Paris (France)

Ink and watercolour portrait of the poet Paul Verlaine by his friend Marie Crance, bearing the artist's signature and the handwritten caption “Paul Verlaine à l'hôpital”.

A single sheet, presented in a frame with a mount. An inscription on the back of the frame—“written in the margin (by the framer): ‘For Messrs. Thénot and Lercey, 25 April 1894’”—provides a likely terminus post quem for the drawing.
 
Marie Crance (1860–1945), nicknamed Marie-aux-fleurs, was at the time the companion of the illustrator Frédéric-Auguste Cazals, whom she married in 1912. A laundress, maid, and occasional singer in the poet’s favourite dives, she was also a loyal friend and caretaker to Verlaine. She tended his ailing leg when he avoided doctors and took refuge in modest hotels on the outskirts of Paris. Cheerful, unpretentious, and full of life, she also visited him during his hospital stays at Broussais, Tenon, Cochin, and Saint-Antoine, where she made this bust portrait of the poet—his piercing gaze and stiffened figure shaped by age and chronic rheumatism. Verlaine dedicated a sonnet to her in the second edition of Dédicaces, along with a charming drawing (Verlaine, Lettres inédites [...], ed. Georges Zayed, 1976, p. 45):
 
« Je veux donc dire de ma voix la mieux timbrée,
Et les tracer du bec de ma meilleure plume,
Vos mérites et vos vertus dans l’amertume
Douce de vous savoir d’un autre énamourée
Mais d’un autre... »
 
A moving portrait of the wandering poet, curiously resilient, his form dissolving into the softness of the watercolour.

Very rare first edition for Le Gouté des porcherons, with the complete title Nouv. ed. augm. des Citrons de Javotte, histoire de carnaval. Et enrichie d'une Lettre amoureuse de M. Jambe de Creux, charbonnier à mademoiselle Catau, ravaudeuse. Le tout pour servir de Dessert au Déjeuner de La Rapée.
Third edition of La Pipe cassée and fourth for Bouquets poissards and Bouquets galants.
Contemporary half-sheep binding, smooth spine decorated with gilt fillets and a blonde sheep title-label, paste-paper boards. Some rubbing and minimal paper lacks to boards. First leaves somewhat stained without gravity.
Les Porcherons is a former district of the Paris suburbs between La Pologne to the West and the faubourg Montmartre to the East.
All the texts of these poissard songs are very valuable for the study of 18th-century Parisian slang.
Only three copies on the American continent: Newberry, Toronto and Montreal.

Edition illustrated with 10 original color lithographs hors-texte by Jean-Gabriel Domergue, one of 40 numbered copies on Rives vellum.
Half red morocco binding with bands, smooth spine, date gilt at tail, boards, endpapers and pastedowns of moiré and gilt effect paper, covers and spine preserved, top edge gilt, contemporary binding signed Gauché.
The work is also ornamented with 26 illustrations in the text, in one or two tones, as chapter headpieces, tailpieces in red by Jean-Gabriel Domergue.
Handsome copy containing the full suite of 18 in-text illustrations.
Manuscript annotation in blue ballpoint pen on the title page: unique copy.
Indeed, on two hors-texte lithographs (including the frontispiece) and two in-text illustrations representing women clothed or nude, pieces of tulle have been added as dresses.
Furthermore, at the end of the volume, numerous press clippings relating to the life and style of Jean-Gabriel Domergue have been pasted onto the endpapers.
Signed autograph inscription by Pierre Harel-Darc, the dedicatee's name having been properly erased enriched with a signed autograph inscription by Jean-Gabriel Domergue enhanced with an original drawing representing the face of a Parisian woman.