In SB's sally, van der Werffs painting is pornographic enough to make Fragonard's work (often regarded as mildly pornographic) seem as innocent and pure as that of Florentine painter and illurninator Fra
Angelico
(Fra Giovanni di Fiesole, fl.
Samuel Beckett
And I have nothing I like well enough to give away.
18 January 1937, McGreevy
Princesse de Babylone, with fantastic birds and flowers all over the walls and ceiling and La Fontaine on the chair covers, and yet
34
somehow full of exile and loneliness.
The picture gallery was
an eyeopener; school of Rubens and van der Werff! Practically
nothing else. Nowhere else in the world can there be so many
van der Werffs gathered together in one place. Real pornogra
35
I saw Maria Stuart and Hebbel's Gyges with Werner Krauss
in the Schauspielhaus. The Schiller remains alive till the last
act without betraying the secret of how it contrives to do so. The
Hebbel is superbly written, full of tense intellectual poetry,
but even Krauss could only put it across here and there. He is
a very great actor. Hebbel is [in] the dramatist pigeonhole, but
36
film-actor who came back highly delighted.
I still hope to have a look at Weimar, Naumburg & Leipzig
on the way to Dresden, but if this thing holds me up much longer I shan't be able to. I don't know when I shall be in London, hardly before May, unless my remaining strength gives out earlier than I have calculated. I shall try and save up to fly home, I can't bear the thought of trains and boats and customs and the case extirpating my arms.
All being well I shall be able to give you an address in Dresden within a fortnight.
Love ever s/ Sam
TLS; 4 leaves, 4 sides; TCD, MS 10402/113.
1 SB sent McGreevy a reproduction of Giorgione's Self-portrait as David from the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum in Brunswick; see 22 December 1936, n. 2.
432
phy, that would make Fragonard look like Fra Angelico.
it is as a poet that he counts.
Opera but was not well enough to go. I gave the ticket to the
37
I had booked for Martha(! ) in the
18January 1937, McGreevy
2 SB talked about the Giorgione painting in Brunswick with Dr. Rosa Schapire, having met her in Berlin on 21 December 1936; her collection is described in 14 November 1936, n. 6. She preferred Giorgione's Portrait of Young Man (Gemaldegalerie, Berlin, 12A).
3 Rembrandt, Family Group (1638, Anton Ulrich Herzog Museum, Brunswick, GG 238).
Italian painters Luca Signorelli (c. 1450-1523) and Piero della Francesca (1420-1492). "Taugenichts" (good-for-nothing).
4 The works by Erich Heckel, Ernst Kirchner, and German sculptor Georg Kolbe (1877-1947), as well as the stones etched by Karl Schmidt-Ruttloff, were in Schmidt Rottluff's flat in Berlin, which Rosa Schapire used while the painter and his wife were out of town (Mark Nixon, 7 May 2006).
5 "Delapartde"(literally,onbehalfof;here,thanksto). AliceSauerlandt'sintro ductions: 28 November 1936, n. 14; Sauerlandt and his work: 28 November 1936, n. 10. Herbert Read, not the English art critic Roger Fry (1866-1934), was the author of Art Now; Read's dedication: "To Max Sauerlandt in admiration of his knowledge of the art of all ages and in recognition of his devotion to the cause of modem art" (Art Now: An Introduction to the Theory ofModern Painting and Sculpture [New York: Harcourt, Brace and
Co. , 1933] n. p. ).
"Mais je n'en ai rien fait" (but I did nothing about it).
6 SB's first meeting with Axel Kaun was on 11 January (Tophoven, Becketts Berlin, 119-120; BIF, UoR, GD 4/f. 1).
Rowohlt published German translations of Henry the Eighth (1929; Heinrich der Achte) and Francis the First (1935; Franz der Erste) by Irish writer Francis Hackett, and Brazilian Adventure (1933; Brasilianisches Abenteuer), One's Company (1934; Mit mir allein). and News from Tartary (1936; Tataren Nachrichten) by English writer Peter
Fleming (1907-1971). The last was published serially in the Frankfurter Zeitung, and Fleming was on "a ten-day lecture tour. . . hopping from place to place by air" in early 1937 (Duff Hart-Davis, Peter Fleming: A Biography [London: Jonathan Cape, 1974] 198).
Rowohlt also published translations of Look Homeward, Angel (1929; Schau heimwiirts, Engel! ) and Of Time and the River (1935; Von Zeit und Strom) by American author Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938). Wolfe frequently visited Germany (Thomas Wolfe, The Letters of Thomas Wolfe, ed. Elizabeth Nowell [New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1961[ 442; Elizabeth Nowell, Thomas Wolfe: A Biography [Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co. , 1960] 271-277, 325; David Herbert Donald. Look Homeward: A Life ofThomas Wolfe [Boston: Little, Brown and Co. , 1987] 319-326).
Rowohlt was also the publisher of a translation of Le Dieu des corps (1928; Der Gott des Fleisches) and the first six volumes in the novel cycle by Jules Romains, Les Hammes de bonne volonte (from 1932; Die guten Willens sind).
7 Kempt and the actor Josef Eichheim: 18 January 1937 to Mary Manning Howe, n. 10.
8 SB refers to Axel Kaun, who was on his way to the Riesengebirge, a sub-Alpine mountain range on the border of Poland and Czechoslovakia, and to Kaun's friend Gunter Albrecht.
433
18 January 1937, McGreevy
9 Susan Manning, mother ofMary Manning Howe and close friend ofMay Beckett.
10 SBreferstohispoem"Cascando. "DublinMagazine,3-4.
11 ThePergamonaltarofZeusandAthena(c. 175BC),a40-foot-tallwhitemarble Hellenistic temple, was taken from its original location in Pergamon (now Turkey) and installed in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin in 1871. Around its base are relief sculptures of battles between the Gods and the Titans; their dramatic gestures and high degree of contour led scholars to describe them as "baroque. "
12 Issues ofprovenance are complicated by the circumstances ofpolitical doctrine, war, and occupation. Nearly 400 works in the collections of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in 1936 were destroyed during World War II. Further, in the post-war division of the city, the remaining collection was divided between the Berlin Dahlem Museum in the West and the Bode Museum in the East. In 1997 these collections were reunited in the Gemaldegalerie in the Kulturforum, Potsdamer Platz, and, from autumn 2006, the Bode Museum reopened with European art from late classical antiquity to 1800.
The Virgin and Child (NGL 3043) by Florentine painter Masaccio (ne Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Mone Cassai, 1401-1428) in the National Gallery (London) was painted as the center of an altarpiece for the chapel of Saint Julian in Santa Maria de! Carmine, Pisa. Several panels of the predella of this altarpiece are in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum: The Adoration of the King (58A); The Crucifixion of St. Peter / The Decollation of the Baptist (58B); St. Julian Killing his Parents / St. Nicholas Dowering the Three Daughters (58E) (Henning Bock, Irene Geismeier, Rainald Grosshans, et al. , eds. , Gemiildegalerie Berlin: Gesamtverzeichnis [Berlin: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Preussischer Kulturbesitz, 19961463).
The Lying-in of a Noble Florentine Woman (also known as Birth Scene, SBC) is now thought to be by the younger brother of Masaccio, Giovanni di Ser (1406-1486) (Keith Christiansen, "Some Observations on the Brancacci Frescoes after their Cleaning," Burlington Magazine 133. 1054 Uanuary 19911 15; Bock, Geismeier, Grosshans, et al. , eds. , Gemiildegalerie Berlin: Gesamtverzeichnis, 464).
13 Signorelli'sPanasGodofNatureandasMasterofMusic(alsoknownasCourtofPanand The Education ofPan, KF 79A) was destroyed in 1945; it is reproduced in Tom Henry and Laurence Kanter, Luca Signorelli: The Complete Paintings (New York: Rizzoli, 2002) 172-173.
El Greco's Laocoon and His Sons was on loan to the National Gallery, London, from May 1934 to December 1935; it is now in the collection of the National Gallery, Washington, DC (NGW 1946. 18. 1) Uonathan Brown and Richard G. Mann, Spanish Paintings of the Fifteenth through Nineteenth Centuries, The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue [Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990164).
14 ThepaintingsbyAndreade! Sarto(alsoAndread'Agnolo,1486-1530)arePortrait of a Young Woman (KF 240, considered to be a portrait of de! Sarto's wife Lucrezia de! Fede) and Mary with the Child (KF 246).
15 The painting in the Kaiser Friedrich collection by Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo (also Giovan Gerolamo, fl. 1506-1548) is Venetian Woman (also known as St. Mary Magdalene, KF 307); it lacks the iconic alabaster vase of ointment that is in his painting Mary Magdalene (NGL 1031) in London's National Gallery. The Berlin painting presents a
434
18January 1937, McGreevy
three-quarter figure, whereas the London painting depicts a one-half figure; the dates ascribed to the paintings range from 1527 to 1540.
16 TherewereeightpaintingsintheKaiserFriedrichMuseumbyBotticelliandhis school; there were seventeen by Giovanni Bellini (c. 1431-1516), his school and work shop, his brother Gentile Bellini (1429-1507), and his father Jacopo Bellini (1400-c. 1471). The Lamentation of Christ (KF 1678) ascribed to Jacopo Bellini was destroyed in 1945.
17 SB compares the Lamentation of Christ (KF 1144) by Bernardino Butinone (c. 1450-1510) to Butinone's Nativity (NGL 3336) in the National Gallery, London; the latter is an attribution that had been disputed prior to 1929 Uacqueline McCamish, 24 May 1995).
SB mentions Cosimo Tura (c. 1430-1495), of the Ferrarese School; Venetian painter Carlo Crivelli (1430-1495); the Venetian family of painters Antonio Vivarini (1418-1476), Bartolomeo Vivarini (c. 1440 - after 1500), and Antonio's son, Alvise Vivarini (c. 1442 - c. 1505; and Ercole de Roberti (c. 1455-1496), who was active in Ferrara and Bologna.
