Despite Richard Church's positive
response
to the novel, Dent turned it down (see 18 January 1937 to Mary Manning Howe, n.
Samuel Beckett
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. But mother will want Morton or Doyle. 25
Proofs & a publication would carry me over
16 February 1937, McGreevy
[Berlin: G. Grote, 1931] 29-35; this article prints the Rontgen photographs of the painting). According to Posse's analysis, the line of the left leg was not altered, although Martin Conway calls the foot "inelegant" (Giorgione: A New Study of His Art as a Landscape Painter [London: Ernest Benn, 1929] 55). The landscape of the background was formerly ascribed to Titian, but now is thought to have been begun by Giorgione and completed by Titian.
In James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Mr. Casey tells the story of being with Parnell in Arklow, when the crowd was hostile; when Mr. Casey had had enough from a woman who was heckling Parnell. he spat his tobacco into her eye (36-37).
SB compares Venus with Giorgione's Bust ofShepherd with Pipe (Hampton Court, 111).
5 Giorgione was from Castelfranco, where many of his major works are kept. Matthias Griinewald's masterwork, the Isenheim Altarpiece, was painted for the Antonite monastery and hospital in Isenheim (Unterlinden Museum, Colmar); for images and description: Georg Scheja, The Isenheim Altarpiece, tr. Robert Erich Wolf (New York: H. N. Abrams, 1969).
SB uses the German spelling, Kalmar.
6 Raphael's Madonna Sistina (RPG 93), painted as an altarpiece, depicts the Virgin standing on clouds between Pope Sixtus II and St. Barbara. SB compares it with the Raphael Cartoons for tapestries hung in the Sistine Chapel; the Cartoons were in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, London (see 20 February [1935], n. 12).
7 TheMartyrdomofSt. Sebastian(RPG52)byAntonellodaMessina(1430-1479)was acquired by the Zwinger in 1873 (Henner Menz, The Dresden Gallery [New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1962] 67).
8 SBcomparesVermeer'sTheProcuress(RPG1335)intheZwingercollectiontohis painting The Girl with a Wine Glass in the Brunswick Herzog-Anton-Ulrich Museum (316). He finds similarity between Giorgione's "Venus" (n. 4 above) and his Portrait ofa Young Man in Berlin (18 January 1937 to Thomas McGreevy, n. 2), and further notes the resemblance between the dark figure on the left in The Procuress in Dresden and the woman in the The Girl with a Wine Glass in Brunswick.
9 Vermeer's The Procuress was hung near Portrait of an Old Man (RPG 1567) by Rembrandt, Jacob, Presented by Joseph to Pharaoh (RPG 1605) by Ferdinand Bo! (1616-1680), and Astronomer (RPG 1589A) by Salomon Koninck (1609-1656).
10 Poussin'sVenuswithAmor(RPG721)washungnexttoapaintingofNarcissusand Echo (RPG 722), then ascribed to Poussin (see Christopher Wright, who suggests that it was painted by a competent follower: Poussin Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonne [London: Jupiter Books, 1984] 241; Menz claims that Narcissus and Echo is an early, not fully accomplished work by Poussin in his The Dresden Gallery, 304). SB compares the treat ment of Echo, who is outlined on a block of stone, to Poussin's Echo and Narcissus (Louvre 7297) in Paris.
11 Hans Posse (1879-1942), Director of the Zwinger from 1910 until the gallery closed in 1939. From 26 June 1938 to 1942, Posse became Director of the Special Mission Linz, acquiring art works on behalf of Hitler's proposed museum in Linz, Austria (Barron, ed. , "Degenerate Art": The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany, 399).
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16 February 1937, McGreevy
"Posse" (Lat. , to be able).
George Furlong was appointed as Director of the National Gallery of Ireland in October 1935; McGreevy had applied for the position.
12 The collection ofthe Moritzburg in Halle and the collection ofFelix Weise in Halle: 25 January 1937, n. 3. Porep, the stage decorator and Handel expert, friend of Traven and Darius Milhaud: 25 January 1937, n. 4.
13 The statues in the west choir of Naumburg's thirteenth-century Gothic Dom commemorate the family of Bishop Dietrich von Wettin (also known as Theodoric, 1243-1272) under whom the building was completed. There are four couples and four single men represented.
