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11 July 1903 – 12 March 1972

David Talbot Rice CBE was an English archaeologist and art historian. His name is sometimes written as Talbot-Rice. His parents were Charles Henry Talbot-Rice and Cecily Mary Talbot-Rice (née Lloyd). 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) a Russian émigré whom he was to marry in 1927. This group allegedly formed the original for Waugh's *Brideshead Revisited*. Elena was also an art historian, writing on Byzantine and Central Asian art, and spent mu…