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Royall Tyler to Robert Woods Bliss, February 14, 1939

14.II.39 Geneva

Dear Robert.

On returning here I found yours of the 2nd inst. I note what you say about the unabashed Kühnel.Tyler mistakenly confuses Kümmel for Kühnel. Otto Kümmel (1874–1952) was a German art historian and director of the Berlin State Museums between 1934 and 1945. Ernst Kühnel (1882–1964) was a curator of the Islamic collection of the State Museum (Kaiser Friedrich Museum) in Berlin.

I enclose some notes of the St. Clamens sarco,Season sarcophagus, third–fourth century, marble, Chapelle de Saint-Clamens, Belloc-Saint-Clamens, in the Midi-Pyrénées, France. The sarcophagus is iconographically similar to BZ.1936.65. a photo of which I sent to Mrs. Sessions last week. Please, when you have consulted these notes (and had them copied if you wish to) return the enclosed to Giraudon,Adolphe and Georges Giraudon founded a photographic library in 1877 in Paris that specialized in photographic reproductions for “artists and scholars.” See Monique Le Pelley Fonteny, Adolphe et Georges Giraudon: Une bibliothèque photographique (Paris: Somogy, 2005). who wants it back.

I wrote you at length from Paris Sunday (12th inst) about my talk with Landau.Nicolas Landau (1887–1979), an antiquities dealer known as “Le prince des antiquaires.” Born in Varsovia, he studied law in Paris before becoming an antiquities dealer in New York and then in Paris, where he had a business on the rue de Duras. I hope the letter reached you safely.

Yrs

R. T.

 
Associated People: Barbara Sessions
Associated Artworks: BZ.1936.65