Correspondences

First edition, one of 1050 numbered copies on laid paper.
Publisher's binding after Paul Bonet's original design.
Handsome copy despite a slight scratch at the head of the spine.

Autograph letter signed by Charles Baudelaire to Narcisse Ancelle, written in black ink on a sheet of blue paper.

Folds from mailing, three minute pinholes not affecting the text.

This letter was transcribed in the Complete Works volume 11 published in 1949 by L. Conard.

A moving letter from Brussels addressed to the celebrated family notary who became in 1844 Charles's legal guardian, charged with managing his annuity and his exponential debts. A complex relationship developed between the poet and his guardian, mingling necessity and mistrust, yet nonetheless bearing witness to genuine mutual respect between the two men.

This correspondence, devoid of the emotional quality of his letters to his mother or the circumlocutions in his exchanges with creditors, constitutes one of the most precious biographical sources on the poet. Indeed, Baudelaire's financial dependence constrained him to great transparency with his guardian, and each of his letters to Ancelle admirably summarizes his wanderings.

Thus, this letter evokes the terrible mire in which the poet found himself in Belgium and his constantly postponed return to Paris. When he writes, Baudelaire is still in Brussels at the Hôtel du Grand Miroir, "28 rue de la Montagne" (but one must not write the hotel's name, otherwise letters do not reach him directly), where he is dying of boredom, illness, and resentment toward a country in which he innocently believed he would find glory. This announcement of imminent departure for Paris, "Two or three days after your reply I will leave," echoes all the similar promises the poet has made for nearly a year to his correspondents. This one will be aborted, like all the others, for as he confesses to Ancelle a few months earlier, Paris fills him with "a dog's fear." It is only in August 1865 that he will make a final and brief stay in France before his fatal stroke.

His return, "I am eagerly awaited in Paris and in Honfleur," was nevertheless motivated by a compelling reason: to negotiate with a publisher, through Manet's intervention, the publication of his collection of reflections on his contemporaries which he had already titled My Heart Laid Bare (Mon cœur mis à nu) and whose manuscript is partly at his mother's house in Honfleur. Another failure—the work would not appear until 1897, thirty years after Baudelaire's death.

But it is undoubtedly the reference to the "two large paintings [he wishes to] send to Honfleur" that gives this letter all its significance. Baudelaire evokes his wish to repatriate paintings from his collection that he left with various lenders or restorers, of which he had already sent a list to Ancelle a few months earlier. Among these, which ones did he want to bring back to his mother? His father's portrait, the Boilly, the Manet, a Constantin Guys? There is no mention in other letters of this art shipment and of the "remainder" to which the paintings were to be joined. This desire to "send to Honfleur" his precious belongings nonetheless testifies to the weakened poet's wish to settle permanently in his mother's "jewel-house" in Honfleur, an island of serenity where Baudelaire dreamed of a peaceful retreat where all would once again be "order and beauty, luxury, calm and voluptuousness." He would indeed return there, paralyzed and mute, but for a final year of agony after his syphilitic crisis. The Hôtel du Grand Miroir would remain his last true dwelling, as noted on Tuesday, April 3, 1866, in the register of admissions at the Saint-Jean Clinic: "Name and first names: Baudelaire Charles. Address: France and 28 rue de la Montagne. Profession: man of letters. Illness: apoplexy."

A fine letter to the man who was both Baudelaire's persecutor and protector. He accompanied the poet until his death, before becoming executor of the family estate.

Autograph letter signed, partly unpublished, by Louis-Ferdinand Céline, addressed to his lawyer, Maître Thorvald Mikkelsen. Two pages written in blue ink on a large sheet of white paper; numbered “575” in Céline’s hand in red pencil at the top left corner.
Fold marks from mailing.
This letter was only partially transcribed in Année Céline 2005, p. 64.
 
A moving and bitter letter by Céline, who had just lost his aunt Amélie (the “Aunt Hélène” of Death on Credit), and witnesses the slow disappearance of the world he once knew. The writer finds solace in the memoirs of Élisabeth de Gramont, another witness to a bygone era.

