Skip to Content
 

Royall Tyler to Mildred Barnes Bliss, August 21, 1937

Pavillon Colombe

St. Brice-sous-Forêt (S&O)

21.VIII.37

Dearest Mildred, What a joy to get your letter,This letter has not been located. the 14-page one! It reached me yesterday.

This is not a reply, I need not say to you who are used to long-winded effusions from me. It’s just to tell you I’ve had yours, and bless you for it.

A hectic rush ever since Edith’s death. And in 3 days I’ve got to go back to Hungary.

The damned insurance Cos. are being most troublesome about the round Emperor.BZ.1937.23. They have obviously had bad experiences of works-of-art insurance, and fear to be victimized. I know a director of Lloyds,Lloyds of London, a British insurance company. however, and am approaching him—only he’s probably shooting grouse now. Paciencia.“Patience.”

Fiedler is on the job at Dresden, Hannover,See letters of March 1, 1937; April 6, 1937; April 9, 1937 [2]; June 3, 1937; July 25, 1937; August 18, 1937; September 4, 1937; September 11, 1937; December 13, 1937; and December 20, 1937. Gotha.See letters of April 8, 1937 [2]; April 9, 1937 [1]; April 9, 1937 [2]; April 16, 1937 [1]; April 16, 1937 [2]; May 22, 1937; June 3, 1937; June 16, 1937; June 26, 1937; July 6, 1937; July 25, 1937; September 4, 1937; October 25, 1937 [1]; November 23, 1937; December 13, 1937 [3]; February 28, 1938; March 31, 1938; July 10, 1938; July 29, 1938; August 10, 1938; August 16, 1938 [2]; December 20, 1938; and January 3, 1939. I’ll report as soon as he has finished his present campaign. I have his acknowledgment of the 33,000, so I’m not anxious about the Emperor, tho’ I am most impatient to get him off on his way to you.

This morning, the Memorial Service for Edith. It has been a heavy blow for both of us, losing her.

With much love, dearest Mildred,

Yrs

R. T.

P. S. I must add:

a) I feel your C.D. decisionPossibly a reference to the Blisses’ decision to sell Mildred Bliss’s mother’s house, Casa Dorinda. is wise. But what a wrench is must be!

b) Excellent course of lectures.In anticipation of the creation of the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss planned a lecture series for 1937–1938 and invited Doro Levi, Charles Rufus Morey, Wilhelm Koehler, Kenneth Conant, Kurt Weitzmann, and Robert Baron von Heine-Geldern. See Barbara Sessions, “Memorandum on the Publication of the Dumbarton Oaks Lectures,” undated, Dumbarton Oaks History, Barbara Sessions Correspondence, 1935–1940 file, Dumbarton Oaks Archives. But do get Doro Levi to do one on ArkadesArkades (Arkadia), the site of a Minoan population on Crete. In November 1937, Doro Levi delivered the lecture “Arkades and the Dawn of Greek Art,” first at Dumbarton Oaks and then for the Municipal Art Society of New York and the Art and Archaeology Journal Club of Princeton University. A copy of the lecture is in the Doro Levi Papers, ca. 1937, Dumbarton Oaks Archives. (Crete), as well as on Etruscan. His discoveries at Arkades,Doro Levi excavated at Arkades between 1927 and 1929. He published his findings in Arkades: Una città cretese all’alba della civilità ellenica (Bergamo: Istituto italiano d’arti graf., 1931). lighting up the question of Greek beginnings, and Minoan-Greek, are epoch-making.

c) The Librairie de France has put up its shutters, just as Vol. III was ready! Never mind. Its stock is being taken over by the man (Grund,The stock of the Librairie de France was acquired in 1937 by the Librairie Gründ; the two sons, Michel and Jacques, of its founding editor, Ernest Gründ (1870–1930), ran the business in 1937. a Jew of course) who has taken over Van Oast’sLibrairie Néerlandaise, Paris, G. van Oast, editor. stock. Things aren’t yet far enough advanced for me to talk to Grund, but I don’t despair. With our photographic material, I don’t think we’ll fail to find a publisher.

d) Hayford is working away at Byz. as before, and is even buying coinsIn 1948, the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection would acquire over 4,300 coins—including some 3,000 Byzantine specimens—from the Hayford Peirce collection. etc. I don’t think PollyPolly Brown Peirce, wife of Hayford Peirce. will stop him.

e) I went and lunched with Mrs. GayMatilda Travers Gay, wife of Walter Gay. at Le BréauChâteau du Bréau, the château near the village of Dammarie-les-Lys that Matilda and Walter Gay purchased furnished in 1907. the other day, and found her very well. Thank God, nothing is to be changed during her life. That’s an immense relief. I had greatly dreaded having to be concerned with removing pictures from the rue de l’UniversitéThe Gays had an apartment in Paris at 11, rue de l’Université. while she was still of this world.

Well, hasta otro ratito“Until another time.”

R. T.

 
Associated Things: L'art byzantin
Associated Artworks: BZ.1937.23