DLA123-0163 Transcription
Hotel Ritz
Plaza de las Cortes
Barcelona
14me [Mars?]. 1930.
Cher Marqués de la Vega-Inclan.[1]
C’est
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Your Royal Highness.
Your delightful letter reached me here, where we are on holiday just before returning home.
Will you express ^accept my best thanks for your most delightful letter.[2] I was so glad to hear that the portrait [2447] reached its destination safely.
I can well imagine how beautiful it must be in South Africa at present, & how much your Royal Highness must feel leaving a place, where you are so much beloved.[3]
Since a month we are away from home – we were for three weeks in the Riviera, en-joying the lovely atmosphere there.
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Since a week we are here in Barcelona to see the magnificent Exhibition, especially the National Pavillion, which is one of the where we have seen the richest Art Treasures concentrated & which manifest in the most glorious way this people’s great past.[4]
From modern point of view, they [revel?] nothing more beautiful has been done than the way they apply [electric?] Light. Beautiful at night are the play of the waters[5]
The International Art Jury Y.B.[A?]. I’m sure will be interested to hear that In the Art [Section?], the [International?]
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Art Section ^Jury awarded me the Grand Prix for my portraits, amongst which are the [my?] portraits ^those of the King & Queen of Spain [possibly [12400] and [12398]].[6] And great is my moral satisfaction, that unexpectedly I have from London I received news a few days ago, that I was ^have been elected President of the R.S.B.A. which is a great moral satisfaction to me.[7] For this reason we have to shorten our holiday & return home on Sunday.
It is with great pleasure, that we both look forward to the honour of ^[illegible deletion] meeting Your Royal H. on Your return.
My wife asks me to thank you for Your kind greetings & Believe me | I have the honour to remain Y..R.H. most devoted
P.A.de L.
Editorial Note:
Princess Alice of Athlone, née Princess Alice of Albany (1883-1981); for biographical notes, see [2447].
LR
20/03/2020
[1] Benigno Mariano Pedro Casto de la Vega-Inclán y Flaquer, II marqués de la Vega-Inclán (1858-1942), Spanish politician, writer and patron of the arts
[2] DLA123-0162, letter from Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone to de László, 14 February 1930
[3] Princess Alice’s husband, Major General Alexander Augustus Frederick William Alfred George Cambridge, 1st Earl of Athlone, né Prince Alexander of Teck (1874-1957), was Governor-General of South Africa from January 1924 to January 1931.
[4] Constructed between 1926 and 1929, the Palau Nacional (National Palace) was the main building of the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition. During the Exposition, El Arte en España (The Art of Spain), which consisted of more than 5,000 works of Spanish art, was on view in the Palace.
[5] Possibly a reference to the Magic Fountain of Montjuïc on the Avinguda Maria Cristina, which was designed by Carles Buïgas for the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition.
[6] For background to de László’s participation in the exhibition, see DLA019-0098, letter from de László to István Bárczy de Bárcziháza, 19 May 1930.
[7] De László was elected president of the Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) in succession to Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942).