Portraits of Authors, Portraits of Artists

An original albumen carte-de-visite photograph of Eugène Delacroix, depicting the artist seated in a chair — his most famous portrait. The session at Pierre Petit’s studio yielded multiple poses; variants of this print survive at the Musée d’Orsay and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Mounted on card, with Pierre Petit’s signature in the lower margin and his studio advertisement on the verso.

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 photographic portrait of Sigmund Freud, in silver print made later by Engelman from the original negative.

After the Night of Broken Glass, the young Jewish photographer Edmund Engelman (1907-2000) fled to the United States leaving behind his precious but compromising negatives of his clandestine photography. He did not recover them until after the Second World War, in 1952, from the psychoanalyst's daughter Anna Freud.
Handwritten inscription signed by photographer Edmund Engelman in the lower margin of the photograph: “à Nadine Nimier Cordialement Edmund Engelman” (“To Nadine Nimier Sincerely Edmund Engelman”).
Nadine Nimier was the wife of the writer Roger Nimier. She hosted “Les après-midi de France Culture”, a show in which she received some well-known and highly respected psychoanalysts, namely Jacques Lacan and Françoise Dolto. It was on 20 January 1980 that she interviewed Edmund Engelman, then on a visit to Paris for the exhibition of his photographs at the Erval Gallery.

A beautiful portrait of the founder of psychoanalysis taken in May 1938, shortly before his departure from Vienna to London.

One hundred and six photographs were taken during Engelman's clandestine visit to Freud at 19 Berggasse in Vienna. Many of these photographs depicting the psychoanalyst's practice and art collection are known, but the artist only took a few portraits of the master. This photographic session was carried out at the request of August Aichhorn and bears witness to the last moments of the birthplace of psychoanalysis, a discipline from this point forward banned by the Nazi regime:
“On Sunday 13 March, a meeting of the management committee of the Viennese Psychoanalytical Society took place and two decisions were taken: all members of the Society must leave the country as quickly as possible and the headquarters of the Society must be at the place where Freud will settle.” (“August Aichhorn et la figure paternelle: fragments biographiques et cliniques” in Recherches en psychanalyse n° 1, 2004)

Edmund Engelman in his book entitled La Maison de Freud Berggasse 19 Vienne published in 1979 recounts:
“I remember both my excitement and my fear, that rainy morning of May 1938, as I walked through the deserted streets of Vienna towards 19, Berggasse. I carried my cameras, tripod, lenses and film in a small suitcase that seemed to get heavier with each step. I was convinced that anyone who saw me would know that I was going to see Dr Sigmund Freud, to accomplish a mission that the Nazis would not have appreciated. [...] I was afraid that there was not enough light to photograph the interior of Freud's house. Using flash or spotlights was out of the question as the Gestapo kept the house under constant surveillance. This unique document on the place where Freud had lived and worked over the past forty years, would have to be executed without arousing the slightest suspicion.

I feared for my own safety as for the lives of the Freuds, and did not want to compromise myself by a misstep when they were so close to leaving Vienna safe and sound. [...] One weekend in 1933, at the summer residence of a friend, outside of the city, I had the pleasure of meeting a certain August Aichhorn who was closely interested in the highly controversial field of psychoanalysis and was, to my keen curiosity, a close friend of the famous professor Freud. [...] We quickly became good friends. [...] He confided to me that Freud, after a terrible harassment (raid of his house by the Nazis, detention of his daughter Anna), had finally received permission to leave for London, thanks to the intervention of senior figures and foreign diplomats. The Freuds, he told me, would set out within ten days. The famous apartment and its offices would be disrupted by the move and the departure of the owners. We agreed that it would be of the greatest interest to the history of psychoanalysis to undertake a precious and detailed testimony of the place where it had been born, so that, according to the courageous expression of Aichhorn, “it would be possible to erect a museum when the storm of the years is over. [...] Knowing my interest and my quality as a photographer, he asked me if I felt able to take photographs of Freud's house. I was enthusiastic. [...] Above all, I was eager to know Freud who had then entrenched himself in his private life and had little relationship with the outside world.” (Engelman, La Maison de Freud Berggasse 19 Vienne, 1979)
The photographer then explained that Freud, very weakened by illness, was supposed to be absent during the photography session, however, “The next day – the third day – while I was about to take some complementary photographs of the office (experiencing there for the first time a feeling of routine), I heard small rapid footsteps approaching. It was Freud. He had changed his usual routine unexpectedly and, returning to his work room, he found me there. We looked at each other with equal astonishment. I was confused and embarrassed. He seemed worried, but remained calm and placid. I simply did not know what to say so I remained silent. Fortunately, Aichhorn then appeared in the room and immediately gauged the situation. He explained to Freud the purpose of my work and introduced me. We shook hands, obviously relieved. [...] I asked him if I could photograph him. He kindly consented and asked me to continue my shooting as I pleased. [...] I even suggested, if it could be useful, and to avoid trouble or wasting time, to take the necessary photos for the passports. [...] Freud, at my request, looked slightly in profile, took off his glasses, and reacted with a smile to one of those remarks that photographers make while they prepare.”
The photograph described by Engelman is without question the one we offer. Despite the very detailed description of this unusual photograph, it has not been preserved for the illustration of the book.