The concert on 28 January in the Gewandhaus in Leipzig was entitled "Heitere Musik" Uovial Music). It presented a number of short pieces: "Friihliche Musik fiir kleines Orchester" by Hermann Grabner (1886-1969); the recitative and aria of Zerbinetta "Grossmachtige Prinzessin, wer verstiinde nicht" from Strauss's opera Ariadne aufNaxos, sung by Ema Berger (1900-1990) of the Berlin Staatsoper; "Gestem Abend war Vetter Michel da," a humoresque in variations, op. 74, composed and conducted by Prussian pianist Georg Alfred Schumann (1866-1952); the rondo "Aufforderung zum Tanze" in D-flat major, originally for piano, op. 65, by Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826), orchestrated by Louis-Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) as "L'lnvitation a la valse"; two arias by Weber sung by Erna Berger: the scena and aria "Non paventar, mia vita" for soprano and orchestra, op. 51, and the recitative and rondo "II momenta s'avvincia" for soprano and orchestra, op. 16; and Kaiserwalzer, op. 437, by Johann Strauss, II (1825-1899).
14 German art historian Will Grohmann (1887-1968). Dublin artist Cecil Salkeld; German expressionist Willi Baumeister (1889-1955); Dutch artist Piet Mondrian (1872-1944).
For a complete bibliography ofGrohmann's studies ofPaul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, and Ernst Kirchner: Dina Sonntag, "Bibliographie Will Grohmann" in In Memoriam Will Grohmann, 1887-1968: Wegbereiter der Moderne (Stuttgart: Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, 1987) 58-64; for Grohmann's contributions to the Paris journal Cahiers d'art: Index General de la revue "Cahiers d'art," 1926-1960 (Paris: Editions Cahiers d'art, 1981) 58. After his death, some ofGrohmann's collection was given to the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart.
On 7 April 1933, "Jews and those deemed 'politically unreliable' were purged from government bureaucracies by the Professional Civil Service Restoration Act, an early milestone in Nazi persecution" (Barron, ed. , "Degenerate Art": The Fate ofthe Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany, 396). Although Grohmann was dismissed from the Padagogisches lnstitut der Technischen Hochschule, Dresden, he continued to write under the pseudonym Olaf Rydberg.
15 Ida Bienert (nee Suckert, 1870-1965) was associated with the women's move ment for social and educational reform in Saxony. She was a woman with "einem freien, unkonventionellen, geradezu revolutionaren Geist" (free, unconventional, virtually revolutionary spirit) (Heinrike Junge, "Yorn Neuen begeistert - Die Sammlerin Ida Bienert," in Heinrike Junge, ed. , Avantgarde und Publikum: zur Rezeption avantgardistischer Kunst in Deutschland 1905-1933 [Cologne: Biihlau, 1992] 29). Bienert developed her collection of modem art from 1905 to 1932 (Will Grohmann, ed. , Die Sammlung Ida Bienert, Dresden, Privatsammlungen neuer Kunst, 1 [Potsdam: Muller & I. Kiepenheuer, 1933]). Bienert's collection survived the war, moving with her to Munich
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in 1948; before her death, the collection was dispersed among German museums and private collections.
Artists represented in the collection included Paul Cezanne; French painter Femand Leger (1881-1955); Marc Chagall (1889-1985); Ukrainian-born artist Alexander Archipenko (1880-1964); Franz Marc; Edvard Munch. For details of SB's visit to Bienert's collection: Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 233-235, and BIF, UoR, GD 5/f. 1.
Oskar Kokoschka's painting of Nancy Cunard. Engliinderin, is now in the Sprengel Museum. Hanover (Sammlung Sprengel, 1/146). Nancy Cunard recalls sitting for the portrait in 1924, according to her letter to Walter John Strachan, 21 June 1947 (ICSo, Strachan 58/1/5).
16 Anna von Gersdorff (nee Obolensky, 1898-1973) was the daughter of Prince Alexis Dimitrievitch Obolensky (1855-1933), who had been Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod, a member of the Counsel of the Empire, Privy Counselor, Senator, and Equeny to His Majesty the Tsar. Writing later to Arland Ussher, SB described her as "intelligent and amusing" and told him to: "tell her I never think of Dresden without thinking of her but often think of her without thinking of Dresden" (SB to Arland Ussher, 11 July 1937, TxU). SB also met her husband Nicholas von Gersdorff(1882-1953) who taught Russian at a German school for officers, and her brothers, Dimitri Obolensky (1894-1945), who had been a cavalry officer in the Russian Imperial army, and Nicolas Obolensky (1896-1978), who was then a tour guide in Florence (RUL, GD 4/f. 69, 5 February 1937; see also Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 233-234).
