be inconvenient, and dangerous besides. I took advice, but the best bric-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.
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| ETRUSCAN TEAR-JUG. |
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; 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; it is in the main correct, though I think I have foreshortened one end of it a little too much, perhaps.
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| HENRI II PLATE. |
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. He said that the whole Keramic world would be informed that it was now in my possession and would make a note of it, with the price paid.
