"Tu es ma "provision d'hiver", la jeunesse dont j'aurai besoin, plus tard, bien plus encore qu'à présent"

Fine autograph letter signed by Colette to her friend Bolette Natanson. Two pages written in ink on blue paper. Horizontal folds inherent to the mailing of the letter.
As ever protective and maternal with her friend, Colette compliments her: "Comme tu es gentille, - comme tu es Bolette". Nineteen years her senior, she praises the youth of "[her] child": "Tu es ma 'provision d'hiver', la jeunesse dont j'aurai besoin, plus tard, bien plus encore qu'à présent. Soigne-toi bien ma jeunesse en grange".
Having grown up from early childhood in artistic circles—she was the daughter of Alexandre and the niece of Thadée Natanson, the founders of the celebrated Revue Blanche—Bolette Natanson (1892-1936) formed friendships with Jean Cocteau, Raymond Radiguet, Georges Auric, Jean Hugo, and Colette.
Passionate about dressmaking, she left Paris for the United States with Misia Sert, a close friend of Coco Chanel, and was employed at Goodman. With her husband Jean-Charles Moreux, they opened in 1929 the gallery Les Cadres on boulevard Saint-Honoré and moved in the company of numerous artists and intellectuals. Their success was immediate and they multiplied commissions: the fireplace for Winnaretta de Polignac, the decoration of the Château de Maulny, the arrangement of Baron de Rothschild’s townhouse, the creation of frames for the industrialist Bernard Reichenbach, and finally the design of the shopfront for Colette’s beauty institute in 1932. Bolette Natanson also framed the works of her distinguished painter friends: Bonnard, Braque, Picasso, Vuillard, Man Ray, André Dunoyer de Segonzac, and others. Despite this dazzling ascent, she took her own life in December 1936, a few months after the death of her father.