17 Mozart'soperaTheMarriageofFigaro,K492,wasperformedattheDresdenOpera House on 3 February 1937. The role of Cherubino was played by mezzo-soprano Martha Rohs (1909-1963), whom SB compares to the figure in Portrait of a Boy (NGL 2509), then attributed to Antonello but now attributed to Jacometto Veneziano (fl. 1472-1498) (Martin Davies, National Gallery Catalogues: The Earlier Italian Schools [London: National Gallery, 19861 258).
18 SB refers to his overnight wait in the train station in Nuremberg in April 1931, as he traveled from Paris to Kassel (see BIF, UoR GD 5/f. 55, 1 March 1937).
19 McGreevy was no longer staying with Hester Dowden in Cheyne Gardens when he was in London.
Geoffrey Thompson and his wife Ursula lived above his offices in Harley Street. "Ruelle" (a bedroom salon); "molle" (soft, ineffectual).
20 John Oulton Wisdom (1908-1993) was educated with SB at Earlsfort House school in Dublin and Trinity College Dublin, where he was a Foundation Scholar in Mathematics. and graduated with First Class Honours in Philosophy in 1931 and a Ph. D. in Philosophy in 1933; from 1948 to 1965 he taught at the London School of Economics, and from 1969 to 1979 was Professor of Philosophy and Social Sciences at the York University, Toronto. Wisdom wrote many books on the history of philosophy and psychoanalysis; during the early 1930s, he was in analysis with psychoanalyst Alfred Ernest Jones (1879-1958), who had brought Freud to England, edited Freud's Collected Papers (1922-1924), and edited the International
Jaumal ofPsychoanalysis from 1920 to 1939.
21 BrianCoffey'stroubleisnotclear;"melo"isshortformelodrama.
451
16 February 1937, McGree. y
2 2 Charles Prentice's father Alexander Reid Prentice (1859-1937) died on 15 January 1937. Although SB's letter toCharles Prentice has not been found, Prentice wrote about it to McGreevy on 18 February 1937: "I've just received a letter from him from Dresden, a most touching & beautiful letter; but it's about my affairs & doesn't allude to his at all. A letter no one else could have written" (TCD, MS 8092/108).
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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. ,
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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
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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.
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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. But mother will want Morton or Doyle. 25
Proofs & a publication would carry me over
16 February 1937, McGreevy
[Berlin: G. Grote, 1931] 29-35; this article prints the Rontgen photographs of the painting). According to Posse's analysis, the line of the left leg was not altered, although Martin Conway calls the foot "inelegant" (Giorgione: A New Study of His Art as a Landscape Painter [London: Ernest Benn, 1929] 55). The landscape of the background was formerly ascribed to Titian, but now is thought to have been begun by Giorgione and completed by Titian.
In James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Mr. Casey tells the story of being with Parnell in Arklow, when the crowd was hostile; when Mr. Casey had had enough from a woman who was heckling Parnell. he spat his tobacco into her eye (36-37).
SB compares Venus with Giorgione's Bust ofShepherd with Pipe (Hampton Court, 111).
5 Giorgione was from Castelfranco, where many of his major works are kept. Matthias Griinewald's masterwork, the Isenheim Altarpiece, was painted for the Antonite monastery and hospital in Isenheim (Unterlinden Museum, Colmar); for images and description: Georg Scheja, The Isenheim Altarpiece, tr. Robert Erich Wolf (New York: H. N. Abrams, 1969).
SB uses the German spelling, Kalmar.
6 Raphael's Madonna Sistina (RPG 93), painted as an altarpiece, depicts the Virgin standing on clouds between Pope Sixtus II and St. Barbara. SB compares it with the Raphael Cartoons for tapestries hung in the Sistine Chapel; the Cartoons were in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, London (see 20 February [1935], n. 12).
7 TheMartyrdomofSt. Sebastian(RPG52)byAntonellodaMessina(1430-1479)was acquired by the Zwinger in 1873 (Henner Menz, The Dresden Gallery [New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1962] 67).
8 SBcomparesVermeer'sTheProcuress(RPG1335)intheZwingercollectiontohis painting The Girl with a Wine Glass in the Brunswick Herzog-Anton-Ulrich Museum (316). He finds similarity between Giorgione's "Venus" (n. 4 above) and his Portrait ofa Young Man in Berlin (18 January 1937 to Thomas McGreevy, n. 2), and further notes the resemblance between the dark figure on the left in The Procuress in Dresden and the woman in the The Girl with a Wine Glass in Brunswick.
