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May 16, 1946

Dear François Gerard:

I have just cabled you as follows:

PLEASE CABLE WHETHER MARBLE STATUE ONEHUNDREDTEN BAUDOIN AUCTION MAY TWENTYNINE AS ATTRACTIVE AS SEEM PHOTOGRAPH WHETHER INTACT PARTICULARLY NECK NOSE RIGHT ARM ALSO EXPERTS VALUATION

and you understood, I feel certain, how very much impressed I am with the marble statue #110 in the L.M. Collection to be held by Baudoin on May 29th.  By the way, who is L.M.?

As usual it is difficult to judge from a photograph, but it seems to be a really most unusual and very attractive statue. And according to your answer, I may give you an order to buy it.

As long as I am on the subject, I would like you to make a list for my stay in Paris of large statues of high merit, which you may know, in marble, stone, wood, bronze; not plaster, and not in terracotta, either of the Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, or the twentieth century, but offhand not of the eighteenth century.

I purposely mentioned twentieth century as I could perhaps be interested in a very exceptional Rodin, Maillol, etc., but I am only talking of large statues of one meter or above.  As we know from experience, they are extremely difficult to sell and therefore, very reasonable in price.