Royall Tyler to Mildred Barnes Bliss, November 3, 1928

Ministry of Finance,
Budapest.
3.XI.28Saturday.

Dearest Mildred, Your letterSee telegram of October 6, 1928. has just this moment reached me, and I’m writing this in haste c/o Edith to bid you welcome, and to say that I’m arranging to come to Paris about the 24 or 25 of this month and to stay there until you sail.

As for the carpet, I’ve written both to Sanguszko,Roman Władysław Sanguszko (1901–1984), a Polish landowner, horse breeder, industrialist, and philanthropist. who appears to be in Poland, and to his man IsbirianThe Parisian dealer Isbirian has not been identified. (31 r. St. Lazare, Paris) telling them that the carpet must be available for your inspection as soon as you reach Paris. So communicate with Isbirian (Tel. Trudaine 71.01).

I’ll write more to Paris, so that it may be waiting for you on Nov. 12th.

I’m so happy to think we’re soon going to meet.

With much love, always

Yrs
R. T.

I’ve seen in the paper that the Austrian carpet which sold for £23,100 in London, has been bought by Col. Pope for $200,000.In 1925, the Glasgow rug dealer Victor Isaac Behar, the founder of the firm Cardinal and Behar, London and Persia, acquired from the Vienna Museum für Kunst und Industrie a Persian carpet formerly owned by the Russian czar Peter the Great. See “Art: Rug,” Time, October 11, 1926. The carpet was in the Austrian Imperial House, Vienna, between 1698 and 1921 and the Vienna Museum für Kunst und Industrie between 1921 and 1925. It remained in the inventory of Cardinal and Behar until July 5, 1928, when it was sold at auction by Christie, Manson & Wood, London, to the International Art Galleries of New York for the then record price of $112,500. See “$112,500, Record Price, is Paid for a Rug; Famous Emperors’ Carpet Acquired at London Auction by New York Concern,” New York Times, July 6, 1928. The carpet was sold in 1928 to Arthur Upham Pope on behalf of Edith Rockefeller McCormick (1872–1932) of Chicago. The carpet remained in her estate until 1943, when it was again sold to Arthur Upham Pope on behalf of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 43,121.1. The carpet is Persian, second half of the sixteenth century. It is woven with an asymmetrically knotted pile on a silk warp and weft and measures 759.5 cm x 339.1 cm. See letters of April 29, 1928; June 26, 1928; and July 30, 1928 [2]. That’s bad.