BLUNT ANTHONY: (1907-1983) British Art Historian and Soviet Spy, a member of the Cambridge Five.
A.L.S., A F Blunt, two pages, 8vo, Portman Square, London, 7th July n.y. (1950s), to a gentleman, evidently a publisher, on the printed stationery of the University of London, Courtauld Institute of Art. Blunt apologises for not having answered his correspondent's letter earlier and also for not acknowledging receipt of Dr. Friedlaender's book which he had kindly sent, further commenting 'I am rather out of touch with journalism now, but I tried to review the book for the Observer & the Spectator. Unfortunately, it had in both cases been given to another reviewer. I am sorry not to have been able to review it, as I read it with very great interest. It is a great achievement to have produced it in the present difficult circumstances'. Annotated in ink in another hand beneath the signature and at the head of the first page. With two file holes to the left edge, not affecting the text or signature, VG

Walter Friedlaender (1873-1966) German Art Historian who published three works during the 1950s; David to Delacroix (1952), Caravaggio Studies (1955) and Mannerism and Anti-Mannerism in Italian Painting (1957).
In 1964, after being offered immunity from prosecution, Blunt confessed to having been a Soviet Spy. A member of the Cambridge Five, he and other spies (including Kim Philby and Guy Burgess) had been working for the Soviet Union from some time in the 1930s to at least the early 1950s. A closely held secret for many years, Blunt's status was revealed publicly by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in November 1979, and he was immediately stripped of his knighthood.