Even if this is denied it must at least be admitted that to France belongs the credit of having kept primitives when the other nations knew them no longer.

The Exhibition of French Primitives at the Pavilion Marsan in 1904 contained several little panels contemporary with the later Valois kings and with Henry IV.
I have made many journeys to see the pictures of the brothers Van Eyck, of Memling, of Roger van der Weyden, of the painter of the death of Mary, of Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and of the old Umbrian masters.

It was, however, neither Bruges, nor Cologne, nor Sienna, nor Perugia, that completed my initiation; it was in the little town of Arezzo that I became a conscious adept in primitive painting.

That was ten years ago or even longer.

At that period of indigence and simplicity, the municipal museums, though usually kept shut, were always opened to foreigners.