The Mantegna paintings in the collection were Portrait ofLudovico Cardinal Mezzarota (KF 9), The Presentation of Christ in the Temple (KF 29), and Madonna with Sleeping Child (KFS. 5).
SB refers to the Burial of Christ (KF 23A) by Italian artist Vittore Carpaccio (c. 1460-1525).
18 ForpaintingsintheKaiserFriedrichcollectionbyTitian,Rembrandt,andFranz and Dirck Hals: Bock, Geismeier, Grosshans, et al. , eds. , Gemaldegalerie Berlin: Gesamtverzeichnis, 120; 101-102; 58-59.
19 Adriaen Brouwer's Dune Landscape in Moonlight (KF 853B), once owned by Rembrandt, was on loan for the Paris exhibition La Peinture flamande: Rubens et son temps at the Musee de l'Orangerie (November-December 1936) (Charles Sterling, La Peinturejlamande: Rubens et son temps [Paris: Librairie des Arts Decoratifs, 1936] n. p. ).
20 There were eleven paintings by Gerard ter Barch the younger in the collection of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum; SB mentions The Knife Grinder's Family (KF 793), which depicts a brightly lit workman's yard. SB compares it to the painting by Jan Vermeer van Delft (1632-1675), The Procuress (also Die Kupplerin, RPG 1335).
21 Vermeer's two paintings in the Berlin collection are The Pearl Necklace (KF 912B) and The Glass of Wine (KF 912C). There were five paintings by Pieter de Hooch in the collection (see Bock, Geismeier, Grosshans, et al. , eds. , Gemaldegalerie Berlin: Gesamt verzeichnis, 62). Two paintings by Dutch genre painter Nicolaes Maes (1634-1693) were in the collection: An Old Woman Peeling Apples (KF 819C) and Repudiation ofHagar (KF 819D, destroyed in 1945).
The gouache thatSB describes by Adam Elsheimer was on loan from the Louvre from November 1936: Evening Landscape (Louvre 18,658).
22 SB refers to The Three Musicians (KF 413F) and Portrait of a Woman (KF 413E) by Diego Velazquez; the subject of the portrait was debated, and in 1936 the Condesa de Olivares was given as one possibility; it is now identifed as Dona Leonora da Guzman, Condesa de Monterrey (Bock, Geismeier, Grosshans, et al. , eds. ,
435
18 January 1937, McGreevy
Gemiildegalerie Berlin: Gesamtverzeichnis, 123). Spanish painterJuan Bautista de! Mazo (c. 1613-1667) was the son-in-law of Diego Velazquez, and worked with him: this "has led to the attribution to him of several pictures not considered good enough for Velazquez'" (Peter Murray and Linda Murray, eds. , Penguin Dictionary ofArt and Artists [London: Penguin, 1993] 266).
23 The Flemish collection at the Kaiser Friedrich Museum included eleven paint ings by or after Jan van Eyck (1390-1441). The South Netherlandish painterRobert Campin (c. 1375-1444) is now accepted as the Master ofFlemalle; the three paintings by him in the Berlin collection are: Portrait of a Man (KF 537), Portrait of Robert de Masmines (KF 537A), and Madonna on a Bank of Roses (KF 1835); from his school, Christ on the Cross (KF 538A) and The Adoration ofthe King (KF 538).
The three paintings by Hugo van der Goes (1440-1482) are Lamentation of Christ (KF 1622), Adoration of the King (KF 1718), and Adoration of the Herdsmen (KF 1622A).
Those byRogier van der Weyden (c. 1400-1464) were the Bladelin Altar (also known as the Mittelburger Altar, KF 535), the Altar of Mary (also known as the Miraflores-Altar, KF 534A), the Altar of]ohn the Baptist (KF 534B), Portrait ofa Woman with Wimple (KF 545D), Saints Margaret and Apollonia (534C). and Charles the Bold, Duke ofBurgundy (KF 545, now given to the Workshop ofRogier van der Weyden).
John the Baptist in the Wilderness (KF 1631) by Geertgen Tot SintJans depicts a meadow landscape.
24 SBreferstoAdorationoftheMagi(HK551B)bySouthNetherlandishpainterJan Provost (1465-1529). In Berlin, the work of illuminator and painter Simon Mannion (c. 1425-1489) consists of wings from the Altarpiece ofSt. Omer showing the life of St. Bertin (KF 1645 and KF 1645A). French painter Jean Fouquet (c. 1425 - c. 1478) was repre sented in the Berlin collection by Etienne Chevalier with Holy St. Stephen (KF 1617). Works by South Netherlandish painterJacques Daret (c. 1400-1466) in Berlin are two panels from the Altarpiece from the St. Vast Abbey in Arras: The Adoration of the Magi (KF 527) and The Visitation (KF 542).
SB refers to Neptune and Amphitrite (KF 648) by Mabuse. Zenocrate, consort of Tamburlaine, was wrapped in a sheet of gold when she died, but was not interred until the death ofTamburlaine (Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine II). "Soigne" (care fully worked) in the manner of the still life paintings of Dutch artists Willem Kalf (c. 1619-1693) and Willem Claesz Heda (1594-1680), which often included glass objects and a spiral of lemon peel.
25 SBreferstoPieterBruegeltheeider'spaintingTheDutchProverbs(KF1720)which illustrated 100 proverbs; a key to the proverbs was exhibited with the painting. Professor Robert William Tate (1872-1952) was Public Orator of Trinity College Dublin from 1914 to 1952 andJunior Dean from 1919 to 1931 (a frank portrait of him can be found in McDowell and Webb, Trinity College Dublin 1592-1952: An Academic History, 400).
Tarquin refers, figuratively, to two legendary kings of the early Romans, Lucius Tarquinius Pricus (616-578 BC) and Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (534-510 BC).
26 The 13January 1937 concert of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, with Eugen Jochum (1902-1987) as guest conductor and Eduard Erdmann (1896-1958) as piano soloist, was a Beethoven program that included the Leonora Overture no. 3, op. 72a; Piano Concerto no. 5 in E-flat major, op. 73 ("Emperor'"); and Symphony no. 6 in F major, op. 68 ("Pastoral"; SB uses the German spelling, "Pastorale'"). SB refers to the
436
trumpet calls in the second section of the Leonore Overture as the "horn passage. " In SB's German diary, he describes a passage that opens with the first violins joined in turn by the second violins, violas, and cellos; it may be this opening of the Presto movement that he calls the "churn passage" (see BIF, UoR, GD 4/f. 9). SB compares the Piano Concerto to Beethoven's Violin Sonata in F major, op. 24, no. 5 ("Friihlings sonata").
Following the Wagner festival at Bayreuth in the summer of 1936, Furtwangler went into retirement until March 1937 (Schiinzeler, Furtwiingler, 79-80); see also SB to Morris Sinclair, 27 January 1924 [for 1934], n. 5.
27 FrankBecketthadgonetoMiirren,Switzerland,forhisChristmasholiday. Alan and Belinda Duncan.
28 McGreevy returned to London in December 1936, and was staying at 49 Harrington Road; in the autumn of 1936, he had lived in a cottage in Toppesfield, Essex (see 9 October 1936, n. 1). McGreevy translated Maillart, Oasis interdites: de Pekin au Cachemire (1937; Forbidden Journey: From Peking to Kashmir) for Heinemann. Prior to this, he had been working on his study of Jack B. Yeats.
29 The Jetter from Jack Yeats to SB has not been found. The Jetter from Charles Prentice to SB has not been found.
30 RichardChurch'sresponsetoMurphy:18January1937toMaryManningHowe, n. 2. Reavey's review did not materialize.
31 SanssouciinPotsdam,westofBerlin,wasthesummerhouseofKingFriedrichII (later known as Frederick the Great, 1712-1786), who commissioned Prussian architect Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff (1699-1753) to design it in 1744, based on his own sketches. Intended as a retreat, Sanssouci has only twelve rooms; SB compares the proportions and decorations with the massive scale of the Palais de Versailles.
32 Thepalaceisatthetopofaterracedhillside,calledthe"Weinberg";eachterrace is faced with grape arbors that can be enclosed by glass doors. SB's winter visit might have contributed to his first impression since the foliage did not then cover the architecture of the cascading terraces.
33 The single-story rococo palace is topped in the center by a shallow dome. The caryatids are decorative rather than structural.
34 TheinteriorofSanssouciwasaccessibleonlyonaguidedtour. Watteau'spaint ings in Sanssouci itself were Village Wedding (GK I 5603), Italian Recreation (GK I 5599). and Fair with Comedians (GK I 5602) in the Little Gallery; Watteau's Concert (GK I 5623) was hung in the Audience Room (Gerd Bartoscheck, Curator Bildergalerie, Park Sanssouci, 22 March 2006; Ettore Camesasca, The Complete Paintings of Watteau [New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1968] 90, 119, 108, 123, 126-127; Petra Wesch, with Rosemarie Heise-Schirdewan and Barbel Stranka, Sanssoud: The Summer Residence of Frederick the Great [Munich: Prestel. 2003] 36-37).
Voltaire had his own room at Sanssouci, with lacquered wood furniture uphol stered with embroidered scenes from the Fables of the French writer Jean de la Fontaine (1621-1695); the delicate bird and flower decorations on the walls and ceilings were by Johann Michael Hoppenhaupt (1709-1769) and his brother, Johann Christian Hoppenhaupt (1719-1785). SB refers to Voltaire's La Princesse de
437
18January 1937, McGreevy
18 January 1937, McGreery
Babylone (1768; The Princess ofBabylon), a fantasy which takes place in the fortified city of Babylon ruled by King Belus.
35 TheGalleryisaseparatebuildingatSanssoucithathousestheextensivecollec tion of Friedrich II. For images of the paintings in the Gallery byRubens and by Dutch artist Adriaen van der Werff (1659-1722): G6tzEckardt, Die Gemaide in der Bildergaletie von Sanssoud [Potsdam: Sanssouci, 19751).
