DLA018-0051 Transcription^[1]

4. August 1932

My dear Philip,

I was very pleased indeed to have your letter and I am happy to know that all the members of the large family are well. It is a great thing you know!! Many thanks for the illustration of your American portraits in the Evening News. I am sorry not to see the originals. The sketch of your great work interests me very much.^[2] If I were in London I should do “the office boy” work in your studio, it would give me great pleasure.

It was a very wise arrangement to spend some time at the Country Club. [illegible passage] it was a good thing that you did not [illegible] Littleworth to rest – though it is a perfect [place?]

I am sending you today the [illegible] Illustrated, you find in it a coloured reproduction of Giorgione’s Picture, [illegible words] Italian Government bought for 5 million Lire.^[3] I will see it in September in Venice. By then, [illegible] cannot do anything for you in Venice. I will go there at the end of the month, that is I expect to go for a few weeks to [illegible passage] to Naples from there to Palermo for the winter. [illegible passage]

With love,

old Vilmos

Editorial Note:

Vilmos Ruttkay de Felső-Ruttka (born 1869), commercial attaché at the Hungarian Embassy in London; for biographical notes, see [4856].

SMDL

19/11/2021

[1] Very difficult handwriting to decipher

[2] Likely a reference to de László’s plan to paint a picture for his own pleasure on a subject in connection with the First World War. He wished to depict: “not men fighting, but the still nobler part of suffering women at home; women of all classes in a chapel surrounding the burning candles for the fallen souls” (Rutter, pp. 372-373). The painting was never started, although many studies and sketches remained in the artist’s studio on his death.

[3] “I wonder how Italy is able to pay five million at the present moment, but the picture itself is beautiful”, de László wrote in reply (see DLA018-0052, letter from de László to Vilmos Ruttkay de Ruttka, 17 August 1932). In 1932, the Italian government purchased Giorgione’s The Tempest from Prince Alberto Giovanelli of Venice. The New York Times reported that the painting was, at the time, “recognized as the most valuable privately owned canvas in the world” (Arnaldo Cortesi, “Giorgione’s ‘Tempest’ is Bought by Italy”, The New York Times, 15 February 1932). The Tempest now hangs in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice.