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Royall Tyler to Mildred Barnes Bliss, May 8, 1913

8, Rue de la Barbouillère

Paris. VI.

May 8 1913Thursday.

Dear Mildred

There is a show now on at Seligmann’s, in the ancien Hôtel de Sagan, Esplanade des Invalides, which you must see.A review of this loan exhibition was printed in The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 23, no. 122 (May 1913): 114: “On May 5th will be opened on the first floor of the Hotel de Sâgan, which M. Jacques Séligmann has kindly lent for the purpose, a loan exhibition of works of art other than pictures of the 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, in aid of the “Croix Rouge Française”. The exhibition has been organized by a committee consisting of the Marquise de Ganay, the Vicomte d’Harcourt, M. Gustave Dreyfus, M. Martin Le Roy and others, and the finest private collections, not only in Europe but also in America, have been drawn upon. It is the first time that works of art have been sent from America to an exhibition in Paris. The German collectors have been particularly generous in lending, and Dr. Bode has sent his entire collection of early Italian faience. Among other collections contributing are those of the late Mr. Pierpont Morgan, of Messrs. Otto Beit, Leopold and Alfred de Rothschild, George Blumenthal, Jules Bache, William Salomon, P. H. Lehmann, Mortimer Schiff, Privy Councillors Gutmann and Simon, Count Wilczek Miller, Herr von Eichmann and many Parisian collectors, including MM. Martin Le Roy and Gustave Dreyfus. The exhibition will certainly be one of the most interesting that have ever been held, consisting as it does entirely of objects from private collections.” See also Charles Henry Meltzer, “The Little Shows of Paris,” Hearst’s Magazine 24 (July–December 1913): 282. It has things from private collections, some uninteresting, but quite a lot marvelous—12th and 13th ivories, enamels, bronzes, one marvelous piece of Early XVth tapestry. But one may spend years before seeing such Limoges and Rhenish enamels together—out of a Museum, I mean, because if the bemonocled and befeathered Semites who made such a clatter at Seligmann’s today had ever been to the Louvre and Cluny, they might not have shrieked so loud. I wanted to wring all their gelatinous necks. But still, in a sense they were right to utter such signs of approval as God has permitted them the use of, for they saw at least a dozen things not to be surpassed in any museum. Some Byzantine ivories, no chalice. Some Italian pottery—no Sassanian plate.The interest in Sassanian objects may have to do with a silver bowl (BZ.1913.3), then considered Sassanian, that the Blisses acquired from the dealer Claude Anet in July 1913 .

Elisina sends you her best love.

Yrs sincerely

Royall Tyler

 
Associated Places: Paris (France)
Associated Things: Jacques Seligmann & Cie
Associated Artworks: BZ.1913.3