In SB's sally, van der Werffs painting is pornographic enough to make Fragonard's work (often regarded as mildly pornographic) seem as innocent and pure as that of Florentine painter and illurninator Fra Angelico (Fra Giovanni di Fiesole, fl. 1417-1455).
36 MariaStuart:9January1937,n. 1;Hebbel'sGyges:SBtoMaryManningHowe,18 January 1937, n. 8.
37 Martha, oder Der Markt zu Richmond (Martha, or the Fair at Richmond), an opera by Friedrich von Flotow (1812-1883), was performed at the Staatsoper on 15 January 1937. SB gave his ticket to his landlord Kempt, who gave it to SB's fellow boarder, actor
JosefEichheim (BIF, UoR, GD 4/f. 11, 14January 1937).
THOMAS McGREEVY LON DON
25/1/37 Naumburg [no greeting]
They call these from his own hand but I don't see it. 3 heads
1
2
Very good modem pictures in Halle and Erfurt. Deep snow everywhere & a sterilizing cold. Met a grand stage decorator in
4
areshanghaiedinWindsor. IwasinWeimarfortheweek-end, in a pub in the Frauenplan. Only a short pause here to see the
Dom,whichisstupendous. GoingontoLeipzigthisafternoon.
3
love with Mexico, Traven & Darius Milhaud. next week from Dresden.
Loves
Shall write early
APCI; 1 leaf, 1 side; heads ofJudas and Peter on one panel andJohn on the other, "Residenzschloss Weimar; Grossherzog, Wohnraume"; to Thomas McGreevyEsq, 49 Harrington Road, London S. W. 7; pm illeg. , Naumburg; TCD, MS 10402/114.
438
25January 1937, McGreevy
1 IntheducalapartmentoftheResidenzschlossWeimarweredrawingsafterthe heads ofthe Apostles in The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519); SB compares the heads ofJudas, Peter, and John on this postcard to similar drawings in the large da Vinci collection in Windsor Castle.
According to records of the Residenzschloss, the drawings were copies made by Giuseppe Bossi (1777-1815) in 1807; they were not described in the 1913 catalogue of the Ducal collection (Viola Geyersback, Klassik Stiftung, Weimar; Kate Trauman Steinitz, "The Leonardo Drawings at Weimar," Raccolta Vinciana 20 [1964] 342-344). The drawing of Peter and Judas (as well as that of Thomas and James the Greater from the series) is now in the Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (77. 53. 1; 77. 53. 2); the drawing ofJohn that belongs to this series is in a private collection (Pietro C. Marani, n Genio e le passioni, Leonardo da Vinci e ii Cenacolo: precedenti, innovazioni, riflessi di un capolavoro [Milan: Skira, 2001] 196-197, fig. 60).
2 The Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul, the Naumburg Dom, dates from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Goethe lived at 1 Frauenplan for fifty years; the Goethe museum is located there today. SB stayed in the Weisser Schwan in Weimar on Frauentorstrasse, next to the Goethe Haus.
3 SB refers to the modem collection at the Moritzburg Museum in Halle, where he had to sign what was called the "'extra' visitor's book" on 23 January 1937, in order to view the "Schreckenskamrner" (chamber of horrors), paintings that had been segregated from the collection (Wolfgang Bucke, Curator of Painting, Staatliche Galerie Morizburg, Halle, 22 February 1993). In his diary SB lists details ofthe paintings by Heckel, Paul Klee (1879-1940), Millier, Schmidt-Rottloff, Marc, Kokoschka, Nolde, Kirchner, the Russian-born Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), and Lyonel Feininger, including a series of views of Halle (BIF, UoR, GD 4/f. 23, 23 January 1937; for images and provenance: Andreas Huneke, Die faschistische Aktion "Entartete Kunst" 1937 in Halle, Schriftenreihe zur Geschichte der Staatlichen Galerie Moritzburg Halle [Halle: Staatliche Galerie Moritzburg, 1987]; also Hess, Lyonel Feininger, 263, 278-280).
SB also visited the private collection of Marie Weise (nee Herold, 1879-1971) and Felix Weise (1876-1961) in Halle, with works by Kirchner, Munch, Heckel, Schmidt-Rottluff, Lehmbruck, and Millier (for SB's conversation with Frau Weise and details of the collection: BIF, UoR GD 4/f. 36-37, 23 January 1937).
On 24 January 1937 SB visited the Anger Museum in Erfurt where the modem collection was still on display on the first floor; he notes works by Kirchner, Gerhard Marek (1889-1981), Kokoschka, Mueller, Feininger, Kandinsky, Nolde, Wilhelm Lehmbruck (1881-1919), Heckel, Dix, Schmidt-Rottluff, Barlach, Renee Sintenis (1888-1965), and Christian Rohlf (1849-1938) (BIF, UoR, GD 4/f. 27, 24 January 1937).
4 HeinzPorep(1888-c. 1956)studiedpaintinginMunichandWeimarasapainter; he designed the sets for the 1935 Halle production of Ottone by George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) (Giitz Traxdorf, Library ofthe Handel-Haus ofHalle; BIF, UoR GD 4/f. 22).
Prussian-born actor Hermann Albert Otto Max Feige (1882-1969) had written anar chist propaganda under the pseudonym ofRet Marut (1917-1923); later he adopted the pseudonym ofB. Traven under which he wrote The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1927).
439
25 January 1937, McGreevy
Porep had visited Traven inMexico; he was a friend of the French composer Darius Milhaud (1892-1974).
THOMAS McGREEVY LONDON
30/1 [1937]
[no greeting]
Dresden
bei Hofer Biirgerw:iese 15
Arrived here yesterday from Leipzig, to stay 3 weeks at the most &
probably less. The little I have seen is lovely. The cold is dreadful.
Leipzig was apotheosis of Max Klinger and ignominis [for igno
1
APCI; 1 leaf, 1 side; "Der Dom Zu Naumburg, Klagender Johannes am Westlettner"; pm
31·1·37, Dresden; to ThomasMcGreevy Esq, 49 Harrington Road, London S. W. 7; TCD, MS 10402/115. Dating: pm and from 9 January 1937, above.
1 In 1937 Leipzig'sMuseum der Bildenden Kiinste and the Leipziger Kunstverein held a retrospective exhibition of the work ofMax Klinger (1857-1920) displaying nearly 400 works (Gediichtnis-Ausstellung Max Klinger [Leipzig:Museum der Bildenden Kiinste, Leipziger Kunstverein, 1937[ 3).
SB attended the Gewandhaus concert on 28 January 1937 which is discussed in greater detail in his letter toMcGreevy of 16 February 1937 and in its n. 13.
GEOR GE REAVEY LONDON
30/1/37 Dresden bei Hofer
minious]intheGewandhaus. Writealongletteratonce Loves
440
Biirgerw:iese 15
[no greeting]
Above my address here. There may be news from you lying
in Berlin waiting to be forwarded. But whether or no tip us a wink to Florence on the Elbe, which will be too cold to hold me
1
APC; 1 leaf. 1 side; "Schlossmuseum Weimar, A. Durer: Bildnis der Felicitas Tucher, 1499"; to George Reavey Esq, 1 Parton Street, London W. C. ; pm 31-1-37, Dresden; tear, center bottom; TxU.
1 Dresden,ontheElbeRiver.
2 "HeilundSiegundfetteBeute"(Hailandvictoryandrichpickings).
{2 February 1937}, McGreevy
for more than a fortnight or 3 weeks. [no signature]
2
Heil und Sieg u fette Beute.
THOMAS McGREEVY LONDON
[2 February 1937) [no greeting]
1
[Dresden]
Che stu fossi meco.
APCI; 1 leaf, 1 side; "Antonello da Messine's [sic] Der H. L Sebastian (Martyrdom of St. Sebastian), Amtliche Ausgabe des Ministeriums fiir Volksbildung zu Dresden"; pm 2-2-37, Dresden; to Thomas McGreevy, 49 Harrington Road, London S. W. 7; TCD, MS 10402/116. Dating, Place: from pm.
[2 February 1937)
[Dresden]
That you were here with me. S.
1
441
{2 February 1937}, McGreevy
1 "Chetufossimeco"isnotidiomaticinItalianandpresumablyisSB'sinvention on the model ofthe English "Wish you were here," but in Trecento style ("meco" being archaic for "con me" ! with me]).
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
15/2/37 Dresden Cher ami
Je m'en doutais, comme disait Poil de Carott[e], quand on lui
1
Murphy ne ton serviteur, t'ecrira sous peu et plus so[uv]ent de Bierevsille-sur-Isar3
APCI; 1 leaf, 1 side; "Dom zu Meissen, Schutzpatron EvangelistJohannes"; to George Reavey Esq, 1 Parton Street, London W. C. 1, England; pm 15-2-37, Dresden; surface delami nated, having been pasted in a scrapbook and removed; TxU.
15/2/37 Dresden Dear George
I thought as much, as Poil de Carotte used to say when what
1
donna a boire [d]u deja bu.
C'est une Dent Par consequent Qui ne mord Aucunement.
2
he was given to drink had already been drunk.
This Dent
I meant Won't quite Bite. 2
442
Murphy born your servant, will write to you shortly and more oftesn from Beerville-on-Isar3
1 SB may be referring to a scene in Jules Renard's Poi! de Carotte (1894; Carrots) in which the child, Poi! de Carotte, is force-fed a soup which he is led to believe is made from his own excretion, as punishment for his having soiled his bed; thereafter he refuses to drink, saying he is not thirsty (Renard, Oeuvres, I, Poi! de Carotte, 666-667).
2 SBpunsonthenameoftheLondonpublisherDent,with"dent"(tooth). Despite Richard Church's positive response to the novel, Dent turned it down (see 18 January 1937 to Mary Manning Howe, n. 2).
