ABSTRACT
I have to thank you, dear Professor, for your amusing lines about my picture. Naturally I cannot agree with you completely. The painter is without doubt very gifted. I had seen a number of sketches of portrait drawings in his studio, which were of such brilliant nature that I decided to ask him to sketch me. I did not know that these drawings dated from an earlier period and that he had in the meantime changed over to the most modem school. I am in no way inclined toward this abstract school. However, since the picture was finished, I did not wish to withhold it from our circle. If one looks at it often over a period of time, more and more characteristics become apparent. In order to make good the wrong I have done you, I intend to give myself over to another artist sometime soon. At the end of February, I am to read a paper in Hamburg2 and intend to consult an artist there of whom you too will approve.3
