I have one of the statues in my inventory and enter Umbacano's manor. The Nord talks to me and agrees to take me up to his study. I follow him to the next room, where Umbacano is reading a book. At this point, nothing happens. The Nord just stands there and Umbacano keep reading his book. If I talk to the Nord directly, he keeps asking me to follow him up to the study. If I talk to Umbacano directly, he talks as though we randomly bumped into each other and there are no dialogue options for the statue.

Any ideas? I tried pushing the Nord around a bit, hoping to hit some kind of point where he would trigger a dialogue with Umbacano. That didn't work.

I'm not running any mods that could conflict with the manor, or NPC AI behaviour.

Have you sold him any of the statues previously? Do you have the collector quest?

No, as I stated clearly I can't get the quest started in the first place, so I haven't sold him anything already. That's the problem.

Sorry I took so long to get back to this.... Have you sold one of the statues to some other vendor? (I don't know if it HAS to be one in the Imperial City or not....)