Autograph Letter Signed ('Frank O. Salisbury') to 'Our most dear friends' [Mr and Mrs Holiday, perhaps Henry George Alexander Holiday?].

Author: 
Frank Salisbury [Frank Owen Salisbury; Frank O. Salisbury; Francis Owen Salisbury] (1874-1962), English artist [Henry George Alexander Holiday (1839-1927), painter and stained-glass artist?; cenotaph]
Publication details: 
1 December 1920; on letterhead of 62 Avenue Road, Regent's Park, London N.W.
£85.00
SKU: 6555

4to, 2 pp. Text clear and entire on lightly aged and creased paper. Explaining how disappointed he and his wife Maude were 'not to be able to get up to see the Windsor week end'. Salisbury was 'kept at home by people who wanted to see the Victoria Frescoes before they go to India'. He has been 'working on them night & day' as he received 'a cable message requesting four to be up in their positions for the Duke of Connaught's visit in January to the Memorial. And then on top of this The King [George V] asked me to be present at the ceremony of unveiling of The Cenotaph & the Burial of the Unknown Warrior at Westminster Abbey'. Salisbury 'worked out two ideas & composition & took them down to The King & Queen' the day before: 'it is such a relief they are delighted with them & want me to go ahead at once & get them done in time for the R.A.' The 11 November (date of the Cenotaph event) was 'a wonderful day': 'An American said of that impressive hour, "For a thousand hours of bitterness we console ourselves with one that is beautiful". The letter ends with Salisbury sending best wishes to the Holidays: 'to enter your home is to go at once into the same atmosphere of spiritual beauty | The muses of poetry & art & their devotees are all around'. He has enjoyed <?>s book very much' and will 'run up after dark very soon with it'.