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Lot 62

CÉZANNE (PAUL)
Autograph letter signed, to Octave Mirbeau, Aix, 22 November [1902]

20 November 2024, 13:00 GMT
London, Knightsbridge

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CÉZANNE (PAUL)

Autograph letter signed ("Paul Cézanne"), to Octave Mirbeau ("Cher Maître"), in French, mentioning he has received personal news of Monet which he can not reveal for fear of being indiscrete, and recalling their meeting at Monet's house at Giverny ("...Veuillez agréer l'expression de ma plus vive reconnaissance pour le bon souvenir que vous avez gardé de ma rencontre avec vous, chez le maître de Giverny..."), beginning by recommending a young man from Cévennes for whom he foresees a great future, and asking him to take an interest in him, 2 pages on a bifolium, squared paper, 'Fort Vieil' watermark, dust-staining and marks, creased at folds, small repairs to folds, 8vo (217 x 137mm.), Aix, 22 November [1902]

Footnotes

One of only three known letters from Cézanne to Octave Mirbeau (1848-1917), avante-garde novelist, critic and journalist, and an early advocate of 'the great gods nearest to his heart', the new Impressionist artists such as Rodin, Monet, Pissarro, Gauguin and Cézanne. Mirbeau believed Cézanne to be the 'painter of painters' and owned no less than thirteen of his paintings, and Cézanne in turn regarded Mirbeau to be the foremost writer of the period. The young man recommended by Cézanne is poet Léo Larguier (1878-1950), who enjoyed a lifelong friendship with the artist and wrote Le Dimanche avec Paul Cézanne, published in 1925. The meeting at Giverny to which he refers was a celebrated lunch with Monet on 28 November 1894, also attended by Rodin, Clemenceau, Geffroy and Mirbeau. Our letter is published in Alex Danchev, The Letters of Paul Cézanne, 2013, no.221, p.324 but is not in John Rewald, Paul Cézanne, Letters, 1941.

Provenance: Sotheby's New York, 16 May 1991, lot 13; Laurin, Guilloux, Buffetaud, Paris, 10 March 1996, lot 12; Artcurial, Paris, 2 April 2019, lot 327.

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