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London Dear Mr. and Mrs. Berenson, I was very sad, when I received your letter, so that I had to wait all these days to write to you again. I heartily beg your pardon for the impertinence to have asked you to see my list, which, I knew better than anybody, was so incomplete. Of course I did not intend to publish it in that way. I was not even certain whether I would publish it in any forthcoming book at all. My intention was to go through Europe and America with that list and see all the pictures indicated in it, and after my direct knowledge of the pictures, decide my own idea of their authenticity. I wanted you to indicate those pictures which I need not take the trouble to see, and also, to tell me the change of collections, which seems to have been very frequent in recent years. As time does not allow me to undertake this intensive travel, and as my publishers agree to publish my second volume in which I intend to treat school works of Botticelli, I gave up the desire of publishing my list of Botticelli school works in my first volume. It grieved me a great deal to hear that BB’s estimation of Yashiro lowered so much by the carelessness and lack of method in that list that now if I am to help BB for his “Drawings” at all, all that I can do is to collect photographs. If really so, so be it. I never wish to be treated beyond my proper merit. What pains me is that I showed the list to you in a confidential way; when you judge of me from my published things, I shall never be so sad, whatever your judgment might be. Now the case is different. But perhaps you are right. The more unfinished that list was, the more naturally the true Yashiro might have appeared in it. I do not complain. Whatever your estimation of me might be, I shall never lose my grateful feeling for your kind treatment of me during those long years. I will ever walk on my way, and whatever my own walk in art may be, I shall ever be conscious of my indebtedness to you and shall send my deep gratitude -- perhaps from a distance ineffectually. I sent yesterday the Study of Oriental Art back to you by parcel post. I packed it and sent it in the safest way possible and insured it. I hope it will arrive I Tatti in due time. I thank you so much for all the trouble to lend it to me. It stood in good stead, when I spoke with the publishers. I may do the work if I make up my mind to do, but I am still in doubt. I really want to come back to Europe for some years more and continue to do something more out of my devotion to the Italian Quattrocento. Quite recently I found a genuine Botticelli, which I was about to buy. Again unfortunately I missed it. I take the picture as the Convertite altarpiece, Trinity with St. John & Mary Magdalene & the Johnson predella seems to have belonged to it, corresponding to it both in style and in measurement. I am preparing an article which I will publish in near future. I am sailing away to America in about a week. Although I felt depressed after your last letter, yet don’t imagine that Yashiro gets ever estranged from you. He is still carrying a dear memory of I Tatti. Ah, after my departure when I can have another chance of seeing you? Goodbye and farewell! Farewell with all my heart. Yours ever, Yuki Yashiro |
