Brev

02306 Saturday night. Dear Mrs Larson, Late tonight I received a wire form the Swedish Consiil in Tientsin whb informed me that my big consigament has been passed, but that furtner collections of antiquities must be passed before the "må of äpril in order to be allowed to be exported. For tnis reason we must hurry this matter and I write you at once enlosin a copy which I ask you to forward to Ur Larsone I have ahready returned to you 23 bronze vessels and statuary. 8 of these, those who pretend to be the most important and oldest are entirely new manufactured at Wei Esien Shantung. This fact of course charnges the value of the consignment radically. The remaining 15 pieces also returned are reliable things butof so little age that I cannot buy them. There are hundreds of quite sound Scytian and other early things but evidently the important pieces have already been picked out before or Larson got hold of the consignment. Otherwise we cannot account for the striking absence of all more important things, specially animal Apenwork which is so predominant in this Scytian culture. The big tray ig also to be returneds. I have listed 634 of the earlier things and charged the best Peking prices. In fact many of these are so plain that the dealers here would not consider them, In tig lot ig also included the three plain and uggly looking bronze vessels whixh I consåer to be the best of the 1ot anå which I have listed av 75 dollars.
For the 634 odå things listed by my and in addition 302 arrow point Ian willing to pay 760 Collars . The large number of small bronzss, seals bells man figures ete are then not included. I am willing to pay for this pot of younger and for me 1288 interesting things 140 dollars making the whole a total of 900 dollars for tne consignment minus the 23 vessels returned and the tray. The silver plagque I want to keep as an interesting feke if Dr Muller and Dr Kummel confirm tnat it ig a fake, If ihey declare it to be genuine i will offer a sevarate considerable orice for fbr Kinåly forward this letter to Mr Larson at once and ask him to wire m Andersson Pekingnhotel É 760 if ine offer for the older things ig accepted. 300 if tbe offer for all small tings ig accepted anå Zz refuse if my offers are declinede . I am very sorry that the big bronzes are fakes. It would have been a celight to have paid a ovite high price had they been what they pretendto Hy very kind regards to Mr Iarsons It must be clear tkat my offers stand only for they event that I get > Aime to have the things passed in Tisntsin before the end of the month. Very truly yours