Thomas Whittemore (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1871 - 1950, Washington, DC)
Letter to Isabella Stewart Gardner from Arabat-el-Madfina, Bulgaria, 15 January 1914
Ink on paper , 20.2 x 26.5 cm (7 15/16 x 10 7/16 in.)
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Commentary
As a specialist in Byzantine art, Thomas Whittemore traveled extensively throughout Eastern Europe and sent this letter to Isabella Stewart Gardner from Bulgaria. In a moving tribute to their mutual friend Okakura Kakuzo, a renowned scholar of Japanese art who had recently passed away, Whittemore writes that he has “often burned candles for you & him at the beautiful shrines of Bulgaria that we together may still go on, led as before by him across frontiers.”