3 "So[uv]ent"(often):textillegibleduetodelamination. SB refers to Munich, on the lsar River.
THOMAS McGREEVY LONDON
16/2/37 Dresden bei Hofer
Biirgerwiese 15
DearTom
It was a great disappointment that you could not make the
1
I don't know what to say about the Gallery. I suppose to us even the most discriminating royal collection of the 18th cen tury, which it remains essentially, must have more defects than
443
16 February 1937, McGreevy
trip, though I hardly expected you would be able. You would like Dresden. It was a great 70 years under August the Strong & his son and Poppelmann was a great architect. The Zwinger is very much restored, but well restored. It is altogether lovely, with sudden sad passages (arcades), far more Watteauesque tho' only a little earlier than Potsdam. The gallery wing, heavy dark 19th century Renaissance, does its best to spoil the other three, which should have been left as they were, open to the river. 2
16 February 1937, McGreevy
merits. There is a terrible lot of late Italian rubbish, no primi
tives, practically no Flemish of the great period, and rooms and
rooms full of Mengs & Rosalba pastels and Bellotto views of
Dresden. And it is badly lit and hung. I should not think for a
3
The Giorgione is in a mess. The putto with the armour and
the bright bird sitting at her feet (by Giorgione or Titian? ) was
painted over with senseless landscape in the 19th century and
the whole line of the left leg destroyed. I haven't much of an eye
for that kind of thing, but it entered it like Joyce's Parnell spit at
the first look. I mean the wrongness from the knee down, before
I was in possession of the information that explains it. The head
and arm, all ascent, is miraculous, but sweet, for me at least.
as the Hampton Court Shepherd is sweet, though I know he is
4
The Raphael is very good indeed, though one doesn't want to look at her twice, the best Raphael I have seen after the South
6
figures of the quick in the background gossiping & making appointments, under a paradisal sky. It was not an 18th century acquisition. 7
The Vermeer Kupplerin is also indescribably lovely, and
already essentially Vermeer. If Giorgione[']s Venus is the sister
of the young man in Berlin, the dark figure on the left here,
8
moment of comparing it with the Kaiser Friedrich.
I looked forward to leaving Dresden with a more definite attitude towards Giorgione, but it is the other way round. He must remain to be seen in Castelfranco, as exclusively as Grunewald in Kolmar. 5 And God knows when that may be, though there is just the possibility of my making the latter excursion from Stuttgart on the way home.
not for you.
Ken[sington].
The Antonello that I sent you is stupendous - the tiny
with the crazy smile, is the brother of the girl in Brunswick.
444
16 February 1937, McGreevy
But dreadfully hung, in a dark room with dark dirty green
patterned paper full of dark Rembrandts, between a Rembrandt
old man and a Salomon Koninck Astronomer and cowering
under a huge dark heavy Ferdinand Bal Jacob before Pharoah
9
pictures. But I can't stop without mentioning the Poussin Venus. Beyond praise & appraisement. There is no postcard and the big reproduction, that I wanted to send you, is very unfair to the original. Beside it is a Narcissus, not in the same class as the Louvre one, but with Echo turned to stone! 10
I bearded Director Posse (then why doesn't he! ) and got him to show me the Rontgen photograph of the Giorgione, which wasn't much help. He asked who got the Dublin Gallery, but I could only remember the name of the man who should have. 11 He was seedy & dull, perhaps a beer debauche like myself, only not so intelligent or honest.
The journey from Berlin was an amusing and often lovely adventure. Halle (lovely modern pictures still actually on view to the public in the Moritzburg, a private collection mostly Kirchner and a charming stage decorator & Handel expert in love with Mexico and friend of Traven & Darius Milhaud, who was of a friendliness that bewilders me still), 12 Erfurt, Weimar, Naumburg with marvellous 13th century sculpture in the Dom, & Leipzig where I froze and was miserable & heard a Gewandhaus concert that was an insult to the senses & the understanding. 13
Here I have met all kinds of friends & interesting people, especially an art historian called Grohmann who knows them all, from Picasso to Salkeld, and has done big catalogues of Klee, Kandinsky, Kirchner & Baumeister, and whose name perhaps
445
[for Pharaoh].
There is really not much point writing like this about the
16 February 1937, McGreevy
you may remember having come across in Cahiers d'Art. He has
Picassos & Klees & Kandinskys & Modrians [for Mondrians] and a
lot of Germans. He was removed from his post in the Real
Gymnasium here at the Gallery in 1933, like all the others of
his kidney. 14 Through him I was able to visit one of the best
private collections of modern art in Germany, the Ida Bienert
collection, reaching from a marvellous Cezanne to Leger &
Chagall & Archipenko & Marc & Munch & splendid examples
from all the names I have written & a lot more besides. Including
a Kokoschka portrait of Nancy Cunard! ! ! painted in Paris 1924. I
went twice, for lunch the second time, and have the catalogue to
15
show you, I hope in London in May.
Then a lot of amusing
Russians (Obolensky), blue with blood and revolutionary priva
tions, with whom I am so agreeably entangled that I cannot get
16
I heard (here of course) a marvellous performance of the
Marriage of Figaro, with a Cherubin[o] like a red haired version
17
away till Friday, though I had meant to go to-day.
of the Antonello boy? girl? in London. sorry to have over.
The first opera that I was
I expect to be in Munich a little before the end of the month,
pausing on the way in Bamberg, Niirnberg, Regensburg & per
haps Wiirzburg, though I rather baulk at Niirnberg, of which I
18
have the gloomiest memories. restante, Munich.
Write in about a week paste
I am delighted to hear you are in better form since being
in London, which must seem a different place now that you
are shut of Cheyne Gardens. Is Geoffrey organizing a ruelle in
Harley Street? It is the kind of thing that I wouldn't put past
19
him. He has not written. His wife is too molle.
know. He is the man who when he met me in Harley St. on my way to Bion asked me was I going to an alienist. He himself
446
Wisdom I
is being put on the spot by Ernest Jones. My first experience of
him was in a day school in Dublin when he was famous for the
joy he took in making the wheels for his own toy engines. He is
20
mysterious "trouble" in Dublin, and of a "melo" timed for the
end of this week. After my experiences of him in the Dolphin I
can imagine what is wrong. Ifl am right I hope it is not as serious
as it might be. He seems to be in a completely obsidianal con
21
Berlin - consternating. It was on the mend as I left Berlin, or rather I left Berlin as soon as it was on the mend, and now it has more or less settled down, though it is only a question of how often and how badly it will light up again before I finish this journey and can get home & have it cleared up. The damm old pruritis is just about as bad as ever, no doubt part of the same thing. But I am used to it. Otherwise I am as well as I ever am.
I suppose you have heard of the death of Charles Prentice's
father, when Charles himself was in Florence. I had a calm
letter from Greenock, and replied with paternal necrologies of
22
I have neither written anything nor wanted to, except for a
short hour, when the frail sense of beginning life behind the
eyes, that is the best of all experiences, came again for the first
23
447
a pedagogue.
I had a dark letter from Bryan [for Brian], full of some
16 February 1937, McGreevy
dition, physically also.
The anus is better, it was really awful for fully 10 days in
One should simply say "deepest sympathy" & begin a new sentence.
a despairing kind that I regret.
time since Cascando, and produced 2 lines and a half.
Perhaps you have heard also that Dent turned down Murphy, as I knew they would, in spite of Church's affabilities. So also, since, have Cobden Sanderson. So will have, soon, Faber, Secker & Hogarth. By which time if Nott does not
16 February 1937, McGreevy
renegue I shall be surprised. I dread going home with nothing
24
Love ever Sam
ALS; 2 leaves, 4 sides; TCD, MS 10402/117.
1 On 4 February, SB had received McGreevy's letter indicating that he would not come to Dresden (BIF, UoR GD 4/f. 67).
2 AugusttheStrong(knowninPolandasAugustusII,andinGermanyasFrederick Augustus I, Elector of Saxony, 1670-1733) and his son, Prince Augustus III (also known as Frederick Augustus II, Elector of Saxony, 1696-1763), established Dresden as a major center for the arts.
The Zwinger Museum in Dresden was built from 1709 to 1732 to house the Royal Collections. It was designed by Matthaus Daniel Piippelmann (1662-1736); in 1936 a restoration had been completed under Dresden architect Hubert Ermische (1883-1951) (Dr. Angel Walter, Chief Curator, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, 12 March 1993). Sanssouci in Potsdam was built later, from 1745 to 1747.
In Piippelmann's plan, the Zwinger was composed of seven halls and gatehouses connected by one-story galleries. In 1847-1854 a large gallery wing was added, designed in the style of the late Italian Renaissance by Gottfried Semper (1803-1879). It enclosed the square, closing off the north vista toward the Elbe River that had been integral to Piippelmann's original vision of two long palaces connected by galleries, with steps down to the Elbe.
3 The Royal Collection housed in the Zwinger was greatly enhanced during the reign of Augustus III (1733-1763) (for details of the acquisitions of this period: K. Woermann, Catalogue of the Pictures in the Royal Gallery at Dresden, 7th edn. ! Dresden: Kunstanstalt Wilhelm Hoffmann, 19081 1-7). The collection includes paintings on German historical and biblical subjects, portraits and pastels by Anton Raphael Mengs (1728-1779), court painter to August III, as well as plaster casts. The collection held 157 pastels by Venetian artist Rosalba Carriera. SB refers to Bernardo Bellotto (who signed his name as Canaletto outside of Italy, 1721-1780). Augustus III invited Bellotto to be an official court painter from 1747 to 1758, and the collection includes fifteen views of Dresden by him.
4 Giorgione's Venus (RPG, 185) had been partially repainted after 1837 in order to repair damage; this eliminated the Cupid seated at her feet, holding a bird that can be recognized through X-rays and infrared light (see Hans Posse, "Die Rekonstruktion der Venus mit dem Cupido von Giorgione," Jahrbuch der Preuszischen Kunstsammlungen, Lil
448
cut & dried to do.
till I could get away again. They will expect me to cash in on this journey at once & all at once, and that cannot be, it will have been a better journey than that.
