Under the Sun by Bruce Chatwin Read Free Book Online Page A

There is not a shop for miles and everything has to be ordered, so my £10 may come back unmolested, especially as I earned 10 kroner this morning. They have a motor boat, rowing boat, sailing dinghy, an ordinary canoe, a Canadian birch bark and a very narrow canoe in which I went in several times trying to balance it. 24 We are going to Stockholm next week. I hope Hugh has got his post card. I tried to get you a picture of the Smorgasbord, the Swedish national dish which is a kind of hors d’oeuvre only on a far bigger scale. Hope you got the cable. Bruce
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    Postcard, b & w photograph of Lake Yngaren | Sweden | 20 August, 1954
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    This is part of their lake. All the land you can see the other side is an island. Their house is between the island and the mainland. We are going on a boat trip to another lake; all the lakes are just about joined up with each other. We spent 3 days in Stockholm and saw it thoroughly. It’s a pity I didn’t bring my camera because it is so beautiful country. We went down a very deep iron mine the other day; 25 it was very interesting. I will telephone you as soon as I get to London and let you know what train I am going on. Bruce
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    In the summer of 1957, after passing his driving test, Chatwin borrowed Charles’s van and drove to the south of France, returning with a cane-seated high chair. It made a pair with his first major furniture acquisition, a grey Louis XVI chair costing £2.10s. Both requiring restoration, he bought a set of wood chisels and, in the next stage after model-making, stripped them down in the box room at Brown’s Green Farm. In recognition of this passion, his parents gave him a book on French furniture.

To Charles and Margharita Chatwin
    B2 | Marlborough College | Wiltshire | [autumn 1957]
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    Dear Mummy and Daddy,
    Thank you very much indeed for that wonderful surprise. It really is a wonderful book, and on really looking at it closely it seems even better. Like many French books it is eminently sensible in that it does not deal exclusively with those fabulous rarities that are locked behind glass cases in museums, and on that account are apt to be dull. But most of the things are all first rate examples that one would be likely to come across. It is not a book for the super expert, because volumes could be written on each of the subjects but it gives a very clear picture of what was going on, and of course those wonderful pictures help immensely, because it would be nonsense to suggest that the best way of learning about such things is to see them personally or failing that to look at them by photographs. I have been reassured on several points. Firstly that it is justifiable to refurnish French furniture completely, and secondly that the two chairs are definitely genuine . . . The second chair really is a rarity, it appears; square-backed Louis XVI bergère chairs with that standard of carving and those spiral legs are very very highly sought after, and even in that book there are few that have its elegance. Also the book does not appear to worry too much about ébénistes stamps, though of course, they add to the value to a large extent. 26
    What is the name of the painter of your picture of ‘ The America ’ at the office? for I think you will be interested to learn that during April a picture, painted contemporary with the first America Cup, by a hitherto obscure painter named Carmichael, 27 showing the America , 28 was sold to an American bidder, I think at Christie’s, for somewhat over £2,000 owning to the exceptional interest show over here by the new challenge.
    The book has made my birthday. Thank you very much.
    Love B
    PS Buns lovely! Best for a long time. Aunt Cicely and Uncle Philip 29 sent 10/ – for a Wallace Collection catalogue. Hugh gave me a blue and white striped mug to replace one that I broke.
    Love B
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    For his 1957 Easter holiday, Chatwin travelled to Italy with another