"Désormais tes cadres sont moches, tes miroirs troubles comme une conscience d'honnête homme, et tes papillons sont - horreur ! - fidèles !"

Beautiful autograph letter signed by Colette addressed to her friend Bolette Natanson. Two pages written in ink on blue paper. Transverse creases inherent to the folding of the missive.
This letter was probably addressed to Bolette following a gift made to her "old friend": "Ah! dangerous Bolette! I can say nothing in front of you. Here are the two charming thick little vessels that emigrate to my home." This is an opportunity for Colette, very pleased with this new gift, to humorously devalue the designer's previous works: "From now on your frames are ugly, your mirrors troubled like an honest man's conscience, and your butterflies are - horror! - faithful!" The famous "butterflies", naturalized and enclosed in glass frames, are visible in several photographs of the writer in her home.
Having evolved since her earliest childhood in artistic circles - she is the daughter of Alexandre and 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 sewing, she left Paris for the United States with Misia Sert, great friend of Coco Chanel, and was hired by 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 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 realization of Colette's beauty institute storefront 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.