18 January 1937, McGreevy
Princesse de Babylone, with fantastic birds and flowers all over the walls and ceiling and La Fontaine on the chair covers, and yet
34
somehow full of exile and loneliness.
The picture gallery was
an eyeopener; school of Rubens and van der Werff! Practically
nothing else. Nowhere else in the world can there be so many
van der Werffs gathered together in one place. Real pornogra
35
I saw Maria Stuart and Hebbel's Gyges with Werner Krauss
in the Schauspielhaus. The Schiller remains alive till the last
act without betraying the secret of how it contrives to do so. The
Hebbel is superbly written, full of tense intellectual poetry,
but even Krauss could only put it across here and there. He is
a very great actor. Hebbel is [in] the dramatist pigeonhole, but
36
film-actor who came back highly delighted.
I still hope to have a look at Weimar, Naumburg & Leipzig
on the way to Dresden, but if this thing holds me up much longer I shan't be able to. I don't know when I shall be in London, hardly before May, unless my remaining strength gives out earlier than I have calculated. I shall try and save up to fly home, I can't bear the thought of trains and boats and customs and the case extirpating my arms.
All being well I shall be able to give you an address in Dresden within a fortnight.
Love ever s/ Sam
TLS; 4 leaves, 4 sides; TCD, MS 10402/113.
1 SB sent McGreevy a reproduction of Giorgione's Self-portrait as David from the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum in Brunswick; see 22 December 1936, n. 2.
432
phy, that would make Fragonard look like Fra Angelico.
it is as a poet that he counts.
Opera but was not well enough to go. I gave the ticket to the
37
I had booked for Martha(! ) in the
18January 1937, McGreevy
2 SB talked about the Giorgione painting in Brunswick with Dr. Rosa Schapire, having met her in Berlin on 21 December 1936; her collection is described in 14 November 1936, n. 6. She preferred Giorgione's Portrait of Young Man (Gemaldegalerie, Berlin, 12A).
3 Rembrandt, Family Group (1638, Anton Ulrich Herzog Museum, Brunswick, GG 238).
Italian painters Luca Signorelli (c. 1450-1523) and Piero della Francesca (1420-1492). "Taugenichts" (good-for-nothing).
4 The works by Erich Heckel, Ernst Kirchner, and German sculptor Georg Kolbe (1877-1947), as well as the stones etched by Karl Schmidt-Ruttloff, were in Schmidt Rottluff's flat in Berlin, which Rosa Schapire used while the painter and his wife were out of town (Mark Nixon, 7 May 2006).
5 "Delapartde"(literally,onbehalfof;here,thanksto). AliceSauerlandt'sintro ductions: 28 November 1936, n. 14; Sauerlandt and his work: 28 November 1936, n. 10. Herbert Read, not the English art critic Roger Fry (1866-1934), was the author of Art Now; Read's dedication: "To Max Sauerlandt in admiration of his knowledge of the art of all ages and in recognition of his devotion to the cause of modem art" (Art Now: An Introduction to the Theory ofModern Painting and Sculpture [New York: Harcourt, Brace and
Co. , 1933] n. p. ).
"Mais je n'en ai rien fait" (but I did nothing about it).
6 SB's first meeting with Axel Kaun was on 11 January (Tophoven, Becketts Berlin, 119-120; BIF, UoR, GD 4/f. 1).
Rowohlt published German translations of Henry the Eighth (1929; Heinrich der Achte) and Francis the First (1935; Franz der Erste) by Irish writer Francis Hackett, and Brazilian Adventure (1933; Brasilianisches Abenteuer), One's Company (1934; Mit mir allein). and News from Tartary (1936; Tataren Nachrichten) by English writer Peter
Fleming (1907-1971). The last was published serially in the Frankfurter Zeitung, and Fleming was on "a ten-day lecture tour. . . hopping from place to place by air" in early 1937 (Duff Hart-Davis, Peter Fleming: A Biography [London: Jonathan Cape, 1974] 198).
Rowohlt also published translations of Look Homeward, Angel (1929; Schau heimwiirts, Engel! ) and Of Time and the River (1935; Von Zeit und Strom) by American author Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938). Wolfe frequently visited Germany (Thomas Wolfe, The Letters of Thomas Wolfe, ed. Elizabeth Nowell [New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1961[ 442; Elizabeth Nowell, Thomas Wolfe: A Biography [Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co. , 1960] 271-277, 325; David Herbert Donald. Look Homeward: A Life ofThomas Wolfe [Boston: Little, Brown and Co. , 1987] 319-326).
Rowohlt was also the publisher of a translation of Le Dieu des corps (1928; Der Gott des Fleisches) and the first six volumes in the novel cycle by Jules Romains, Les Hammes de bonne volonte (from 1932; Die guten Willens sind).
7 Kempt and the actor Josef Eichheim: 18 January 1937 to Mary Manning Howe, n. 10.
8 SB refers to Axel Kaun, who was on his way to the Riesengebirge, a sub-Alpine mountain range on the border of Poland and Czechoslovakia, and to Kaun's friend Gunter Albrecht.
433
18 January 1937, McGreevy
9 Susan Manning, mother ofMary Manning Howe and close friend ofMay Beckett.
10 SBreferstohispoem"Cascando. "DublinMagazine,3-4.
11 ThePergamonaltarofZeusandAthena(c. 175BC),a40-foot-tallwhitemarble Hellenistic temple, was taken from its original location in Pergamon (now Turkey) and installed in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin in 1871. Around its base are relief sculptures of battles between the Gods and the Titans; their dramatic gestures and high degree of contour led scholars to describe them as "baroque. "
12 Issues ofprovenance are complicated by the circumstances ofpolitical doctrine, war, and occupation. Nearly 400 works in the collections of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in 1936 were destroyed during World War II. Further, in the post-war division of the city, the remaining collection was divided between the Berlin Dahlem Museum in the West and the Bode Museum in the East. In 1997 these collections were reunited in the Gemaldegalerie in the Kulturforum, Potsdamer Platz, and, from autumn 2006, the Bode Museum reopened with European art from late classical antiquity to 1800.
The Virgin and Child (NGL 3043) by Florentine painter Masaccio (ne Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Mone Cassai, 1401-1428) in the National Gallery (London) was painted as the center of an altarpiece for the chapel of Saint Julian in Santa Maria de! Carmine, Pisa. Several panels of the predella of this altarpiece are in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum: The Adoration of the King (58A); The Crucifixion of St. Peter / The Decollation of the Baptist (58B); St. Julian Killing his Parents / St. Nicholas Dowering the Three Daughters (58E) (Henning Bock, Irene Geismeier, Rainald Grosshans, et al. , eds. , Gemiildegalerie Berlin: Gesamtverzeichnis [Berlin: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Preussischer Kulturbesitz, 19961463).
The Lying-in of a Noble Florentine Woman (also known as Birth Scene, SBC) is now thought to be by the younger brother of Masaccio, Giovanni di Ser (1406-1486) (Keith Christiansen, "Some Observations on the Brancacci Frescoes after their Cleaning," Burlington Magazine 133. 1054 Uanuary 19911 15; Bock, Geismeier, Grosshans, et al. , eds. , Gemiildegalerie Berlin: Gesamtverzeichnis, 464).
13 Signorelli'sPanasGodofNatureandasMasterofMusic(alsoknownasCourtofPanand The Education ofPan, KF 79A) was destroyed in 1945; it is reproduced in Tom Henry and Laurence Kanter, Luca Signorelli: The Complete Paintings (New York: Rizzoli, 2002) 172-173.
El Greco's Laocoon and His Sons was on loan to the National Gallery, London, from May 1934 to December 1935; it is now in the collection of the National Gallery, Washington, DC (NGW 1946. 18. 1) Uonathan Brown and Richard G. Mann, Spanish Paintings of the Fifteenth through Nineteenth Centuries, The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue [Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990164).
14 ThepaintingsbyAndreade! Sarto(alsoAndread'Agnolo,1486-1530)arePortrait of a Young Woman (KF 240, considered to be a portrait of de! Sarto's wife Lucrezia de! Fede) and Mary with the Child (KF 246).
15 The painting in the Kaiser Friedrich collection by Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo (also Giovan Gerolamo, fl. 1506-1548) is Venetian Woman (also known as St. Mary Magdalene, KF 307); it lacks the iconic alabaster vase of ointment that is in his painting Mary Magdalene (NGL 1031) in London's National Gallery. The Berlin painting presents a
434
18January 1937, McGreevy
three-quarter figure, whereas the London painting depicts a one-half figure; the dates ascribed to the paintings range from 1527 to 1540.
16 TherewereeightpaintingsintheKaiserFriedrichMuseumbyBotticelliandhis school; there were seventeen by Giovanni Bellini (c. 1431-1516), his school and work shop, his brother Gentile Bellini (1429-1507), and his father Jacopo Bellini (1400-c. 1471). The Lamentation of Christ (KF 1678) ascribed to Jacopo Bellini was destroyed in 1945.
17 SB compares the Lamentation of Christ (KF 1144) by Bernardino Butinone (c. 1450-1510) to Butinone's Nativity (NGL 3336) in the National Gallery, London; the latter is an attribution that had been disputed prior to 1929 Uacqueline McCamish, 24 May 1995).
SB mentions Cosimo Tura (c. 1430-1495), of the Ferrarese School; Venetian painter Carlo Crivelli (1430-1495); the Venetian family of painters Antonio Vivarini (1418-1476), Bartolomeo Vivarini (c. 1440 - after 1500), and Antonio's son, Alvise Vivarini (c. 1442 - c. 1505; and Ercole de Roberti (c. 1455-1496), who was active in Ferrara and Bologna.
The Mantegna paintings in the collection were Portrait ofLudovico Cardinal Mezzarota (KF 9), The Presentation of Christ in the Temple (KF 29), and Madonna with Sleeping Child (KFS. 5).
