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116 East 53rd Street
New York 22, N.Y.

October 27, 1947

Dearest François Gerard:

I received your cable concerning champleves. In principle I do not like to divide the collection, and should I divide the collection, we would have to put [[strikethrough]] others off [[/strikethrough]] ^[[up an order]] in selling the collection: I mean the biggest Chasse first, some of the plates which are not in such good condition after, and then the other Chasses and the three Mosane plates which naturally any client would want to buy first. If a client buys it first, the collection becomes uninteresting to sell as a whole. That is why for the time being I prefer to sell it as a whole, or let's be more democratic, Mother prefers to sell it as a whole.

[[underlined]] George Ansley, 64, Boulevard de Courcelles: [[/underlined]] He, an Englishman and nephew of Ansbacher, and his wife, born French and called Suanna as her first name, a good-looking girl, who has known Cesar quite well years ago. We met them on the boat. They took a cocktail with us a few days ago. They are buying furniture for their apartment in Paris and are clients of Bouvier and also of Labattut about whom I said gently that he started in life as a gilder. I told them that I was writing to you to look them up in Paris and that I would ask you to be especially ^[[lenient]] with them with your prices. He must be very wealthy, as he has been his uncle's partner for ages. He seems to be very intelligent. When they will have bought their furniture, they will start buying paintings. They will be leaving on the Mauretania on the 8th of November for Paris. ^[[Bonne chasse!]]

In answer to your letter of October 24th:

[[underlined]] Jacqueline's Library [[/underlined]] She would like to have over here:

The John Lewis Brown
The Fragonard Drawings
The Cranach "Three Graces; she wishes to have that painting parqueté or better, fixed on pressed wood. When I told her that this would take a long time to do, she suggested to have a special demenagement made of these paintings and her books. Now it is up to you.

On the other hand, she wishes you to know that she has all the room to receive all the books; that she wishes to receive:

La Grande Encyclopedie
All her class books
^[[classe de]All premiere and philosophy books
All the books referring to history and also the Morceaux Choisis of French authors, [[underlined]] but [[/underlined]]
No book referring to Latin or in Latin
No mystery books (roman police)
No periodicals, [[underlined]] outside of Art [[/underlined]] et Metier Graphique that she definitely wishes to have over here.

Besides all of this, she wishes to have you convey to Françoise her excuses for not having written recently. She is going to write incessantly; she is overworked ^[[!!]]

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[[preprinted]] AIR MAIL [[/preprinted]]