"You are the only Algerian writer to have thought that this news, the importance of which I do not exaggerate, could affect me at a time when all my anguish is directed towards Algeria."

Original photograph, likely unique and unpublished, of Pablo Picasso at the Casa di Marco Lucrezio, Pompeii spring 1917

Paris 1917 | 6,3 x 8,6 cm | one photograph

A young romantic painter, a libertine wife, a workshop with the scent of an alcove, the nicknames of secret lovers, a mysterious passion and an unfinished child's portrait.
Enter the painter's loving intimacy and discover the true name of "the Italian lady", the young Delacroix's burning secret passion.
From the love of art to the arts of Love, Eugene trades the brush for the pen and writes - anonymously - letters imprinted with spleen and ideal, in which he "plunges his soul into oblivion without remorse , and, carrying the vertigo, the failing rolls to the shores of death! »

Two years after The Flowers of Evil, Baudelaire confidentially published a "literary notice" on Gautier for which he obtained a preface letter from Victor Hugo. Under its appearance of simple panegyric of the impeccable poet, this unique literary collaboration is the place of a major ideological fight between the two immense poets who sign here their respective manifestos: that of the art for the art against that of the art for the progress. Discover, through this exceptional copy offered to Paul Meurice, close friend of the two giants, the story of this tempestuous meeting between the Albatross and the Ocean Man.

First edition on ordinary paper, illustrated with drawings by Madeleine Lemaire including 14 inset, preface by Anatole France and scores by Reynaldo Hahn.

Bound in half red shagreen, spine in five compartments, marbled endpapers, large gilt lace tooling frame on the inner covers, wrappers and spine preserved, top edge gilt, gilt fillet on the leading edges, contemporary binding signed by Franz.

Taken in May 1938, this unpublished portrait has been printed only after WWII when the negatives of this amazing and latest photo shoot – organized despite the constant surveillance of the Gestapo – were recovered thanks to Anna Freud.

The question of the prevalence of one edition over the other, between the two first edition published on 1862, April, 3, in Bruxelles and Paris simultaneously, has long stirred the bibliophilic world and bibliographers remain divided on this thorny issue.