SB refers to the Burial of Christ (KF 23A) by Italian artist Vittore Carpaccio (c. 1460-1525).
18 ForpaintingsintheKaiserFriedrichcollectionbyTitian,Rembrandt,andFranz and Dirck Hals: Bock, Geismeier, Grosshans, et al. , eds. , Gemaldegalerie Berlin: Gesamtverzeichnis, 120; 101-102; 58-59.
19 Adriaen Brouwer's Dune Landscape in Moonlight (KF 853B), once owned by Rembrandt, was on loan for the Paris exhibition La Peinture flamande: Rubens et son temps at the Musee de l'Orangerie (November-December 1936) (Charles Sterling, La Peinturejlamande: Rubens et son temps [Paris: Librairie des Arts Decoratifs, 1936] n. p. ).
20 There were eleven paintings by Gerard ter Barch the younger in the collection of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum; SB mentions The Knife Grinder's Family (KF 793), which depicts a brightly lit workman's yard. SB compares it to the painting by Jan Vermeer van Delft (1632-1675), The Procuress (also Die Kupplerin, RPG 1335).
21 Vermeer's two paintings in the Berlin collection are The Pearl Necklace (KF 912B) and The Glass of Wine (KF 912C). There were five paintings by Pieter de Hooch in the collection (see Bock, Geismeier, Grosshans, et al. , eds. , Gemaldegalerie Berlin: Gesamt verzeichnis, 62). Two paintings by Dutch genre painter Nicolaes Maes (1634-1693) were in the collection: An Old Woman Peeling Apples (KF 819C) and Repudiation ofHagar (KF 819D, destroyed in 1945).
The gouache thatSB describes by Adam Elsheimer was on loan from the Louvre from November 1936: Evening Landscape (Louvre 18,658).
22 SB refers to The Three Musicians (KF 413F) and Portrait of a Woman (KF 413E) by Diego Velazquez; the subject of the portrait was debated, and in 1936 the Condesa de Olivares was given as one possibility; it is now identifed as Dona Leonora da Guzman, Condesa de Monterrey (Bock, Geismeier, Grosshans, et al. , eds. ,
435
18 January 1937, McGreevy
Gemiildegalerie Berlin: Gesamtverzeichnis, 123). Spanish painterJuan Bautista de! Mazo (c. 1613-1667) was the son-in-law of Diego Velazquez, and worked with him: this "has led to the attribution to him of several pictures not considered good enough for Velazquez'" (Peter Murray and Linda Murray, eds. , Penguin Dictionary ofArt and Artists [London: Penguin, 1993] 266).
23 The Flemish collection at the Kaiser Friedrich Museum included eleven paint ings by or after Jan van Eyck (1390-1441). The South Netherlandish painterRobert Campin (c. 1375-1444) is now accepted as the Master ofFlemalle; the three paintings by him in the Berlin collection are: Portrait of a Man (KF 537), Portrait of Robert de Masmines (KF 537A), and Madonna on a Bank of Roses (KF 1835); from his school, Christ on the Cross (KF 538A) and The Adoration ofthe King (KF 538).
The three paintings by Hugo van der Goes (1440-1482) are Lamentation of Christ (KF 1622), Adoration of the King (KF 1718), and Adoration of the Herdsmen (KF 1622A).
Those byRogier van der Weyden (c. 1400-1464) were the Bladelin Altar (also known as the Mittelburger Altar, KF 535), the Altar of Mary (also known as the Miraflores-Altar, KF 534A), the Altar of]ohn the Baptist (KF 534B), Portrait ofa Woman with Wimple (KF 545D), Saints Margaret and Apollonia (534C). and Charles the Bold, Duke ofBurgundy (KF 545, now given to the Workshop ofRogier van der Weyden).
John the Baptist in the Wilderness (KF 1631) by Geertgen Tot SintJans depicts a meadow landscape.
24 SBreferstoAdorationoftheMagi(HK551B)bySouthNetherlandishpainterJan Provost (1465-1529). In Berlin, the work of illuminator and painter Simon Mannion (c. 1425-1489) consists of wings from the Altarpiece ofSt. Omer showing the life of St. Bertin (KF 1645 and KF 1645A). French painter Jean Fouquet (c. 1425 - c. 1478) was repre sented in the Berlin collection by Etienne Chevalier with Holy St. Stephen (KF 1617). Works by South Netherlandish painterJacques Daret (c. 1400-1466) in Berlin are two panels from the Altarpiece from the St. Vast Abbey in Arras: The Adoration of the Magi (KF 527) and The Visitation (KF 542).
SB refers to Neptune and Amphitrite (KF 648) by Mabuse. Zenocrate, consort of Tamburlaine, was wrapped in a sheet of gold when she died, but was not interred until the death ofTamburlaine (Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine II). "Soigne" (care fully worked) in the manner of the still life paintings of Dutch artists Willem Kalf (c. 1619-1693) and Willem Claesz Heda (1594-1680), which often included glass objects and a spiral of lemon peel.
25 SBreferstoPieterBruegeltheeider'spaintingTheDutchProverbs(KF1720)which illustrated 100 proverbs; a key to the proverbs was exhibited with the painting. Professor Robert William Tate (1872-1952) was Public Orator of Trinity College Dublin from 1914 to 1952 andJunior Dean from 1919 to 1931 (a frank portrait of him can be found in McDowell and Webb, Trinity College Dublin 1592-1952: An Academic History, 400).
Tarquin refers, figuratively, to two legendary kings of the early Romans, Lucius Tarquinius Pricus (616-578 BC) and Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (534-510 BC).
26 The 13January 1937 concert of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, with Eugen Jochum (1902-1987) as guest conductor and Eduard Erdmann (1896-1958) as piano soloist, was a Beethoven program that included the Leonora Overture no. 3, op. 72a; Piano Concerto no. 5 in E-flat major, op. 73 ("Emperor'"); and Symphony no. 6 in F major, op. 68 ("Pastoral"; SB uses the German spelling, "Pastorale'"). SB refers to the
436
trumpet calls in the second section of the Leonore Overture as the "horn passage. " In SB's German diary, he describes a passage that opens with the first violins joined in turn by the second violins, violas, and cellos; it may be this opening of the Presto movement that he calls the "churn passage" (see BIF, UoR, GD 4/f. 9). SB compares the Piano Concerto to Beethoven's Violin Sonata in F major, op. 24, no. 5 ("Friihlings sonata").
Following the Wagner festival at Bayreuth in the summer of 1936, Furtwangler went into retirement until March 1937 (Schiinzeler, Furtwiingler, 79-80); see also SB to Morris Sinclair, 27 January 1924 [for 1934], n. 5.
27 FrankBecketthadgonetoMiirren,Switzerland,forhisChristmasholiday. Alan and Belinda Duncan.
28 McGreevy returned to London in December 1936, and was staying at 49 Harrington Road; in the autumn of 1936, he had lived in a cottage in Toppesfield, Essex (see 9 October 1936, n. 1). McGreevy translated Maillart, Oasis interdites: de Pekin au Cachemire (1937; Forbidden Journey: From Peking to Kashmir) for Heinemann. Prior to this, he had been working on his study of Jack B. Yeats.
29 The Jetter from Jack Yeats to SB has not been found. The Jetter from Charles Prentice to SB has not been found.
30 RichardChurch'sresponsetoMurphy:18January1937toMaryManningHowe, n. 2. Reavey's review did not materialize.
31 SanssouciinPotsdam,westofBerlin,wasthesummerhouseofKingFriedrichII (later known as Frederick the Great, 1712-1786), who commissioned Prussian architect Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff (1699-1753) to design it in 1744, based on his own sketches. Intended as a retreat, Sanssouci has only twelve rooms; SB compares the proportions and decorations with the massive scale of the Palais de Versailles.
32 Thepalaceisatthetopofaterracedhillside,calledthe"Weinberg";eachterrace is faced with grape arbors that can be enclosed by glass doors. SB's winter visit might have contributed to his first impression since the foliage did not then cover the architecture of the cascading terraces.
33 The single-story rococo palace is topped in the center by a shallow dome. The caryatids are decorative rather than structural.
34 TheinteriorofSanssouciwasaccessibleonlyonaguidedtour. Watteau'spaint ings in Sanssouci itself were Village Wedding (GK I 5603), Italian Recreation (GK I 5599). and Fair with Comedians (GK I 5602) in the Little Gallery; Watteau's Concert (GK I 5623) was hung in the Audience Room (Gerd Bartoscheck, Curator Bildergalerie, Park Sanssouci, 22 March 2006; Ettore Camesasca, The Complete Paintings of Watteau [New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1968] 90, 119, 108, 123, 126-127; Petra Wesch, with Rosemarie Heise-Schirdewan and Barbel Stranka, Sanssoud: The Summer Residence of Frederick the Great [Munich: Prestel. 2003] 36-37).
Voltaire had his own room at Sanssouci, with lacquered wood furniture uphol stered with embroidered scenes from the Fables of the French writer Jean de la Fontaine (1621-1695); the delicate bird and flower decorations on the walls and ceilings were by Johann Michael Hoppenhaupt (1709-1769) and his brother, Johann Christian Hoppenhaupt (1719-1785). SB refers to Voltaire's La Princesse de
437
18January 1937, McGreevy
18 January 1937, McGreery
Babylone (1768; The Princess ofBabylon), a fantasy which takes place in the fortified city of Babylon ruled by King Belus.
35 TheGalleryisaseparatebuildingatSanssoucithathousestheextensivecollec tion of Friedrich II. For images of the paintings in the Gallery byRubens and by Dutch artist Adriaen van der Werff (1659-1722): G6tzEckardt, Die Gemaide in der Bildergaletie von Sanssoud [Potsdam: Sanssouci, 19751).
