Les Nourritures terrestres

Second edition, one of 300 numbered copies on Rives paper.

In wrappers, small tears to the margins, a stain to the upper cover which is slightly sunned, split joints with minor loss to the spine, a few brown stains to the opening leaves: a Balthusian state of wear, eloquent testimony to the attention he bestowed upon Gide's masterpiece.

Exceptional presentation copy, inscirbed by André Gide to the young Balthus: "à Baltusz Klossowski / en l'attendant / André Gide / février 24" ["to Baltusz Klossowski / waiting for him / André Gide / February 24".

The illustrious recipient has annotated and underlined several passages throughout the text.

In 1924, Balthasar Kłossowski met Gide through the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, the intimate tutelary figure of his youth. Already at Rilke's recommendation, Balthus's brother and future writer Pierre Kłossowski had settled the previous year at Gide's home on the rue de Montmorency. He had developed a close relationship with Gide, who had initially employed him as secretary to complete Les Faux-Monnayeurs. Rilke encouraged Balthus to make his way to Paris as well, presented him with a copy of Wilhelm Worringer's history of panel painting, and placed him under Gide's guardianship.

A month before welcoming him to Paris, Gide sent the young Balthus this superb inscription, disarming in its simplicity, "en l'attendant" [ while awaiting his arrival]. He uses the spelling "Baltusz", with an extra z and without the h: the same Balthus had chosen for his very first book Mitsou, made with Rilke, which had already brought him fame.

Doubtless as a prelude to their meeting, Les Nourritures terrestres constitutes the mentor's first lesson to his disciple. Balthus would read attentively the precepts of the book's celebrated narrator. The dangerous sage, at once initiator and tempter, addresses Nathanaël and seeks to impart his philosophy of life, drawn from the teachings of Ménalque.

Balthus underlined several passages in pencil and added, on three occasions, cryptic annotations, including one in Italian alongside the following paragraph:

“I can no more be grateful to ‘God’ for having created me than I could blame Him for not existing - if I did not exist.”
 (p. 46)

Like Rilke before him, the young painter ultimately turned away from formal schooling and allowed the city, the old masters on display at the Louvre (and no doubt this masterpiece by Gide) to serve as his teachers. The two brothers continued to orbit around Gide for several years, as recorded in his Cahiers de la Petite Dame: they were on hand to assist with preparations for Gide's departures to the Congo and to the USSR.

“May my book teach you to take a greater interest in yourself than in it - and then in everything else more than in yourself.” so Gide writes in the preface to this initiatory book, gifted to the young Balthus whose promise as an artist was already beyond question.