Tamara Talbot Rice

Tamara Talbot Rice (19 June 1904 - 24 September 1993) was a Russian then English art historian, writing on Byzantine and Central Eastern art.

Talbot Rice was born Elena Abelson, to Louisa Elizabeth ("Lifa") Vilenkin and Israel Boris Abelevich Abelson, the latter a businessman and member of the Czar's financial administration. Leo Tolstoy was her godfather. Elena lived a privileged childhood in St Petersburg, initially attending Tagantzeva Girls' School. The Russian Revolution of 1917 prompted her family to move to England, and she completed her schooling, first at Cheltenham Ladies' College and then at St Hugh's College, Oxford.

In 1927 she married the English art historian David Talbot Rice; they both published under the surname Talbot Rice.