9 Vermeer's The Procuress was hung near Portrait of an Old Man (RPG 1567) by Rembrandt, Jacob, Presented by Joseph to Pharaoh (RPG 1605) by Ferdinand Bo! (1616-1680), and Astronomer (RPG 1589A) by Salomon Koninck (1609-1656).
10 Poussin'sVenuswithAmor(RPG721)washungnexttoapaintingofNarcissusand Echo (RPG 722), then ascribed to Poussin (see Christopher Wright, who suggests that it was painted by a competent follower: Poussin Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonne [London: Jupiter Books, 1984] 241; Menz claims that Narcissus and Echo is an early, not fully accomplished work by Poussin in his The Dresden Gallery, 304). SB compares the treat ment of Echo, who is outlined on a block of stone, to Poussin's Echo and Narcissus (Louvre 7297) in Paris.
11 Hans Posse (1879-1942), Director of the Zwinger from 1910 until the gallery closed in 1939. From 26 June 1938 to 1942, Posse became Director of the Special Mission Linz, acquiring art works on behalf of Hitler's proposed museum in Linz, Austria (Barron, ed. , "Degenerate Art": The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany, 399).
449
16 February 1937, McGreevy
"Posse" (Lat. , to be able).
George Furlong was appointed as Director of the National Gallery of Ireland in October 1935; McGreevy had applied for the position.
12 The collection ofthe Moritzburg in Halle and the collection ofFelix Weise in Halle: 25 January 1937, n. 3. Porep, the stage decorator and Handel expert, friend of Traven and Darius Milhaud: 25 January 1937, n. 4.
13 The statues in the west choir of Naumburg's thirteenth-century Gothic Dom commemorate the family of Bishop Dietrich von Wettin (also known as Theodoric, 1243-1272) under whom the building was completed. There are four couples and four single men represented.
The concert on 28 January in the Gewandhaus in Leipzig was entitled "Heitere Musik" Uovial Music). It presented a number of short pieces: "Friihliche Musik fiir kleines Orchester" by Hermann Grabner (1886-1969); the recitative and aria of Zerbinetta "Grossmachtige Prinzessin, wer verstiinde nicht" from Strauss's opera Ariadne aufNaxos, sung by Ema Berger (1900-1990) of the Berlin Staatsoper; "Gestem Abend war Vetter Michel da," a humoresque in variations, op. 74, composed and conducted by Prussian pianist Georg Alfred Schumann (1866-1952); the rondo "Aufforderung zum Tanze" in D-flat major, originally for piano, op. 65, by Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826), orchestrated by Louis-Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) as "L'lnvitation a la valse"; two arias by Weber sung by Erna Berger: the scena and aria "Non paventar, mia vita" for soprano and orchestra, op. 51, and the recitative and rondo "II momenta s'avvincia" for soprano and orchestra, op. 16; and Kaiserwalzer, op. 437, by Johann Strauss, II (1825-1899).
14 German art historian Will Grohmann (1887-1968). Dublin artist Cecil Salkeld; German expressionist Willi Baumeister (1889-1955); Dutch artist Piet Mondrian (1872-1944).
For a complete bibliography ofGrohmann's studies ofPaul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, and Ernst Kirchner: Dina Sonntag, "Bibliographie Will Grohmann" in In Memoriam Will Grohmann, 1887-1968: Wegbereiter der Moderne (Stuttgart: Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, 1987) 58-64; for Grohmann's contributions to the Paris journal Cahiers d'art: Index General de la revue "Cahiers d'art," 1926-1960 (Paris: Editions Cahiers d'art, 1981) 58. After his death, some ofGrohmann's collection was given to the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart.
On 7 April 1933, "Jews and those deemed 'politically unreliable' were purged from government bureaucracies by the Professional Civil Service Restoration Act, an early milestone in Nazi persecution" (Barron, ed. , "Degenerate Art": The Fate ofthe Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany, 396). Although Grohmann was dismissed from the Padagogisches lnstitut der Technischen Hochschule, Dresden, he continued to write under the pseudonym Olaf Rydberg.
