Everything is now in place for our auction next month. We have had considerable interest in the silver golem, following the PR campaign – the TV segment was particularly good, we thought – hope you caught that – and there was also a mention on Antiques Roadshow. The mail-out of our pre-sale catalogue has brought a number of enquiries, and we think we’re in for some lively bidding on the day.
I’m looking forward to seeing you again at the sale, and it’s good to hear you’re bringing the owner of the golem with you. Can I take you both to dinner after the sale, please?
However, my main reason for emailing you is that yesterday we were contacted by a lady who apparently owns the ‘twin’ to Professor Rosendale’s figure. She had seen one of the TV items, and has asked if we would deal with the sale of her own figure. It is identical in all respects, except for being engraved on the underside with the Jewish character for the letter L – the Lamed, a thick horizontal stroke with the upjutting line on the left and the downward tail on the right.
We are, of course, happy to deal with this sale, but feel very strongly that it would be far more advantageous to sell the figures as a pair. This really would be a case of the sum being greater than the component parts. The proceeds could be divided on a strict 50/50 basis between the two owners (less, of course, your commission and ours).
As Professor Rosendale’s representative, could you put the proposal to him, and let me know his decision as soon as possible?
It would be a bit of a scramble to alter the present selling arrangements – amend the catalogue and do a new mail-out – but we think we could manage it, and in fact there should be some useful publicity to be got from the discovery of the second figure!
I don’t think we can disclose this second seller’s name at this stage, but I can tell you she is a Polish lady who escaped Nazi-occupied Warsaw as a small child in 1943 along with her sister. Apparently they were later smuggled out of England by a nursing sister who worked for Military Intelligence, and who believed the girls were in danger from Josef Mengele. It sounds as if the woman simply removed the two girls from some house in the depths of winter, and got them away before anyone realized. Another of those remarkable and unsung stories of bravery!
The girls were taken to Canada, where they both went on to study medicine. The nurse also found work there, and never returned to England, severing all connections in order to safeguard the two girls – even though she had family ties in the area, and a great-uncle or something who once owned a glass manufactory there. But she wanted to destroy all traces, in case she and the two girls could be found – although it seems she did leave some old papers with a local farmer and his sister.
The owner of the second golem is one of those girls, and she hopes very much that Professor Rosendale will agree to her request for the sale of both golems. She feels – as I and my colleagues do – that it would be the right thing for these two figures to be brought together again after so many years.
All best wishes.