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[[preprinted]]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
FOGG ART MUSEUM
CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U.S.A.
[[/preprinted]]

^[[checkmark]]

March 18,1922

Mr. Jacques Seligmann,
705 Fifth Avenue,
New York, N.Y.

Dear Mr. Seligmann:

Thank you for yours of March 15. I am pleased to hear that you will consider lending your picture by Justus de Gand to the Fogg Museum as a loan.

I will now proceed to answer your questions as best I may.

We do not insure our works of art in the Museum, partly because the risk is so very slight and partly because we cannot afford to. When we have loan exhibitions we either insure the works of art or ask the lender if he will show his further friendliness to the Fogg Museum by transferring the insurance which he has on it in his own house to the Museum while it is here. A great many people and some of the dealers have been willing to make this arrangement. In such cases sometimes we have insured the picture in transit, and sometimes the owner has been willing to do this. Of course I should be very much pleased if you felt able to transfer the insurance which you have on the picture to cover it while it is in the Fogg Museum, and, if you will do this, I shall be glad to attend to insuring the picture in transit. This, I think, will mean no increased expense to you as the rate of insurance at the Fogg Museum should be as low as the rate in your gallery.

The chance of my being able to find a purchaser for the picture will be very much greater if you allow it to stay here for some time, because during the spring and summer months a number of important collectors and rich friends of the Fogg Museum are sure to visit the gallery, so the chance of interesting one of them in the picture if the picture is here for some time would be very much greater than the chance of interesting some benefactor if the picture is only here for a week or two. So I write to ask whether you would consider sending the picture as a loan for me to keep perhaps for several months with no expense except the expense of the insurance in transit.

I shall of course take the responsibility that I take for all the pictures in the gallery; but if any damage should come to it, that would be covered by the insurance, and I should not be personally liable.