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Royall Tyler to Mildred Barnes Bliss, April 12, 1929

21, Quai Bourbon
12.IV.29Friday.

Dearest Mildred,

On receipt of yours of March 29 I wired ‘SassanianThis is probably a Sasanian bust that was described as a fourteen-inch-high bronze bust of a Sasanian king, probably Shahpour I. The Blisses acquired the piece on May 4, 1929, but returned it to Joseph Brummer by June 1930. Joseph Brummer to Mildred Barnes Bliss, February 1, 1929, Byzantine Collection files, Brummer Gallery 1914–1938. looks superb ApostleThis sculpted head has not been identified. In correspondence of Joseph Brummer to Mildred Barnes Bliss, March 18, 1929, this sculpture is described as: “Life size head in marble representing an Apostle. Early Christian period $6,200.” Byzantine Collection files, Brummer Gallery 1914–1938. See also letters of March 11, 1929; March 27, 1929; and March 29, 1929 [2]. ordinary,’See telegram of April 11, 1929. which pretty completely expresses my views as far as I can form any from photographs.

As I’m leaving today for Berlin, Warsaw, London, I’m sending this to Mlle. MalyeThérèse Malye (1886–1951), Mildred Barnes Bliss’s social secretary in Paris. asking her to forward it to you as soon as she hears your plans.

Stora’s ivories were all Western.See letter of February 28, 1929 [2]. He has sold them already. He is now negotiating for a XIe–XIIe Spanish panel (ivory) pretty fine.This ivory has not been identified. You should see it. He also has a superb Persian stucco carved panel, huge, with lots of figures (XIIe) the best I’ve ever seen.Probably the panel exhibited at the International Exhibition of Persian Art, Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, London, January 7–February 28, 1931. See Persian Art: An Illustrated Souvenir of the Exhibition of Persian Art at Burlington House, London, 1931 (London: Hudson and Kearns, 1931), no. 37. Stora, 32 bis Bd. Haussmann. Don’t omit to go at once to Kalebdjian and see his lapis Coptic necklace, which I wrote to you about and which I’ve told him he must hold for you to see. I love it.

I expect to arrive in London about April 25th, but don’t know exactly. Address, Hambros, or c/o A. J. Hugh Smith,Arnold John Hugh Smith (1881–1964), an American expatriate banker, art collector, Francophile, and friend of Henry James and Edith Wharton. He was the director of Hambros Bank in London. His collecting interests were similar to those of Royall Tyler. He gave a fragment of a French Gothic sandstone Crucifixion (M.10-1955) to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, in 1955 and Bronze Age and eighteenth-century weapons in 1956. After his death, the Fitzwilliam Museum received the Hugh Smith Bequest, which included ancient Egyptian carved stone vessels (E.1-5.1964), fourteenth-century pottery and alabaster Persian bowls and sculptures, two French Romanesque limestone capitals (M.1 and 2-1964), a late twelfth-century marble sculpture of a man’s head (ascribed to the Master of Cabestany; M.3-1964), a head of the Bodhisattva Avolkitesvara, and paintings and sculptures by Rubens, Gericault, Hogarth, Pissarro, Renoir, and Matisse. 74 Portland Place W.I, where I shall be staying. I wish I knew whether you were going first to London or first to Paris—whatever your plans, we must meet.

Elisina is still in the South. Edith Wharton is getting on much better now, but she has had a nasty time.See letter of March 29, 1929 [1].

Much love to both of you—
R. T.

 
Associated Artworks: BZ.1928.6