What ho!
Sir: Sir John Summerson supports the removal in 1969 of Sir John Soane's restric- tion on the professional status of the curator of his museum, and presumably he also welcomed the breaking of the restric- tion on loans from the museum a year or two later, when the Hogarths were lent to the Hogarth exhibition at the Tate Gallery.
If the museum is acting on such utilita- rian principles rather than in strict accord- ance with its founder's wishes, it seems a pity that it has not lent its Watteau to the Watteau tercentenary exhibition at Washington, Paris and Berlin. I do not know whether it was ever asked to, but this is the first Watteau exhibition ever, and may at least resolve some of the many arguments over which pictures are by Watteau and which are not. It is in every way as unique and special as the Hogarth exhibition, and deserves support, even though the National Galleries in London and Edinburgh have not lent to it either. Selby Whittingham The Watteau Society, 153 Cromwell Road, London SW5
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