Paris (France)

Autograph manuscript by Juliette Drouet, entitled “General income for the year 1839” “General expenditure for the year 1839” (verso). Two pages in ink on one leaf.
Folds, blind stamp “Bath” in the upper left corner. Two small tears filled in, tiny holes barely visible.

A precious manuscript in the hand of Juliette Drouet, listing her expenses for 1839, a crucial year during which she gave up theater for good and became entirely dependent on her famous lover.
As was her custom at the end of each year, Drouet put her affairs in order, drew up columns and figures, compared her monthly income, and listed her expenses on the reverse: “food and wine,” ‘toiletries, maintenance, and perfumes,' ‘heating'... Of course, it was the ‘shared expenses of Monsieur Toto and Mme Juju, including travel' that cost her the most. From September to October, the two lovers traveled through Germany, Switzerland, and the south of France. They visited the Toulon prison, a decisive event in the genesis of Les Misérables, where Hugo noted in his notebook the first draft of the name of his future hero, “Jean Tréjean.”

After being rejected for the role of the queen in Ruy Blas the previous year, it is clear from her correspondence with Toto that Juliette still wanted to become a “great actress” and retain her independence. Hugo refused, and that year, they ended up celebrating a spiritual marriage, without a mediator or witnesses, on the night of November 17-18. Their union sealed her fate as a reclusive lover, and this account summary sums up her total dependence: apart from the meager sum she earned from “theater [...] bric-a-brac sold” (probably the sale of her costumes, since she was no longer acting), all of her income came from “money earned by my beloved.” : 7,304 francs, 3 sous, and half a liard. The calculations reveal Juliette's sad situation, ending the year with a deficit of 15 francs.
This fascinating document is a unique archive revealing the underside of this passionate relationship at the fateful moment when the prominent actress agreed to devote her life to the most famous writer of her time.

A striking photographic portrait of Mistinguett by Walery with its studio stamp on the verso. A tiny pinprick on the right-hand edge of the photograph.

Inscribed portrait of Mistinguett, the queen of music hall, at the top of the photograph: "To Nenette, in friendship, Mistinguett".

Actress, singer and music-hall dancer Nénette (Jeanne 'Jane' Aubert) began her long and successful career in Mistinguett's revue at the Casino de Paris. From cabaret to Hollywood silent films and the Folies-Bergères, she played many roles notably with Michel Simon, Jean-Louis Barrault and Arletty, and played a theater adaptation of "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes". She is also known as the wife of billionaire Neslon Morris, king of American corned beef. 

 

Extremely rare first edition of this pro­gram leaflet by the Studio 28 cinema, founded by Jean Mauclaire, featuring texts by the Surrealist group on Luis Buñuel's film L'Âge d'or.
Slight lacks on the spine, with two small tears at the head and foot, and a shad­ow mark at the head of the first cover.
Handwritten bookplate "Jean Vigo" — likely autograph — inscribed in black ink in the lower right corner of the page featuring Salvador Dalí's illustra­tion.
Literary contributions by Louis Aragon, André Breton, René Char, Salvador Dalí, Paul Éluard, Georges Sadoul and Tristan Tzara.
The program is illustrated with works by Hans Arp, Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, Man Ray, and Yves Tanguy, as well as numer­ous stills from Buñuel's L'Âge d'or.
A very rare copy of this very fragile programme of Luis Buñuel's film, with well-preserved gilt covers. With an exceptional provenance, it belonged to the filmmaker Jean Vigo, the cele­brated director of L'Atalante, a rebel­lious figure in cinema with a dazzling career. An admirer of Buñuel's work, Vigo also wrote a glowing review of Le Chien andalou.

***


Directed by Luis Buñuel in 1930 with a screenplay co-written by Salvador Dalí, L'Âge d'Or is the paragon of avant-garde and Surrealist cinema. Commissioned by Charles de Noailles, whose wife Marie-Laure de Noailles was one of France's wealthiest, the film was first shown in July 1930 in the De Noailles mansion. It was later shown on Octo­ber, 22 at the Panthéon Rive Gauche and on November 28 and December 3, 1930, at Studio 28 in Montmartre. During the final screening, the theater was vandalized by far-right militants shouting, "Let's see if there are any Christians left in France" and "Death to the Jews". They threw ink at the screen, released smoke bombs and stink bombs, and forced the audience to leave. The film was immediately censored for its anti-patriotic and an­ti-Christian content, and seized on De­cember, 12.
This "Revue-programme" [program leaflet], divided into 2 parts (the leaflet is to be flipped upside-down to read the second half), was published for the Studio 28 screenings in 1930. One part, the largest, of 38 pages, is devoted to Luis Buñuel's film and begins with a short text by Salvador Dali: "My gener­al idea when writing the script of L'Âge d'or with Buñuel was to present the straight and pure line of "conduct" of a being who pursues love through the despicable humanitarian, patriotic, and other wretched mechanisms of reality". The program includes the film's script, subtitles, dialogue, and a long essay ending with "Aspect social - éléments subversifs" written by the leading Sur­realists of the time. It also features the Catalogue des oeuvres exposées au Studio 28 ('Catalog of works exhibited at Studio 28'), a list of Surrealist books available at Corti's bookstore, and thirty black-and-white stills from the film.
Cinephile turned filmmaker, Jean Vigo was drawn to Buñuel's Surrealism in his first cinematic work, À Propos de Nice (1930), which includes surrealist-in­spired scenes such as bare feet being waxed and a woman smoking a cigarette before suddenly disrobing. This social documentary premiered two months before L'Âge d'or. Vigo had already ad­mired the "savage poetry" of Un chien andalou in an film critic that remains authoritative. Like Buñuel, Vigo was no stranger to scandal with his film Zero for Conduct (1933), heavily influenced by his difficult childhood and murdered anarchist father. It remained censored for over fifteen years. Shortly before Vigo's early death, the two filmmakers joined the Association des Écrivains et Artistes Révolutionnaires. Vigo's short-lived career was rediscovered by the Nouvelle Vague, notably Truffaut, who was"immediately overcome with an in­tense admiration for this [Vigo's] body of work, whose total runtime does not even reach 200 minutes".
An exceptional copy linking two tow­ering figures of cinema—Surrealist and Impressionist—indisputably connect­ed by their poetic and rebellious por­trayals of bourgeois society.
Provenance: Jean Vigo; Claude Aveline, his executor.

New edition.

Illustrated with 130 vignettes and a portrait of Perrault, by the greatest illustrators of the century: Tony Johannot, Achille Devéria, Jean Gigoux, Napoléon Thomas, Célestin Nanteuil, engraved by Jacoste Jeune.

Bound in half roan, smooth spine framed in gilt, marbled paper boards, endpapers and pastedowns in papier caillouté. 

This edition contains La Barbe Bleue, Le petit chaperon rouge, Les fées, La belle au bois dormant, Le Chat Botté, Cendrillon, Riquet a la houpe, Petit poucet, L'adroite princesse, Peau d'ane, Griselidis, followed by Lettre à M*** en lui envoyant Griselidis, and Les souhaits ridicules.
Dry stamp of Henry Bertrand's library on the title page.

Very rare, not in Brunet and Vicaire.