Amélie DESTOUCHES

Rare photographic portrait of Amélie Destouches, aunt of Louis-Ferdinand Céline, in cabinet card format on albumen print mounted on cardboard from Studio Louis.
Manuscript captions "Suzannica 3 ans, Bucarest ce 14 juin 1877" ["Suzannica 3 years old, Bucharest this 14th June 1877"] and "Zenon Zawirski" in another hand, on verso.
The portrait was taken by Studio Louis, at 127 Calea Mosilor in Bucharest.
 
At twenty-four, Amélie married the wealthy Romanian Zenon Zawirski, who poses beside her with their daughter Zenone Zawirska, then three years old. Céline devoted an unflattering portrait to her in Death on the Installment Plan, borrowing her features for the character of Aunt Hélène, whose Slavic adventures he transposed to Russia rather than Romania. Though still alive when the novel was written, Céline nonetheless had his character die in dishonor and shame:
"Elle a pris tout le vent dans les voiles. Elle a bourlingué en Russie. À Saint-Pétersbourg, elle est devenue grue. À un moment, elle a eu tout, carrosse, trois traîneaux, un village rien que pour elle, avec son nom dessus. Elle est venue nous voir au Passage, deux fois de suite, frusquée, superbe, comme une princesse et heureuse et tout. Elle a terminé très tragiquement sous les balles d'un officier. Y avait pas de résistance chez elle. C'était tout viande, désir, musique. Il rendait papa, rien que d'y penser. Ma mère a conclu en apprenant son décès : 'Voilà une fin bien horrible ?! Mais c'est la fin d'une égoïste ?!'" ["She caught all the wind in her sails. She knocked around Russia. In St. Petersburg, she became a whore. At one point, she had everything, carriage, three sleighs, a village all to herself, with her name on it. She came to see us at the Passage, twice in a row, dressed up, superb, like a princess and happy and all. She ended very tragically under an officer's bullets. There was no resistance in her. She was all flesh, desire, music. It made papa sick, just thinking about it. My mother concluded on learning of her death: 'What a horrible end?! But it's the end of a selfish woman?!'"]