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My dear Mr. Cruikshank, I would have replied to yours of 7th ult before now but that I have been specially occupied with some pressing matter and not able to make the necessary enquired so as to be in a position to give you the information you ask. I yesterday saw Mr. Black, the Artist, through whose assistance we sold your Raeburns to Mr. Agnew, and asked him if he could give me any information as to where the pictures were, and if what I had heard was true, that the portrait of Mrs. Cruikshank was now the property of Mr. Sanderson of this city. He told me that this was right - that Mrs. Cruikshank's portrait had been purchased by Mr. Sanderson and was in his house, No. 25 Learmonth Terrace here. Mr. Sanderson is a very wealthy gentlemen and a great Art collector. He is the Senior partner of Robertson Sanderson & Co Ltd. large Whiskey Merchants in Leith. When you first asked us to treat for the sale of the pictures and I consulted Mr. Black as to how best to sell them he at once suggested Mr. Sanderson as a likely purchaser and on my behalf approached that gentleman with the view of getting him to buy them. Sanderson, however, wouldn't then purchase, and Mr. Black told me that the reason was that he, likely many others, hesitated to buy such a portrait privately but preferred to buy from some big dealer, feeling that he was safer when he got the guarantee of a man like Agnew. Mr. Black says that Sanderson did not buy direct from Agnew but from another dealer, I forgot the name, and that Sanderson wouldn't tell him what price he paid, but that he suspects he gave a big increase on the