Fine autograph letter signed by Colette addressed to her friend Bolette Natanson. Two pages written in ink on blue headed paper from the Marignan building, the writer's residence between 1936 and 1938. Transverse folds inherent to the folding of the letter for mailing.
Moving letter addressed by Colette to her close friend following the death of her father Alexandre Natanson: "[...] ce dimanche va être un dimanche bien pénible. Je t'écris à l'heure juste où tu conduis ton père." ["this Sunday is going to be a very painful Sunday. I am writing to you at the very moment when you are laying your father to rest."] Conscious of the suffering and "chagrin" ["grief"] of her "chère Bolette" ["dear Bolette"], she affectionately offers her support "On croit toujours que la pensée, qui est une force, touche son but aussi bien qu'un message écrit." ["We always believe that thought, which is a force, reaches its target as well as a written message."], ending her letter with a very beautiful declaration: "Beaucoup de visages humains se penchent vers le tien et tu ne les aimes pas tous. Le mien, que tu ne verras pas, te suit de loin et s'inquiète de toi." ["Many human faces lean toward yours and you do not love them all. Mine, which you will not see, follows you from afar and worries about you."] Bolette would commit suicide a few months later.
Having evolved since her earliest childhood in artistic circles - she was the daughter of Alexandre and the niece of Thadée Natanson, the creators of the famous Revue Blanche - Bolette Natanson (1892-1936) became friends with Jean Cocteau, Raymond Radiguet, Georges Auric, Jean Hugo and also Colette.
Passionate about couture, she left Paris for the United States with Misia Sert, a great friend of Coco Chanel, and was hired at Goodman. With her husband Jean-Charles Moreux, they created in 1929 the gallery Les Cadres on boulevard Saint-Honoré and frequented numerous artists and intellectuals. Their success was immediate and they multiplied their projects: the creation of the fireplace for Winnaretta de Polignac, the decoration of the château de Maulny, the arrangement of Baron de Rothschild's private mansion, the creation of frames for industrialist Bernard Reichenbach and finally the creation of the storefront for Colette's beauty institute in 1932. Bolette Natanson also framed the works of her prestigious painter friends: Bonnard, Braque, Picasso, Vuillard, Man Ray, André Dunoyer de Segonzac, etc. Despite this meteoric rise, she would end her life in December 1936, a few months after her father's death.

Original drawing dated and signed by Louis Pons, to his friend art critic Georges Raillard, specialist in the works of Joan Miro and Antoni Tapies, which he dedicated to him on the invitation card for the opening of the exhibition of his works at the Château de Vascoeuil on Saturday, March 29, 2008.
 Louis Pons drew, in black ink, on the recto and verso, a curious bird: a magpie huddled in on itself and apparently convalescent surmounted by this manuscript dedication: "Paris ? ? Mars 2008, j'espère que ta santé est meilleure. Amitiés de Nelly et Louis Pons." ["Paris ? ? March 2008, I hope your health is better. Friendship from Nelly and Louis Pons."]

Autograph letter signed by Antoni Tàpies addressed to Georges Raillard, his close friend and greatest French specialist of his work. Sheet written in blue ballpoint pen on letterhead paper bearing the author's name with his Barcelona address at the bottom "C. Zaragoza, 57 - Tel. 217 33 98 - Barcelona-6". Traces of folds inherent to the letter's envelope insertion.
The Catalan artist writes to his friend about newspaper articles, including one published in the Catalan daily l'Avui: "Voici l'article que tu m'as demandé. J'ajoute un de l'AVUI où j'amplifie quelques détails. Merci encore pour ta présence à Sénanque. Nous pensons beaucoup à vous et envoyons nos félicitations pour le petit-fils..." ["Here is the article you asked me for. I'm adding one from l'AVUI where I expand on some details. Thank you again for your presence at Sénanque. We think of you often and send our congratulations for the grandson..."]
An exhibition by Antoni Tàpies had been organized at Sénanque Abbey from July 9 to August 29, 1983.