WM. A. BOSTICK, Secretary & Business Manager

Phone TEmple 1-0360
April 23, 1958


Mr. Germain Seligman
5 East 57th Street
New York, New York

Dear Mr. Seligman:

As you know, we are planning for the winter of 1958 (November 17, 1958 to January 6, 1959) an exhibition, ARTS OF THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE, 1400-1600, which we hope will be not only one of the most important exhibitions held in our museum, but also the most comprehensive of its type ever held in the United States. We shall include furniture, majolica, gold and silver objects, textiles, manuscripts and bindings of the two centuries of the Renaissance in which the Italian craftsmen reached their climax of perfection. The exhibition will be under the haut patronage of the Italian and American Ambassadors, and a distinguished Honorary Committee, composed of American and European personalities, is being formed. 

From the earliest stages of discussion the project has aroused great interest among the patrons of the museum. Mrs. Edsel B. Ford has given us the funds with which to carry out our plans and we will borrow quite extensively from collections in England, France, the Netherlands and Germany, as well as Italy. We expect to hold a seminar on the Decorative Arts of the Italian Renaissance and publish a large and well illustrated catalogue, to be printed in Italy with, we hope, a number of color plates. I spent several weeks last fall making contacts in Europe and I am going back to England and Italy within a few days to make final arrangements. 

There has been no great exhibition of this kind in America in the present generation, with the exception of the survey in the Metropolitan Museum in the 20's. Yet, there are wonderful collections of Italian decorative arts in American museums, and we feel that the time has come to call attention once more to the greatness of Italian craftsmen of the Renaissance, both from the point of view of the