[...] I have a favour to ask you today which I have kept on forgetting until now. Among the objects which remained in Minna’s household in Dresden and which were all transferred to her at her request is a present which Countess d’Agoult gave me and which only negligence could have persuaded Minna to regard as one of her possessions. It is a small Chinese Buddha, a kind of gilt idol, enclosed in a small casket of black wood, the doors of which used to open to reveal the small statue inside. - God knows what Minna did with this piece: at all events it was not right of her if she gave it away. May I ask you to endeavour to obtain the return of this piece for me: if the present owner is indelicate enough not to return this keepsake at once, in return for the above declaration, I am ultimately willing to pay whatever compensation may be necessary to ensure its return. Except for my incomparable friend Pusinelli, my experience with Minna’s and my own former acquaintances in Dresden are a source of little credit to the people concerned, and it may well be possible that difficulties will arise which will prevent the return of the piece, difficulties which, at all events, I should like to think may be avoided.
But I must ask in all seriousness for the return of my letters to Minna. No arrangements can be made to dispose of such letters: as long as the recipient was alive, they belonged to her, and she could either keep them or destroy them. If Minna has definitely and demonstrably done the latter with my letters, there is of course nothing I can say against it: but if she kept them, they must necessarily revert to the sender and, in the event of Minna’s having given these letters away, I shall contest this illegal action with every legal means I can, should this become necessary, and insist on these papers’ being surrendered. I should be grateful if you would give me some information on this point, and, if possible, help me regain possession of these letters, which, in any case, I claim as my property. -
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 371