Skip to Content
 

Royall Tyler to Mildred Barnes Bliss, June 29, 1930

Grand Hotel Hungaria
Budapest
29.VI.30Sunday.

Here I sit, dearest Mildred, and see the time running out, and less and less hope of getting back to Paris before you leave. I needn’t tell you, I think, that if I could get away without seriously prejudicing chances of success in some delicate negociations, I’d rush to the first train.

I hope you’ve seen the DoucetJacques Doucet (1853–1929), a French fashion designer and antiquities collector. See also letters of March 6, 1930; and April 7, 1930. things at Vignier’sAt the Hotel Drouot, Charles Vignier was involved in the sale of the Doucet collection. See Collection Jacques Doucet: Céramiques d’Extrême-Orient, bronzes, sculptures, peintures chinoises et japonaises, laques du Japon, faïences de la Perse, de la Transcaspie et de la Mésopotamie, miniatures persanes, vente du vendredi 28 novembre 1930 (Paris: Impr. Lahure, 1930).—anyway don’t leave Paris without seeing them, particularly the two Sultanabad bowls,Probably nos. 85 and 83, Persian (Sultanabad, glazed ceramic, thirteenth century). See Collection Jacques Doucet: céramiques d’Extrême-Orient, bronzes, sculptures, peintures chinoises et japonaises, laques du Japon, faïences de la Perse, de la Transcaspie et de la Mésopotamie, miniatures persanes. Vente du vendredi 28 novembre 1930 (Paris: Impr. Lahure, 1930), 27, nos. 83 and 85, pls. 23 and 24. In the telegram of November 13, 1930, Tyler advises acquiring nos. 85 or 83. the thin ones, one with birds, the other with one personage. And if you feel about them as I do, you’ll want them both, and won’t want anything else of Doucets.The Blisses would acquire no. 85 (BZ.1930.11) from this sale. And please make sure that Robert leaves me word whether I’m to try for them, with a limit. Before the war, they would probably have fetched big prices—perhaps 15,000 to 20,000 gold francs each. Now, Sultanabad happily not being fashionable, they might go for less: one might get them both for not more than £1000 the two—but they’re so fine that, if you like them enough to want them, I’d make sure of them.

And then there’s the Bosch.Figdor Collection sale, Paul Cassirer Gallery, Berlin, September 29–30, 1930. See Max J. Friedländer, Die Sammlung Dr. Albert Figdor, Wien (Berlin: Cassirer, 1930), no. 41, pl. 27. Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch’s (ca. 1450–1516) painting, variously known as The Wayfarer, The Peddler, and The Prodigal Son, oil on panel, ca. 71.5 cm D, was acquired at the Figdor sale by the Amsterdam dealer Jacques Goudstikker (1897–1940), who sold the painting in 1931 to the Museum Boijmans van Beuninger, Rotterdam. And that’s to be sold on Sept. 30. Instructions urgently needed as to that, too.

It’s sizzlingly hot here—if I don’t pull this thing off, I shall feel like a fool.

Bless you, dearest Mildred.

Yrs
R. T.

 
Associated People: Charles Vignier; Robert Woods Bliss
Associated Places: Budapest (Hungary); Paris (France)
Associated Artworks: BZ.1930.11