VI.1919.40 — The Instrument of Dissolution

Single sheet, manuscript, ink on wove paper, folded as a letter; dated March 1919; signed only “the Warden,” the signature a cipher of seven characters. 330 × 205 mm.

Provenance: Delivered with the Deposit, 1919.

A raking-light detail of a 1919 manuscript: the word Signature in copperplate, followed by seven gilt cipher characters. — Detail, raking light: the signature. Seven characters, gilt, in no recorded script.

Note. The text dissolves the Order, directs the delivery of its property “to the keeping of one who refused us, in the name of one who refused us first,” and forbids its re-erection “until the letters are gathered.” The cipher signature has not been read. The Institute long ago ceased to encourage attempts, which arrive nonetheless.