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Original photograph by Lewis Carroll (Charles Ludwidge Dodgson), rectan­gular albumen print. The tondo portrait of the little girl gives way to a partic­ularly visible collodion emulsion, also bearing the number added by Carroll in the negative at top left. Discreet resto­ration at the ends of the plate, a diago­nal fold in the upper left corner.

Extraordinary photograph of Lewis Carroll's favorite sitter Xie Kitchin, one of the first portraits of his young muse, then aged 5. One of the few retaining as much of the collodion emulsion peel­ing away from the edges of the glass negative - a deliberate artistic choice by Carroll. 

The use of the collodion process, dubbed "black art" is in fact insepa­rable from Carroll's creative process. He discovered photography through this new technique and described it as "completely scientific and wonderfully mysterious," requiring long exposures and tedious handling which appealed to his inventor side. In addition to be­ing a practitioner, he also wrote a book on the subject, titled Photography Ex­traordinary. Twenty-three years later as he wrote in his memoirs, Carroll aban­doned photography when collodion disappeared in favor of dry plate. This extremely rare print bears witness to this complex technique, revealing the portrait of little Xie surrounded by a dark, tormented halo induced by the chemical collodion reaction.
Carroll immortalises one of his most fa­mous little girls, who along with Alice Liddell has become the very symbol of his photographic work. The striking portrait embodies Victorian ideals of childhood, reflecting Carroll's belief in the child's innocence rooted in their perceived temporal proximity to God, shielding them from sin and the cor­rupting influences of society. Alexan­dria "Xie" Kitchin, daughter of one of the writer-photographer's colleagues at Christ Church, appeared in no few­er than fifty of his photographs. This portrait dates from their earliest ses­sions, taken in August 1869 at his Badcock's Yard studio.
A marvelous example of Lewis Car­roll's ceaseless pursuit of beauty and a testament to his mastery of the pho­tographic arts.
Edward Wakeling, IN-1710, p. 204. 
Provenance: Sotheby's London, 08/05/1992, lot no. 186. Another print in smaller format was sold in 2023 - cropped without the number added by Dodgson in the negative.
We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of M. Alan Tannenbaum in the cataloguing of this photograph.

Complete and mostly unpublished autograph manuscript by Mouloud Feraoun, dated by the author from “December 1956” to “July 1958”, for his work "Les Poèmes de Si Mohand", published in 1960 by Éditions de Minuit. Numerous erasures, corrections, deleted passages, and additions.

178 manuscript pages in blue and black ink, written in a lined Séyès notebook, with the autograph title “Si Mohand” on the upper cover; a manuscript slip tipped onto page 53 and numbered by the author; also preserved in the notebook: 5 typescript pages with autograph corrections, entitled “Voyage de Si Mohand de Maison Carrée à Michelet (Recueilli par la P. Giacobetti des P. B. à Beni-Yenni, en 1906 peu de temps après la mort du poète)” [Si Mohand's travel from Maison Carrée at Michelet (Transcribed by F[ather] Giacobetti of the B[enedictine] F[athers], in 1906 shortly after the poet's death)]. A few scattered spots, a burn mark on the final pages of the notebook. Dampstains and smudging to the covers.

Together with: two autograph letters addressed to Mouloud Feraoun. The first, from J. Simon, dated 4 September 1956; the second, from Emmanuel Roblès, written between 1957 and 1958. An original photograph of Mouloud Feraoun alongside Emmanuel Roblès.

Exceptional manuscript of the last book published by Algerian writer Mouloud Feraoun before his assassination by the OAS: the first collected edition of the great Berber poet Si Mohand also known as Mhand (ca. 1840-1906), whose poems had been transmitted orally for nearly a century.

Despite the considerable difference between this original manuscript and the much-abridged published version, we have found no record of any other manuscript version of "Les Poèmes de Si Mohand". All other known manuscripts of Feraoun’s works and writings are held at the Fondation Mouloud Feraoun in Algiers.

Photographic postcard issued by the television weekly Télé 7 Jours, depicting Guy Lux smoking a cigarette.

A well-preserved example.

Signed by Guy Lux in blue felt-tip pen.

Original black and white photograph depicting Valéry Giscard d'Estaing posing frontally.

A fine copy. Original envelope with the letterhead of the French Presidency included.

