I asked him things about Rubens’s technique, to which he replied in a way that proves to me that he analyzes well, which is doing something that not everyone thinks of, and which is nonetheless a very useful thing. Now what else shall I tell you? Oh yes — I’ve seen two collections of modern paintings. Firstly what was bought at the exhibition for the lottery,10 and then a collection of paintings that was sold.11 That’s why I saw various fine things, two studies by Henri de Braekeleer, you know that he has nothing to do with the old De Braekeleer,12 I mean the one who’s a famous colourist and analyzes rigorously — Manet-like, at any rate as original as Manet. One was a woman in a studio or other interior with Japanese objects, the woman had on a costume, yellow and black. Flesh colour, white and carmine. All sorts of strange little tones in the surroundings.