Naturally My Chief Solicitude Was About My Collection
Of Ceramics.
Of course I could not take it with me,
that would be inconvenient, and dangerous besides.
I took advice,
But the best brick-a-brackers were divided
as to the wisest course to pursue; some said pack the
collection and warehouse it; others said try to get it
into the Grand Ducal Museum at Mannheim for safe keeping.
So I divided the collection, and followed the advice of
both parties. I set aside, for the Museum, those articles
which were the most frail and precious.
Among these was my Etruscan tear-jug. I have made a little
sketch of it here; [Figure 6] that thing creeping up
the side is not a bug, it is a hole. I bought this
tear-jug of a dealer in antiquities for four hundred
and fifty dollars. It is very rare. The man said the
Etruscans used to keep tears or something in these things,
and that it was very hard to get hold of a broken one, now.
I also set aside my Henri II. plate. See sketch
from my pencil; [Figure 7] it is in the main correct,
though I think I have foreshortened one end of it a little
too much, perhaps. This is very fine and rare; the shape
is exceedingly beautiful and unusual. It has wonderful
decorations on it, but I am not able to reproduce them.
It cost more than the tear-jug, as the dealer said
there was not another plate just like it in the world.
He said there was much false Henri II ware around,
but that the genuineness of this piece was unquestionable.
He showed me its pedigree, or its history, if you please;
it was a document which traced this plate's movements
all the way down from its birth - showed who bought it,
from whom, and what he paid for it - from the first buyer
down to me, whereby I saw that it had gone steadily up
from thirty-five cents to seven hundred dollars.
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