Inscribed and signed tribute by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing in blue ink.

Provenance: from the collection of the noted autograph collector Claude Armand.

Original black and white photograph, dated and inscribed by Jacques Chirac.

A handsome copy.

Autograph inscription, dated and signed by Jacques Chirac: "Avec mes amitiés J. Chirac 24 4 74."

Provenance: from the collection of the noted autograph collector Claude Armand.

Autograph postcard signed by André Malraux, sent from Port-au-Prince to their friends Minka and Karl Hans Strauss, 15 lines in blue ballpoint pen.
The postcard reproduces the painting by Haitian artist Philomé Obin entitled: "Philomé Obin recevant quelques clients étrangers".
"Chers amis, je vous remercie du beau sac qui se promène avec moi sous les palmiers... Il fait beau, la peinture est passionnante et nous vous envoyons tous nos souhaits de bonne année."
After separating from his wife Madeleine in the late 1960s, André Malraux entered into a new relationship with the writer Louise de Vilmorin and moved in with her at the Château de Vilmorin in Verrières-le-Buisson. Following her passing on 26 December 1969, Malraux remained at the château with Louise’s niece, Sophie de Vilmorin, who became his final companion and cared for him until his death on 23 November 1976.





 

Original portrait of James Joyce, signed and dated by Freund on the left and right of the mount, just below the image. With the monogrammed dry stamp "GF" in the corner of the print, and "Gisèle Freund All Rights Reserved" violet stamp on verso.
Large-format portraits of Joyce are extremely rare.
A striking photograph of James Joyce taken during his legendary photo shoot with Gisèle Freund to promote Finnegan's wake. The Kodak negatives were rescued from a taxi accident suffered by Freund on her way back from Joyce's house. Freund's color portraits would place her at the forefront of modernity.
In 1938, after two years of refusals and postponements, Freund had finally shot her first black-and-white portraits of the writer, taken on the spot and almost unbeknownst to the visually-impaired Joyce. The following year, Freund fought hard to photograph Joyce in color: "It was Sylvia Beach who found the trick. An Irishman who felt intimately linked to his novelistic characters, Joyce was also very superstitious. It just so happened that my husband's name was the same as one of the heroes in Ulysses", Freund wrote in her personal notebook. Thanks to the magical invocation of Blum's name (so close to Leopold Bloom) the writer overcame his aversion of color portraiture, a technique Freund was one of the first to master. The session happened over two days, March 8 and 9, 1939, and can easily be described as one of the most emotionally charged events of Gisèle Freund's young career, not to mention Joyce's. The first day ended with the infamous cab accident that Freund considered as supernatural intervention:

"I'm leaving at 5 a.m. - Taxi - crash - devices on the ground. I cry in despair. At home, I immediately telephone Joyce 'M. Joyce, you damned my photos - you put some kind of a sad Irish spell on them and my cab crashed. I was almost killed and your photos are ruined.' Hear Joyce gasping over the phone. So I was right - he had wished me bad luck. Silence. then [he said] 'come back to-morrow' "

The negatives emerged unscathed from the cab accident. This portrait was undoubtedly shot on first day of the session before the accident, showing an anxious Joyce carefully avoiding the camera's gaze. The event was meticulously documented by Freund, who devotes more pages to it in her notebook than to the hundred or so other subjects she photographed between 1938 and 1940:

"He had donned a red indoor jacket and his long, sensitive hands wore several rings. He seemed quite unhappy at the idea of being photographed, and gave me worried looks. His nervousness got the better of me: I began to drop objects, and the atmosphere became increasingly tense. [...] I pressed the shutter release and finished my film as quickly as possible, before promising the patient that this time, I'd really never bother him again. Clearly relieved, he kept me on for a few more minutes, and we talked about Finnegan's Wake, speculating on how it would be received by critics and audiences alike. By the end, my interlocutor's voice had become weak, exhausted; he spoke of death - his death - predicting that Finnegan's Wake would be his last book. I assured him that after years of intense work, all writers are depressed, exhausted; that he was still young (he was only 56)".

A rare variant of Joyce's portrait published on the cover of Time Magazine, following the publication of his last masterpiece Finnegan's Wake (1939).
Quotes from Gisèle Freund's notebook and diary are from Monique Sicard, "Photographier James Joyce", Genesis, 40 | 2015.