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Royall Tyler to Robert Woods Bliss, January 20, 1936 [1]

Mr. Robert Woods Bliss

Ancien Ambassadeur

22, R. Barbet de Jouy (7e)

Budapest

Télégramme

Jan. 20, 1936.

Approuve projet voyage.Mildred Barnes Bliss and Robert Woods Bliss were in Europe in the winter of 1936 and the spring of 1936. Mildred Bliss had been very ill with pneumonia in Prague and Royall Tyler was sent for from Budapest. See Edith Wharton to Beatrix Jones Farrand, April 4, 1936, Edith Wharton Collection, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. The Blisses visited Edith Wharton at Ste. Claire in April before sailing for Naples and journeying on to Rome. See Edith Wharton to Beatrix Jones Farrand, April 4, 1936, and April 17, 1936, Edith Wharton Collection, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. From there, the Blisses visited Mary and Bernard Berenson at their estate, Villa I Tatti, near Florence. On June 2, 1936, Elisabetta (“Nicky”) Mariano (1887–1968), Berenson’s librarian and secretary and later his lover, wrote Edith Wharton: “I got quite into the habit of having very pleasant conversations with Mr. Bliss, as I was put next to him at one lunch party after the other (also at Airfa) and found him very agreeable. I liked her less, she seemed to me affected and priggish but as all her friends praise her so much there must be certainly very delightful qualities under that ‘rare bird’ surface:” See Nicky Mariano to Edith Wharton, June 2, 1936, Wharton mss., Elisina Tyler correspondence, box, 11, The Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington. Vous attends impatiemment. Enchante Greco.El Greco’s painting, The Visitation, HC.P.1936.18.(O), which the Blisses acquired from Mildred Stapley Byne (1874–1941), the wife of the dealer and art scholar Arthur Byne (1884–1935), in Madrid on January 17, 1936. Tyler.“Approve trip project. I await you impatiently. Enchanted Greco. Tyler”

 
Associated Places: Budapest (Hungary)
Associated Artworks: HC.P.1936.18.(O)