It sounded good, but how good? Thomas Colt Jr., director of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, had no idea. All he knew was that a wealthy Mrs. John Lee Pratt had willed to the museum her collection of the last Russian Czar's family trinkets.
Colt drove over to the Pratt home in Fredericksburg, piled the packages in the back of his station wagon and brought them back to the red brick museum in Richmond. When he recalls how casually he treated these treasures, he shudders.
When he unwrapped Mrs. Pratt's gifts, he found:
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