In SB's sally, van der Werffs painting is pornographic enough to make Fragonard's work (often regarded as mildly pornographic) seem as innocent and pure as that of Florentine painter and illurninator Fra Angelico (Fra Giovanni di Fiesole, fl. 1417-1455).
36 MariaStuart:9January1937,n. 1;Hebbel'sGyges:SBtoMaryManningHowe,18 January 1937, n. 8.
37 Martha, oder Der Markt zu Richmond (Martha, or the Fair at Richmond), an opera by Friedrich von Flotow (1812-1883), was performed at the Staatsoper on 15 January 1937. SB gave his ticket to his landlord Kempt, who gave it to SB's fellow boarder, actor
JosefEichheim (BIF, UoR, GD 4/f. 11, 14January 1937).
THOMAS McGREEVY LON DON
25/1/37 Naumburg [no greeting]
They call these from his own hand but I don't see it. 3 heads
1
2
Very good modem pictures in Halle and Erfurt. Deep snow everywhere & a sterilizing cold. Met a grand stage decorator in
4
areshanghaiedinWindsor. IwasinWeimarfortheweek-end, in a pub in the Frauenplan. Only a short pause here to see the
Dom,whichisstupendous. GoingontoLeipzigthisafternoon.
3
love with Mexico, Traven & Darius Milhaud. next week from Dresden.
Loves
Shall write early
APCI; 1 leaf, 1 side; heads ofJudas and Peter on one panel andJohn on the other, "Residenzschloss Weimar; Grossherzog, Wohnraume"; to Thomas McGreevyEsq, 49 Harrington Road, London S. W. 7; pm illeg. , Naumburg; TCD, MS 10402/114.
438
25January 1937, McGreevy
1 IntheducalapartmentoftheResidenzschlossWeimarweredrawingsafterthe heads ofthe Apostles in The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519); SB compares the heads ofJudas, Peter, and John on this postcard to similar drawings in the large da Vinci collection in Windsor Castle.
According to records of the Residenzschloss, the drawings were copies made by Giuseppe Bossi (1777-1815) in 1807; they were not described in the 1913 catalogue of the Ducal collection (Viola Geyersback, Klassik Stiftung, Weimar; Kate Trauman Steinitz, "The Leonardo Drawings at Weimar," Raccolta Vinciana 20 [1964] 342-344). The drawing of Peter and Judas (as well as that of Thomas and James the Greater from the series) is now in the Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (77. 53. 1; 77. 53. 2); the drawing ofJohn that belongs to this series is in a private collection (Pietro C. Marani, n Genio e le passioni, Leonardo da Vinci e ii Cenacolo: precedenti, innovazioni, riflessi di un capolavoro [Milan: Skira, 2001] 196-197, fig. 60).
2 The Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul, the Naumburg Dom, dates from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Goethe lived at 1 Frauenplan for fifty years; the Goethe museum is located there today. SB stayed in the Weisser Schwan in Weimar on Frauentorstrasse, next to the Goethe Haus.
3 SB refers to the modem collection at the Moritzburg Museum in Halle, where he had to sign what was called the "'extra' visitor's book" on 23 January 1937, in order to view the "Schreckenskamrner" (chamber of horrors), paintings that had been segregated from the collection (Wolfgang Bucke, Curator of Painting, Staatliche Galerie Morizburg, Halle, 22 February 1993). In his diary SB lists details ofthe paintings by Heckel, Paul Klee (1879-1940), Millier, Schmidt-Rottloff, Marc, Kokoschka, Nolde, Kirchner, the Russian-born Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), and Lyonel Feininger, including a series of views of Halle (BIF, UoR, GD 4/f. 23, 23 January 1937; for images and provenance: Andreas Huneke, Die faschistische Aktion "Entartete Kunst" 1937 in Halle, Schriftenreihe zur Geschichte der Staatlichen Galerie Moritzburg Halle [Halle: Staatliche Galerie Moritzburg, 1987]; also Hess, Lyonel Feininger, 263, 278-280).
SB also visited the private collection of Marie Weise (nee Herold, 1879-1971) and Felix Weise (1876-1961) in Halle, with works by Kirchner, Munch, Heckel, Schmidt-Rottluff, Lehmbruck, and Millier (for SB's conversation with Frau Weise and details of the collection: BIF, UoR GD 4/f. 36-37, 23 January 1937).
On 24 January 1937 SB visited the Anger Museum in Erfurt where the modem collection was still on display on the first floor; he notes works by Kirchner, Gerhard Marek (1889-1981), Kokoschka, Mueller, Feininger, Kandinsky, Nolde, Wilhelm Lehmbruck (1881-1919), Heckel, Dix, Schmidt-Rottluff, Barlach, Renee Sintenis (1888-1965), and Christian Rohlf (1849-1938) (BIF, UoR, GD 4/f. 27, 24 January 1937).
4 HeinzPorep(1888-c. 1956)studiedpaintinginMunichandWeimarasapainter; he designed the sets for the 1935 Halle production of Ottone by George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) (Giitz Traxdorf, Library ofthe Handel-Haus ofHalle; BIF, UoR GD 4/f. 22).
Prussian-born actor Hermann Albert Otto Max Feige (1882-1969) had written anar chist propaganda under the pseudonym ofRet Marut (1917-1923); later he adopted the pseudonym ofB. Traven under which he wrote The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1927).
439
25 January 1937, McGreevy
Porep had visited Traven inMexico; he was a friend of the French composer Darius Milhaud (1892-1974).
THOMAS McGREEVY LONDON
30/1 [1937]
[no greeting]
Dresden
bei Hofer Biirgerw:iese 15
Arrived here yesterday from Leipzig, to stay 3 weeks at the most &
probably less. The little I have seen is lovely. The cold is dreadful.
Leipzig was apotheosis of Max Klinger and ignominis [for igno
1
APCI; 1 leaf, 1 side; "Der Dom Zu Naumburg, Klagender Johannes am Westlettner"; pm
31·1·37, Dresden; to ThomasMcGreevy Esq, 49 Harrington Road, London S. W. 7; TCD, MS 10402/115. Dating: pm and from 9 January 1937, above.
1 In 1937 Leipzig'sMuseum der Bildenden Kiinste and the Leipziger Kunstverein held a retrospective exhibition of the work ofMax Klinger (1857-1920) displaying nearly 400 works (Gediichtnis-Ausstellung Max Klinger [Leipzig:Museum der Bildenden Kiinste, Leipziger Kunstverein, 1937[ 3).
SB attended the Gewandhaus concert on 28 January 1937 which is discussed in greater detail in his letter toMcGreevy of 16 February 1937 and in its n. 13.
GEOR GE REAVEY LONDON
30/1/37 Dresden bei Hofer
minious]intheGewandhaus. Writealongletteratonce Loves
440
Biirgerw:iese 15
[no greeting]
Above my address here. There may be news from you lying
in Berlin waiting to be forwarded. But whether or no tip us a wink to Florence on the Elbe, which will be too cold to hold me
1
APC; 1 leaf. 1 side; "Schlossmuseum Weimar, A. Durer: Bildnis der Felicitas Tucher, 1499"; to George Reavey Esq, 1 Parton Street, London W. C. ; pm 31-1-37, Dresden; tear, center bottom; TxU.
1 Dresden,ontheElbeRiver.
2 "HeilundSiegundfetteBeute"(Hailandvictoryandrichpickings).
{2 February 1937}, McGreevy
for more than a fortnight or 3 weeks. [no signature]
2
Heil und Sieg u fette Beute.
THOMAS McGREEVY LONDON
[2 February 1937) [no greeting]
1
[Dresden]
Che stu fossi meco.
APCI; 1 leaf, 1 side; "Antonello da Messine's [sic] Der H. L Sebastian (Martyrdom of St. Sebastian), Amtliche Ausgabe des Ministeriums fiir Volksbildung zu Dresden"; pm 2-2-37, Dresden; to Thomas McGreevy, 49 Harrington Road, London S. W. 7; TCD, MS 10402/116. Dating, Place: from pm.
[2 February 1937)
[Dresden]
That you were here with me. S.
1
441
{2 February 1937}, McGreevy
1 "Chetufossimeco"isnotidiomaticinItalianandpresumablyisSB'sinvention on the model ofthe English "Wish you were here," but in Trecento style ("meco" being archaic for "con me" ! with me]).
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
15/2/37 Dresden Cher ami
Je m'en doutais, comme disait Poil de Carott[e], quand on lui
1
Murphy ne ton serviteur, t'ecrira sous peu et plus so[uv]ent de Bierevsille-sur-Isar3
APCI; 1 leaf, 1 side; "Dom zu Meissen, Schutzpatron EvangelistJohannes"; to George Reavey Esq, 1 Parton Street, London W. C. 1, England; pm 15-2-37, Dresden; surface delami nated, having been pasted in a scrapbook and removed; TxU.
15/2/37 Dresden Dear George
I thought as much, as Poil de Carotte used to say when what
1
donna a boire [d]u deja bu.
C'est une Dent Par consequent Qui ne mord Aucunement.
2
he was given to drink had already been drunk.
This Dent
I meant Won't quite Bite. 2
442
Murphy born your servant, will write to you shortly and more oftesn from Beerville-on-Isar3
1 SB may be referring to a scene in Jules Renard's Poi! de Carotte (1894; Carrots) in which the child, Poi! de Carotte, is force-fed a soup which he is led to believe is made from his own excretion, as punishment for his having soiled his bed; thereafter he refuses to drink, saying he is not thirsty (Renard, Oeuvres, I, Poi! de Carotte, 666-667).
2 SBpunsonthenameoftheLondonpublisherDent,with"dent"(tooth). Despite Richard Church's positive response to the novel, Dent turned it down (see 18 January 1937 to Mary Manning Howe, n. 2).
3 "So[uv]ent"(often):textillegibleduetodelamination. SB refers to Munich, on the lsar River.
