arles: The Passions and Paradoxes of an Improbable Life (April), ponders when Prince Charles actually knew that someday he would become King. Prince Charles, at his father's insistence, at age 17, attended Geelong Grammar School, west of Melbourne, Australia. He left Geelong in July 1966. In 1967 someone invited me to attend a conference at the Geelong Grammar School. The meetings were held in classrooms. I picked a chair desk at random, in the middle of the room. As I sat down, I noticed that carved into the desktop, along with many other names, was CHARLES, REX. So, at least by 1966, Prince Charles knew that he would someday become King! BAYARD H. BRATTSTROM Wikieup, Arizona FOR THE LOVE OF MILT T hank you for bringing the issue of forgery in the art world to light in Milton Esterow's article "The Modigliani Code" [May]. One of the reasons master forger Elmyr de Hory was able to infifiltrate the market and cause such unprecedented, long-lasting damage was that he never copied an existing work. He created original works in the style of Modigliani and others with great versatility and accuracy. He could put himself in the shoes of the artists to understand their subject matter and their perspective. It's a very good thing that Modigliani's entire catalogue raisonné will be undergoing more scrutiny. It is worrisome that the bulk of de Hory's works could still be out there, in private collections as well as in galleries and museums. Today, they benefifit from the provenance of the collection they were a part of, or of the long-since-closed gallery, or of the deceased expert that may have deemed it authentic. They have indeed become real fakes. JEFF OPPENHEIM New York, New York T hank you for your illuminating piece about the controversy surrounding the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, in Venice ["Palazzo Intrigue," by Milton Esterow, February]. I fifirst visited the museum 38 V ANIT Y F AIR vanityfair.com MAILBAG More from the V. F. "Whoosh, just vanished!" That's how Gail Singer, of Meadows Place, Texas, characterizes the disappearance of our Letters section in the March, April, and Summer issues, Mailbag and all. "I think this move denotes the beginning of the end of printed publications," she writes. Not so. We just don't want to spoil you all. (Well, maybe just Ms. Singer, whose second appearance in the Mailbag this is.) It was gratifying, to easily flattered sections like this one, that others noticed the absence of Letters as well. "Please reinstate," advises Glynis Langley, from Manchester, England. "I have scoured the last few issues … am I missing them?" asks Nancy "Somewhere in Georgia" Sutton. Hilda Burke, of London, England, adds, "Can you explain? It's really disappointing." Jodi Van Zaig, of Toronto, is really not disappointed in Graydon Carter's Editor's Letters: "Your metaphors rock." That's, ah, music to our ears. And R. Pearson writes from Bainbridge, Georgia, to commend the V.F. Web-site design: "FABULOUS job … so clean and spare … just gorgeous." Finally, Sandra Garratt, of Palm Springs, California, who writes us frequently to chastise us about our coverage of the Kardashian family, doesn't feel any better now than she did the last time we featured her complaints in the Mailbag—almost exactly a year ago. "If you stop paying attention they will eventually go away," she writes. The Kardashians or the articles? Either way, Ms. Garratt is an optimist, and we're happy to celebrate our anniversary. (Coming next month: Why did you publish that wretched Letters section again? I'd hoped it was gone for good. Whoosh, just vanish!) A UGUS T 20 1 7 in 1986 and was struck by the unique experience of walking around someone's home filled with magnificent works of art. That feeling stuck with me for years until I took my young daughters to the museum in 2010. So much of what I had loved about that experience in 1986 was gone. It no longer felt like a unique snapshot in time of a great art collector's home, but rather more like a conventional art museum. Disappointed, I promised my daughters a trip to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, in Boston, to give them the experience I longed for them to have. I wish Sandro Rumney well in his pursuit of displaying only Peggy Guggenheim's collection at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection museum. We have so few of these experiences left in the world. PATTY SCHOLZ-COHEN New Castle, New Hampshire CORRECTIONS: On page 136 of the May issue, in "The Westeros Wing," by Sarah Ellison, the name of the law school Vice President Mike Pence went to was incorrectly given. He studied at Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. In the caption on page 81 ("Brie Spirit"), Brie Larson's ring was incorrectly credited. It is by Louis Vuitton. On page 194 of the Hollywood Issue, in "The Hit Man," by Sam Kashner, the name of the director of Rising Sun was incorrectly given. Philip Kaufman directed the fifilm. Letters to the editor should be sent electronical ly with the writer's name, address, and daytime phone number to letters@vf.com. All requests for back issues should be sent to subscriptions@vf.com. All other queries should be sent to vfmail@vf.com. The magazine reserves the right to ed
Y our recent article "The Lonely Heir," adapted from Sally Bedell Smith's book Prince Charles: The Passions and Paradoxes of an Improbable Life (April), ponders when Prince Charles actually knew that someday he would become King. Prince Charles, at his father's insistence, at age 17, attended Geelong Grammar School, west of Melbourne, Australia. He left Geelong in July 1966. In 1967 someone invited me to attend a conference at the Geelong Grammar School. The meetings were held in classrooms. I picked a chair desk at random, in the middle of the room. As I sat down, I noticed that carved into the desktop, along with many other names, was CHARLES, REX. So, at least by 1966, Prince Charles knew that he would someday become King! BAYARD H. BRATTSTROM Wikieup, Arizona FOR THE LOVE OF MILT T hank you for bringing the issue of forgery in the art world to light in Milton Esterow's article "The Modigliani Code" [May]. One of the reasons master forger Elmyr de Hory was able to infifiltrate the market and cause such unprecedented, long-lasting damage was that he never copied an existing work. He created original works in the style of Modigliani and others with great versatility and accuracy. He could put himself in the shoes of the artists to understand their subject matter and their perspective. It's a very good thing that Modigliani's entire catalogue raisonné will be undergoing more scrutiny. It is worrisome that the bulk of de Hory's works could still be out there, in private collections as well as in galleries and museums. Today, they benefifit from the provenance of the collection they were a part of, or of the long-since-closed gallery, or of the deceased expert that may have deemed it authentic. They have indeed become real fakes. JEFF OPPENHEIM New York, New York