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Letter from Charles Henry Hart to Henry C. Frick, 20 January 1917 [page 3 of 3]

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Frick-3 photograph, very much reduced, which he had endorsed with an opinion upon the bust. It in unnecessary to say to you how deceptive good photograph are of works of art, especially when they are of the round and much reduced in size from the object as in this case, the reduction refining the original so that disappointment is mist apt to follow the production of the large original after an inspection of the small photograph, These conditions exist particularly in the present instance where the coarseness of the work in the marble, to which I referred in my opinion, is no where discernable in the photograph so that if this print has been shown to me for my opinion as to the sculptor or the originally I should have said tentatively" it looks like Houdon"; but I certainly should not have done on any photograph of any work of art as N. Vitry has upon seeing only the photograph and not the marble " I would not hesitate the slightest in recognizing in the Bust the usual manner and masterly qualities of Houdon". This is more than I think any finite mind is justified in saying upon a small photograph reproduction without seeing the life-size marble, as regretful as I am to criticize M. Vitry, with whom my relations have always been most agreeable. Therefor after a carful examination of the two documents submitted to my by Duveen Brothers I see no reason to change my opinion that if the marble is what can be called "a Houdon bust" it is an inferior and not a superior one and that it is most assuredly not a portrait bust of Mlle La Clairon, the great actress but of an unknown person. Faithfully Charles Henry Hart

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