 He was director of the Réunion des Musées Nationaux from 1922 until 1931.Apart from his connections with artists like Auguste Rodin, he was a longtime friend of the art dealer Samuel Bing and American historian Royall Tyler and also befriended other Americans like Edith Wharton and French writers like Marcel Proust.He wrote among other works 3 volumes about French Gothic ivories (1924) and a memoir, "Souvenirs d'un vieil amateur d'art de l'Extrême-Orient" in 1930.