THOMAS McGREEVY LONDON
16/2/37 Dresden bei Hofer
Biirgerwiese 15
DearTom
It was a great disappointment that you could not make the
1
I don't know what to say about the Gallery. I suppose to us even the most discriminating royal collection of the 18th cen tury, which it remains essentially, must have more defects than
443
16 February 1937, McGreevy
trip, though I hardly expected you would be able. You would like Dresden. It was a great 70 years under August the Strong & his son and Poppelmann was a great architect. The Zwinger is very much restored, but well restored. It is altogether lovely, with sudden sad passages (arcades), far more Watteauesque tho' only a little earlier than Potsdam. The gallery wing, heavy dark 19th century Renaissance, does its best to spoil the other three, which should have been left as they were, open to the river. 2
16 February 1937, McGreevy
merits. There is a terrible lot of late Italian rubbish, no primi
tives, practically no Flemish of the great period, and rooms and
rooms full of Mengs & Rosalba pastels and Bellotto views of
Dresden. And it is badly lit and hung. I should not think for a
3
The Giorgione is in a mess. The putto with the armour and
the bright bird sitting at her feet (by Giorgione or Titian? ) was
painted over with senseless landscape in the 19th century and
the whole line of the left leg destroyed. I haven't much of an eye
for that kind of thing, but it entered it like Joyce's Parnell spit at
the first look. I mean the wrongness from the knee down, before
I was in possession of the information that explains it. The head
and arm, all ascent, is miraculous, but sweet, for me at least.
as the Hampton Court Shepherd is sweet, though I know he is
4
The Raphael is very good indeed, though one doesn't want to look at her twice, the best Raphael I have seen after the South
6
figures of the quick in the background gossiping & making appointments, under a paradisal sky. It was not an 18th century acquisition. 7
The Vermeer Kupplerin is also indescribably lovely, and
already essentially Vermeer. If Giorgione[']s Venus is the sister
of the young man in Berlin, the dark figure on the left here,
8
moment of comparing it with the Kaiser Friedrich.
I looked forward to leaving Dresden with a more definite attitude towards Giorgione, but it is the other way round. He must remain to be seen in Castelfranco, as exclusively as Grunewald in Kolmar. 5 And God knows when that may be, though there is just the possibility of my making the latter excursion from Stuttgart on the way home.
not for you.
Ken[sington].
The Antonello that I sent you is stupendous - the tiny
with the crazy smile, is the brother of the girl in Brunswick.
444
16 February 1937, McGreevy
But dreadfully hung, in a dark room with dark dirty green
patterned paper full of dark Rembrandts, between a Rembrandt
old man and a Salomon Koninck Astronomer and cowering
under a huge dark heavy Ferdinand Bal Jacob before Pharoah
9
pictures. But I can't stop without mentioning the Poussin Venus. Beyond praise & appraisement. There is no postcard and the big reproduction, that I wanted to send you, is very unfair to the original. Beside it is a Narcissus, not in the same class as the Louvre one, but with Echo turned to stone! 10
I bearded Director Posse (then why doesn't he! ) and got him to show me the Rontgen photograph of the Giorgione, which wasn't much help. He asked who got the Dublin Gallery, but I could only remember the name of the man who should have. 11 He was seedy & dull, perhaps a beer debauche like myself, only not so intelligent or honest.
The journey from Berlin was an amusing and often lovely adventure. Halle (lovely modern pictures still actually on view to the public in the Moritzburg, a private collection mostly Kirchner and a charming stage decorator & Handel expert in love with Mexico and friend of Traven & Darius Milhaud, who was of a friendliness that bewilders me still), 12 Erfurt, Weimar, Naumburg with marvellous 13th century sculpture in the Dom, & Leipzig where I froze and was miserable & heard a Gewandhaus concert that was an insult to the senses & the understanding. 13
Here I have met all kinds of friends & interesting people, especially an art historian called Grohmann who knows them all, from Picasso to Salkeld, and has done big catalogues of Klee, Kandinsky, Kirchner & Baumeister, and whose name perhaps
445
[for Pharaoh].
There is really not much point writing like this about the
16 February 1937, McGreevy
you may remember having come across in Cahiers d'Art. He has
Picassos & Klees & Kandinskys & Modrians [for Mondrians] and a
lot of Germans. He was removed from his post in the Real
Gymnasium here at the Gallery in 1933, like all the others of
his kidney. 14 Through him I was able to visit one of the best
private collections of modern art in Germany, the Ida Bienert
collection, reaching from a marvellous Cezanne to Leger &
Chagall & Archipenko & Marc & Munch & splendid examples
from all the names I have written & a lot more besides. Including
a Kokoschka portrait of Nancy Cunard! ! ! painted in Paris 1924. I
went twice, for lunch the second time, and have the catalogue to
15
show you, I hope in London in May.
Then a lot of amusing
Russians (Obolensky), blue with blood and revolutionary priva
tions, with whom I am so agreeably entangled that I cannot get
16
I heard (here of course) a marvellous performance of the
Marriage of Figaro, with a Cherubin[o] like a red haired version
17
away till Friday, though I had meant to go to-day.
of the Antonello boy? girl? in London. sorry to have over.
The first opera that I was
I expect to be in Munich a little before the end of the month,
pausing on the way in Bamberg, Niirnberg, Regensburg & per
haps Wiirzburg, though I rather baulk at Niirnberg, of which I
18
have the gloomiest memories. restante, Munich.
Write in about a week paste
I am delighted to hear you are in better form since being
in London, which must seem a different place now that you
are shut of Cheyne Gardens. Is Geoffrey organizing a ruelle in
Harley Street? It is the kind of thing that I wouldn't put past
19
him. He has not written. His wife is too molle.
know. He is the man who when he met me in Harley St. on my way to Bion asked me was I going to an alienist. He himself
446
Wisdom I
is being put on the spot by Ernest Jones. My first experience of
him was in a day school in Dublin when he was famous for the
joy he took in making the wheels for his own toy engines. He is
20
mysterious "trouble" in Dublin, and of a "melo" timed for the
end of this week. After my experiences of him in the Dolphin I
can imagine what is wrong. Ifl am right I hope it is not as serious
as it might be. He seems to be in a completely obsidianal con
21
Berlin - consternating. It was on the mend as I left Berlin, or rather I left Berlin as soon as it was on the mend, and now it has more or less settled down, though it is only a question of how often and how badly it will light up again before I finish this journey and can get home & have it cleared up. The damm old pruritis is just about as bad as ever, no doubt part of the same thing. But I am used to it. Otherwise I am as well as I ever am.
I suppose you have heard of the death of Charles Prentice's
father, when Charles himself was in Florence. I had a calm
letter from Greenock, and replied with paternal necrologies of
22
I have neither written anything nor wanted to, except for a
short hour, when the frail sense of beginning life behind the
eyes, that is the best of all experiences, came again for the first
23
447
a pedagogue.
I had a dark letter from Bryan [for Brian], full of some
16 February 1937, McGreevy
dition, physically also.
The anus is better, it was really awful for fully 10 days in
One should simply say "deepest sympathy" & begin a new sentence.
a despairing kind that I regret.
time since Cascando, and produced 2 lines and a half.
Perhaps you have heard also that Dent turned down Murphy, as I knew they would, in spite of Church's affabilities. So also, since, have Cobden Sanderson. So will have, soon, Faber, Secker & Hogarth. By which time if Nott does not
16 February 1937, McGreevy
renegue I shall be surprised. I dread going home with nothing
24
Love ever Sam
ALS; 2 leaves, 4 sides; TCD, MS 10402/117.
1 On 4 February, SB had received McGreevy's letter indicating that he would not come to Dresden (BIF, UoR GD 4/f. 67).
2 AugusttheStrong(knowninPolandasAugustusII,andinGermanyasFrederick Augustus I, Elector of Saxony, 1670-1733) and his son, Prince Augustus III (also known as Frederick Augustus II, Elector of Saxony, 1696-1763), established Dresden as a major center for the arts.
The Zwinger Museum in Dresden was built from 1709 to 1732 to house the Royal Collections. It was designed by Matthaus Daniel Piippelmann (1662-1736); in 1936 a restoration had been completed under Dresden architect Hubert Ermische (1883-1951) (Dr. Angel Walter, Chief Curator, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, 12 March 1993). Sanssouci in Potsdam was built later, from 1745 to 1747.
In Piippelmann's plan, the Zwinger was composed of seven halls and gatehouses connected by one-story galleries. In 1847-1854 a large gallery wing was added, designed in the style of the late Italian Renaissance by Gottfried Semper (1803-1879). It enclosed the square, closing off the north vista toward the Elbe River that had been integral to Piippelmann's original vision of two long palaces connected by galleries, with steps down to the Elbe.
3 The Royal Collection housed in the Zwinger was greatly enhanced during the reign of Augustus III (1733-1763) (for details of the acquisitions of this period: K. Woermann, Catalogue of the Pictures in the Royal Gallery at Dresden, 7th edn. ! Dresden: Kunstanstalt Wilhelm Hoffmann, 19081 1-7). The collection includes paintings on German historical and biblical subjects, portraits and pastels by Anton Raphael Mengs (1728-1779), court painter to August III, as well as plaster casts. The collection held 157 pastels by Venetian artist Rosalba Carriera. SB refers to Bernardo Bellotto (who signed his name as Canaletto outside of Italy, 1721-1780). Augustus III invited Bellotto to be an official court painter from 1747 to 1758, and the collection includes fifteen views of Dresden by him.
4 Giorgione's Venus (RPG, 185) had been partially repainted after 1837 in order to repair damage; this eliminated the Cupid seated at her feet, holding a bird that can be recognized through X-rays and infrared light (see Hans Posse, "Die Rekonstruktion der Venus mit dem Cupido von Giorgione," Jahrbuch der Preuszischen Kunstsammlungen, Lil
448
cut & dried to do.
till I could get away again. They will expect me to cash in on this journey at once & all at once, and that cannot be, it will have been a better journey than that.
