David Talbot Rice

David Talbot Rice CBE (11 July 1903 – 12 March 1972) was an English archaeologist and art historian. He has been described variously as a "gentleman academic" and an "amateur" art historian, though such remarks are not borne out by his many achievements and a lasting legacy of scholarship in his field of study.

Talbot Rice's name is sometimes written as Talbot-Rice. His parents were Charles Henry Talbot-Rice (1862–1931) and Cecily Mary Talbot-Rice (née Lloyd, 1865–1940).

Born in Rugby and brought up in Gloucestershire, Talbot Rice was educated at Eton prior to reading archaeology and anthropology at Christ Church, Oxford. At Oxford his circle of friends included Evelyn Waugh and Harold Acton as well as his future wife (Elena) Tamara Abelson (1904–1993) whom he was to marry in 1927. This group allegedly formed the original for Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. Elena was a Russian émigré, born in St. Petersburg and an art historian, writing on Byzantine and Central Asian art and other subjects as Tamara Talbot Rice. They had three children, two daughters and a son.

In 1925 while he was still an undergraduate Talbot Rice became a staff member at the Oxford Field Museum's archaeological excavation in Kish, Iraq. He was to use this experience by incorporating some of his findings when completing his B.Sc. degree gained in 1927. Developing a passion for all things Byzantine, Talbot Rice joined the expeditions of the British Academy in Constantinople (now Istanbul) in 1927–32 and 1952–54. In 1928, for example, he visited Trebizond (now Trabzon), which would lead to his monograph on the subject being published in 1936.

Talbot-Rice's fieldwork continued with expeditions to Cyprus, Asia Minor, Iraq and Iran and his expertise in the area of Islamic art was recognised when, in 1932, Samuel Courtauld endowed the Courtauld Institute at the University of London and Talbot Rice was among the first appointments, taking up a position as lecturer in Byzantine and Near Eastern Art, though it appears he had little in the way of resources at his disposal.

Talbot Rice's academic career took off in 1934 when, at a comparatively young age, he was appointed to the Watson Gordon Chair of Fine Art at the University of Edinburgh, a post he held until his death in 1972. In 1937 he gave the Ilchester Lecture, later published as The Beginnings of Russian Icon Painting.

World War Two interrupted his academic pursuits when he was called up as head of the Near East Section of Military Intelligence (MI3b), which was responsible for Eastern Europe including Yugoslavia but excluding Russia and Scandinavia. He later transferred to the Special Operations Executive serving in North Africa and Italy with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He was appointed Member of the British Empire in 1943.

When peacetime resumed in 1945 Talbot Rice returned to his work in Edinburgh. From 1952 to 1954, he led the excavations of the Great Palace of Constantinople in Istanbul, Turkey and he was later involved in the uncovering and restoration of the Byzantine frescos in the Hagia Sophia in Trabzon. In 1958 he took responsibility for a major exhibition of Byzantine art for the Edinburgh International Festival.