15 Ida Bienert (nee Suckert, 1870-1965) was associated with the women's move ment for social and educational reform in Saxony. She was a woman with "einem freien, unkonventionellen, geradezu revolutionaren Geist" (free, unconventional, virtually revolutionary spirit) (Heinrike Junge, "Yorn Neuen begeistert - Die Sammlerin Ida Bienert," in Heinrike Junge, ed. , Avantgarde und Publikum: zur Rezeption avantgardistischer Kunst in Deutschland 1905-1933 [Cologne: Biihlau, 1992] 29). Bienert developed her collection of modem art from 1905 to 1932 (Will Grohmann, ed. , Die Sammlung Ida Bienert, Dresden, Privatsammlungen neuer Kunst, 1 [Potsdam: Muller & I. Kiepenheuer, 1933]). Bienert's collection survived the war, moving with her to Munich
450
16 February 1937, McGreevy
in 1948; before her death, the collection was dispersed among German museums and private collections.
Artists represented in the collection included Paul Cezanne; French painter Femand Leger (1881-1955); Marc Chagall (1889-1985); Ukrainian-born artist Alexander Archipenko (1880-1964); Franz Marc; Edvard Munch. For details of SB's visit to Bienert's collection: Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 233-235, and BIF, UoR, GD 5/f. 1.
Oskar Kokoschka's painting of Nancy Cunard. Engliinderin, is now in the Sprengel Museum. Hanover (Sammlung Sprengel, 1/146). Nancy Cunard recalls sitting for the portrait in 1924, according to her letter to Walter John Strachan, 21 June 1947 (ICSo, Strachan 58/1/5).
16 Anna von Gersdorff (nee Obolensky, 1898-1973) was the daughter of Prince Alexis Dimitrievitch Obolensky (1855-1933), who had been Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod, a member of the Counsel of the Empire, Privy Counselor, Senator, and Equeny to His Majesty the Tsar. Writing later to Arland Ussher, SB described her as "intelligent and amusing" and told him to: "tell her I never think of Dresden without thinking of her but often think of her without thinking of Dresden" (SB to Arland Ussher, 11 July 1937, TxU). SB also met her husband Nicholas von Gersdorff(1882-1953) who taught Russian at a German school for officers, and her brothers, Dimitri Obolensky (1894-1945), who had been a cavalry officer in the Russian Imperial army, and Nicolas Obolensky (1896-1978), who was then a tour guide in Florence (RUL, GD 4/f. 69, 5 February 1937; see also Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 233-234).
17 Mozart'soperaTheMarriageofFigaro,K492,wasperformedattheDresdenOpera House on 3 February 1937. The role of Cherubino was played by mezzo-soprano Martha Rohs (1909-1963), whom SB compares to the figure in Portrait of a Boy (NGL 2509), then attributed to Antonello but now attributed to Jacometto Veneziano (fl. 1472-1498) (Martin Davies, National Gallery Catalogues: The Earlier Italian Schools [London: National Gallery, 19861 258).
18 SB refers to his overnight wait in the train station in Nuremberg in April 1931, as he traveled from Paris to Kassel (see BIF, UoR GD 5/f. 55, 1 March 1937).
19 McGreevy was no longer staying with Hester Dowden in Cheyne Gardens when he was in London.
Geoffrey Thompson and his wife Ursula lived above his offices in Harley Street. "Ruelle" (a bedroom salon); "molle" (soft, ineffectual).
20 John Oulton Wisdom (1908-1993) was educated with SB at Earlsfort House school in Dublin and Trinity College Dublin, where he was a Foundation Scholar in Mathematics. and graduated with First Class Honours in Philosophy in 1931 and a Ph. D. in Philosophy in 1933; from 1948 to 1965 he taught at the London School of Economics, and from 1969 to 1979 was Professor of Philosophy and Social Sciences at the York University, Toronto. Wisdom wrote many books on the history of philosophy and psychoanalysis; during the early 1930s, he was in analysis with psychoanalyst Alfred Ernest Jones (1879-1958), who had brought Freud to England, edited Freud's Collected Papers (1922-1924), and edited the International
Jaumal ofPsychoanalysis from 1920 to 1939.
21 BrianCoffey'stroubleisnotclear;"melo"isshortformelodrama.
451
16 February 1937, McGree. y
2 2 Charles Prentice's father Alexander Reid Prentice (1859-1937) died on 15 January 1937. Although SB's letter toCharles Prentice has not been found, Prentice wrote about it to McGreevy on 18 February 1937: "I've just received a letter from him from Dresden, a most touching & beautiful letter; but it's about my affairs & doesn't allude to his at all. A letter no one else could have written" (TCD, MS 8092/108).
