DLA016-0166 Transcription
AMERICAN LEGATION,
ATHENS.
17th March 1925
My dear László,
Your letter of the 6th March has only just reached me today. It seems to take a frightfully long time for mails to come here from the Riviera.
Many many thanks for your thought of us and for all your news. The Graphics with your portraits of the Pope [6690] & the Queen of Greece [3273] and Mr. Kellogg [5917] have come & have interested my wife and
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and me greatly.[1] The portraits of his Holiness [6690] & also that of Mr. Kellogg [5917] seemed to me good and very interesting pictures – but the one of Queen Elizabeth [3273] leaves me quite cold. I have never seen her, so I can regard it only as a picture, and as a picture it says nothing to me. Is it because there was nothing to be said? She seems to have no face!
I am also much interested in your portrait of Gennadius [5316] for his Library here which is getting on well in construction.[2] I go to see it quite often. It will be a good building when it is finished. I know the
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the architect, Mr. Thompson, very well.[3] Gennadius ought to be a good subject to paint – He has an ugly face with some character in it, quite different to the average greek one sees. I always liked him when I used to see him in London so often. He is of a type of his countrymen that seems to be disappearing. Very few of those one now sees in evidence appear to have any brains or any sense of proportion or common-sense.
The news of your forthcoming visit to America makes me regret that we shall not be in Washington this coming autumn.[4]
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autumn or winter, but when you go there please do not fail to go & see Meridian House.[5] You will see it not under good condition as it will be – “en papillotes” & still unfinished in many details, but my steward, Price, is living in it & will show you over it if you go to the back entrance in Belmont Street. The front entrance is closed during my absence.
I am very very busy with my official work in this distracted country that seems to be falling to pieces as a social organization, but is still as beautiful as ever in respect of nature and antiquities – Living conditions are so impossible that I can never attempt another summer here with my family. We go to Lake Como the first of June to the villa I had in 1922 & 1923. With many messages to you & yours from all of us. Very sincerely
I.L.
[the following across the side of page 4] & send this to the house of your friend de Guiche now de Grammont.[6]
Editorial Note:
Irwin Boyle Laughlin (1871-1941), American career diplomat who served as Minister to Greece from 1924 to 1926 and Ambassador to Spain from 1929 to 1933; for biographical notes, see [11149].
SMDL
06/01/2018
[1] [6690] and [5917] were reproduced in The Graphic, 21 February 1925, p. 267; [3273] was reproduced in The Graphic, 24 January 1925, p. 123.
[2] The Gennadius Library, opened on 23rd April, 1926, is part of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
[3] The library was designed by the American architect W. Stuart Thompson (1890-1968) from the firm Van Pelt and Thomspon.
[4] De László arrived in America in mid-October of 1925 and stayed until the following April.
[5] The Meridian House was designed by American architect John Russell Pope (1874-1937) in the style of an 18th-century French mansion (Pope would later go on to design the Jefferson Memorial (completed in 1943) and the West Building of the National Gallery of Art (completed in 1941). Located in Washington, D.C., the Meridien House was purchased in 1960 by the non-profit, public diplomacy organisation Meridian International Center.
[6] Antoine XII-Armand, 12th duc de Gramont; styled duc de Guiche (1879-1962) [11801]