his parents. Both had already been living in Paris prior to their marriage. His father died whilst in Paris two years later. Curtis and his wife, Louise formed an extensive art collection. She was an artist-draftsman and a pupil of Raphaël Collin and Luc-Olivier Merson. They set up a commune for artists at Mount Kisco, New York in November 1900. Curtis was widowed in 1910. His second wife was Ingeborg Flinch (1870-1943) who was originally from Copenhagen, Denmark and had been a close friend of his first wife. He had a retreat in Bourron-Marlotte, a town that was frequented by several impressionist painters including Alfred Sisley, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Paul Cézanne. Like his first wife, she was completely devoted to his cause as a collector. This retreat is also mentioned in a letter in 1937 to Tanner’s son, where he describes the a painting of the pyramids on the edge of the desert being the very first picture he bought from H O Tanner. Curtis died of old age on October 8, 1943 at his home, 17 rue Norte-Dame-des-Champs, in German-occupied Paris. His second wife, Ingeborg, followed him two days after suffering from heart trouble. Both deaths were notified to the Swiss Embassy who provided a consular service for American citizens at that time by a French friend, Marguerite, the wife of SOE agent, Mario Prassinos. They were both cremated and their ashes deposited at the Père Lachaise Cemetery. Some of his ashes were scattered in Vevey, Switzerland, to be close to his first wife, Louise. He was a relative of John B. Curtis, the inventor of chewing gum. Legacy In 1938 Curtis donated works to the Cluny Museum. The following year he bequeathed a selection to the Bibliothèque nationale de France, including eight hundred Japanese prints. Further parts of his collection were donated in his will in 1943. His correspondence with Tanner between 1904 and 1937 is held at the Smithsonian Institution. The Tanner Collection contains a number of photos of Curtis and his family. A great deal of his collection was sold in Bern, Switzerland after World War II. This included etchings from the 1500-1800s and handbooks of graphics by Albrecht Dürer, Anthony van Dyck, Rembrandt, Martin Schongauer, as well as copperplate engravings, and woodcuts from the same period from both Dutch, Italian and French schools. The Ryerson & Burnham Libraries of Chicago hold over 2000 items relating