To offer a unique work of art is to share the singularity of an artistic gesture. A piece that exists in only one example carries an immediate presence, a direct trace of creation. It is a rare gift, establishing a tangible link between the artist and the person who receives it.
Photographic portrait of Eugène Delacroix
Original photograph on albumen paper, in carte de visite format, mounted on a board. Some small foxing.
Rare copy of this photograph, only found at Carnavalet, Louvre and Orsay museums.
Original photograph of the first edition of Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary dressed in a signed binding on a library background.
Printed on Premium Luster 270 g, laminated on Dibond (aluminum).
Hanging system on reverse.
Certificate of authenticity provided by Librairie Le Feu Follet.
Photo credits @Librairie Le Feu Follet. All rights reserved.
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.
Original ink drawing, signed E. Devéria in the lower right.
Portrait of a young man in formal attire, holding a handkerchief in his left hand.
Eugène Devéria (1805–1865) was one of the major painters of the Romantic movement alongside Eugène Delacroix. From the start, his submissions to the Salon attracted notice, culminating in 1827 with la Naissance de Henri IV [The Birth of Henry IV], which enjoyed considerable success. He continued to depict historical scenes, notably Puget presenting his Milon of Crotone to Louis XIV for a Louvre ceiling. Shortly thereafter, invited to leave the capital, his work became more discreet. Nevertheless, he remained a reference artist for Romanticism, mingling with painters and writers and producing elegant figures rendered with precise and fluid line.
Les Maîtres de l'Affiche – imprimerie Chaix | Paris 1896 | plate: 29 x 39.9 cm | frame: 38 x4 3.5 cm | framed lithograph poster on vélin fin paper
NB: The poster is sold framed, but would have to be shipped without the frame.
Recto verso fragments of a manuscript book of hours on parchment with sumptuously illuminated full-page borders. This compartmentalized division of ornaments is representative of the production from Rouen and Parisian workshops at the turn of the 16th century.
Two illuminated pages on a recto verso leaf: border divided into bands and lozenges decorated with floral motifs and leafy designs, gilt initials painted in alternating red and blue and rubrics.
The richness of the illumination characterizes these liturgical books intended for laypeople. Books of hours were at the time jewels of piety, both an instrument of religious practice and a social statement affirmed by the richness of the artists' work. A true small painting, this leaf is probably extracted from a luxurious volume where each page was carefully painted.
We find here a fragment of the Office of the Dead at the moment of the first nocturn of matins. On the recto of the leaf: antiphon "Dirige me" followed by psalm five "Verba mea auribus percipe, Domine...". The office of the dead is a set of prayers dedicated to the salvation of the souls of the deceased. More than commiseration, this devotion reflects the constant fear of medieval men for death.
Script called cursiva libraria on long lines. Witness to the formalization of cursive script at the dawn of the French Renaissance, this script is emblematic of the production of French scribes for laypeople during the period.
Extremely rare original medallion photograph on albumen paper, carte de visite format, mounted on a card from Anatole Pougnet’s Paris studio. Manuscript annotations on the verso. No other copy of this photograph has been traced in international public collections.
Photographic portrait of Eugène Delacroix
Original photograph on albumin paper, in a visiting-card format, laid down on card. Foxing.
Very rare copy of this photograph, only found at Carnavalet, Louvre and Orsay museums.