This very rare photographic portrait of the founder of psychoanalysis was taken a few days before his exile and revealing the stigma of a cancer that will be fatal to him.
It iss the only image of him revealing a smile.

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.

Rare photographic portrait of Amélie Destouches, aunt of Louis-Ferdinand Céline, in cabinet card format on albumen print mounted on cardboard from Studio Louis.
Manuscript captions "Suzannica 3 ans, Bucarest ce 14 juin 1877" ["Suzannica 3 years old, Bucharest this 14th June 1877"] and "Zenon Zawirski" in another hand, on verso.
The portrait was taken by Studio Louis, at 127 Calea Mosilor in Bucharest.
 
At twenty-four, Amélie married the wealthy Romanian Zenon Zawirski, who poses beside her with their daughter Zenone Zawirska, then three years old. Céline devoted an unflattering portrait to her in Death on the Installment Plan, borrowing her features for the character of Aunt Hélène, whose Slavic adventures he transposed to Russia rather than Romania. Though still alive when the novel was written, Céline nonetheless had his character die in dishonor and shame:
"Elle a pris tout le vent dans les voiles. Elle a bourlingué en Russie. À Saint-Pétersbourg, elle est devenue grue. À un moment, elle a eu tout, carrosse, trois traîneaux, un village rien que pour elle, avec son nom dessus. Elle est venue nous voir au Passage, deux fois de suite, frusquée, superbe, comme une princesse et heureuse et tout. Elle a terminé très tragiquement sous les balles d'un officier. Y avait pas de résistance chez elle. C'était tout viande, désir, musique. Il rendait papa, rien que d'y penser. Ma mère a conclu en apprenant son décès : 'Voilà une fin bien horrible ?! Mais c'est la fin d'une égoïste ?!'" ["She caught all the wind in her sails. She knocked around Russia. In St. Petersburg, she became a whore. At one point, she had everything, carriage, three sleighs, a village all to herself, with her name on it. She came to see us at the Passage, twice in a row, dressed up, superb, like a princess and happy and all. She ended very tragically under an officer's bullets. There was no resistance in her. She was all flesh, desire, music. It made papa sick, just thinking about it. My mother concluded on learning of her death: 'What a horrible end?! But it's the end of a selfish woman?!'"]

Original photograph mounted on rigid cardboard, showing Fernand Destouches, father of writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline (top right) posing alongside his brothers René, Georges and Charles - from top to bottom and left to right.
Edges of the rigid cardboard slightly bumped.
 
This portrait of the four Destouches brothers in uniform with laurel collar, dates from their happy schoolboy years at the Le Havre lyceum. The photograph, a true incarnation of a carefree and bygone past, must undoubtedly have held importance in the eyes of the four brothers, who would reproduce as adults the exact pose of this childhood portrait for a second, family portrait, preserved in the collection of François Gibault (Anton, Sonia, « Louis-Ferdinand Céline, d'un Havre à l'autre : entre autofiction, transposition et imaginaire », Le Territoire littéraire du Havre dans la première moitié du XX^è siècle, 2013, fig. 20, photograph taken around 1905).
 
Our photograph is reproduced on page 11 of the Album Céline (Gallimard, 1977).

Extremely rare original photograph showing Charles Baudelaire on albumen paper, contemporary print in carte de visite format, mounted on a board from the Nadar workshop, 35 boulevart (sic) des Capucines; “Photographic portrait for us taken by Nadar. Taken the same day as the previous one, same dimensions, same clothes. The waistcoat is still unbuttoned but Baudelaire hides his hands in the pockets of his trousers. Seen face on, he seems more troubled and sadder than in the previous attempt.” (Ourousof, 1896)
“Another carte de visite from the same day as the previous no. 41 [...] a contemporary albumen print found in the Musée d'Orsay collections (Provenance: from the Braive collection, then the Marie-Thérèse and André Jammes collection, 1991, acquired by the Musées Nationaux with the support of the Heritage fund [...] Musée d'Orsay, fiche 39389) (S. Plantureux, Charles Baudelaire ou le rêve d'un curieux).
This photo, taken in 1862, was sold between 1862 and 1871, as evidenced by the photographer's address on the back of the board. Only two of Baudelaire's poses seem to have been retained from this session.
“If photography is allowed to replace art in some of its functions, it will soon have replaced or corrupted it altogether, thanks to the natural alliance it will find with the multitude of nonsense” wrote Charles Baudelaire in the Salon de 1859.
We know of only fifteen different photographic portraits of Baudelaire, taken between 1855 and 1866 (three sessions at Nadar, three at Carjat and one at Neyt), for some of which there remains only one copy.
Baudelaire and Nadar met in 1843 and their friendship endured until the poet's death in 1867. The photographer shot a total of seven portraits of his friend between 1855 and 1862. The two men, full of admiration for one another, paid each other moving tributes in their respective works: Baudelaire dedicated “Le rêve d'un curieux” “The dream of a curious man” (in Les Fleurs du Mal) to the photographer, who dedicated to him, in addition to the photographic caricatures and portraits, an unvarnished work titled Charles Baudelaire intime: le poète vierge (1911).

Extremely rare and beautiful copy of this little-known photograph of Baudelaire by the most important French photographer of the 19th century.