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190
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At the House of the Lady of the Camellias
See original version (French)
190
-
At the House of the Lady of the Camellias
See original version (French)
Estimate €1,200 - €1,500
Voluntary lot
Description
At the House of the Lady of the Camellias
Ferdinand BAC. Correspondence addressed to Émilienne Dejeux. 1947–1952. Approximately 55 letters, approximately 95 pp., in-4 and in-8 formats, some featuring coloured pencil drawings.
In 1946, to mark the centenary of Alphonsine Duplessis’s death, Ferdinand Bac met Émilienne Dejeux, who ran a dressmaking workshop in the Lady of the Camellias’ flat at 15 Boulevard de la Madeleine, where she exhibited a few mementoes. She decided to turn this small exhibition into a proper museum, and Bac – who now called her simply ‘Émily’ – promised her some sixty drawings. On bad terms with her landlord, she then moved to 15 Rue de Navarin, converting the flat to open her romantic museum. With Bac’s drawings on display, she sent out invitations, organised cocktail parties, ran up debts, and Bac sent her new drawings so that she could sell them for her own profit. In June 1948, Bac, who was staying with his friends the Ladan-Bockairys in Compiègne, travelled to Paris to visit the museum, and a reception was organised in his honour. He left feeling full of hope for the future of this little museum.
Alas! After a short while, the museum was quickly abandoned by its visitors, and Émilienne Lejeux, if Bac’s biographer is to be believed, became a fortune-teller. She supplemented her income by selling Bac’s drawings one by one.
- 29 June 1947: ‘Emily, you, above all, are “miraculous”. You prove my maxim right regarding the immense superiority of women – of certain women – in terms of sensitivity and understanding. – 19 August 1947: ‘We’ve done some fine work. Everything is sorted, measured, and the frames and papers chosen for each portrait. The variety is incredible… I’ve removed Henriette Sonntag (she smacks of the Krauts) and replaced her with a splendid ‘Queen of Etruria at the Tuileries’ with a dagger and a fatal air (the divine, soon-to-be Countess of Castiglione, the last romantic). ” – 24 September 1947: “I’ve moved back into my bedroom to work. The drawing room is an icebox. So I’m living once again in a space 2.5 metres by 4 metres wide, with a mountain of papers that fills me with dread. I work like an amateur, switching from one thing to another. My work is finished.” – 2 October 1947: “There’s a great deal of excitement in high society about your museum.” – 7 October 1947: “After the most intelligent man in France, yesterday I met the President of the Alliance Française des Alpes-Maritimes. A very enthusiastic couple. He is preparing to give a lecture in the garden at Les Colombières to the Mediterranean Circle.” –, 19 November 1947: “Emily, the centenarian’s eyes are very tired… I am struggling to write a long memoir for posterity about Victor Hugo and his romantic poses on the rock… So I am a ticking time bomb. ” – 20 November 1947 (wedding of Elizabeth of England). “Her mother (of my royal Mountbatten) was so pretty 25 years ago that one night I dreamt of her favours. But don’t tell anyone. It would give me a bad reputation. We are no longer under the reign of George III or IV, when all Queen Charlotte’s lovers were paraded before the High Court (not a word about that). ’ – 9 December 1947: ‘Enclosed with your letter is a request from a President (not from here) to have me appear at a royal castle to represent, in the flesh, the last person to have known Mérimée and one of Eugenia Guzman’s final visitors. ” – 31 December 1947 “Recommendations”: “First and foremost, I would like it to be known that a man in his 89th year does not wish for publicity. I prefer to be treated as a man who has long since passed away. ” – 17 January 1948: “Above all, the drawings given to donors must never be anything other than a token of gratitude and not an invitation – that is to say, a sort of fuss (a fuss without noise)… We must avoid turning the museum into anything other than a private enterprise that is entirely free of charge, for the coldest of cold monsters might one day pounce upon you and impose its will as it sees fit… So no external signage.” – 3 May 1948: Before the day comes when you introduce to friends and the indifferent the unique community that surrounds you today within these walls, I would like to express my gratitude for so much enthusiasm… and so much effort thereafter, in order to honour my realised vision and pass it on to a worthy future. ’ – 16 May 1948: ‘Emily, I am 137 years old. You can check in a history book by a professor at the Faculty. I was involved in the failed coup in Strasbourg in 1837. Do the maths!’ – 31 May 1948: “The small ‘romantic’ private museum to which I donated the portraits is intended as a gift to the City of Paris… the organiser… has temporarily housed the collection in her home pending its transfer to the Town Hall of the 9th arrondissement or to a city museum. ” – 17 August 1948: “I have thus received, amongst others, Americans, Canadians, Persians from Tehran… sorcerer’s apprentices, ladies of the ‘holy women’ sort… prosecutors, counts, barons and factory workers (the latter being fervent) – fierce enemies who became dear friends.” – 19 August 1948: ‘I have received a curious booklet by Gabriel Louis Pringué, whom I once knew at the Rohans’, on Parisian society and, quite specifically, my own: it is like a review of the lives of several hundred people I have known over half a century. In a chapter devoted to the Duchess of Rohan and another to Madame Buat, he speaks of me with an excessive profusion of compliments and a touch of indiscretion. ’ – 13 November 1948: ‘I’m a “rag-and-bone man” because I’m finishing my six radio programmes. If I didn’t have a cracked voice in winter in this forest of mist, I’d be happier recounting my memories of childhood and youth, but I’m afraid of those 2 – 4 – 20 million invisible listeners who’ll say: ‘Ah, that old quaverer! What on earth is he on about?’ – 14 February 1949: ‘Madame Stanislas de Castellane is my hostess at Rochecotte, where I spent unforgettable days in the bed… of Madame de Dino (which was also Talleyrand’s, since the bedside bookcase within easy reach was his, annotated by him in many places… ” – 15 April 1952: “A little girl comes out of here. She says to her mother: ‘That old gentleman doesn’t speak like everyone else, and he’s known everyone!’ (I never met Father Riquet, who replaced Jesus Christ at Notre Dame)’ – 21 July 1952: ‘Emily de Navarin. The man of 1859 is rather weary, weary of life’
Enclosed:
- Ferdinand BAC. Émilienne Dejeux. Portrait. 265 x 205 mm. Dated 21 June 1947 and signed.
Ink and coloured pencil on letterhead paper from 61 Avenue de Joinville, Nogent-sur-Marne (Seine).
Inscribed in black ink: “ Madame Émilienne Dejeux, organiser (known as ‘Emily’), is hosting for the whole of Paris ‘the Centenary Exhibition of *La Dame aux Camélias* and mementoes of Alexandre Dumas fils at *St Hubert*’. – ‘The fly is the use of an ink stain to represent an image taken from the science of insecticide’.
- Ferdinand BAC. Alexandre DUMAS the Younger. Portrait. 210 x 135 mm. Signed and dated, 1947.
Ink and coloured pencil.
Inscribed: ‘Alexandre Dumas Fils in 1882. In memory of the exhibition at La Dame aux Camélias, 21 June 1947’.
Framed with the front cover of the promotional booklet ‘Chez la Dame aux Camélias’. St Hubert Modes.
- Blank invitation card for the museum.
– 6-page manuscript: list of works by Ferdinand Bac on display.
- 4 annotated photographs taken during the reception at the museum in honour of Ferdinand Bac.
- Promotional booklet ‘Chez la Dame aux Camélias’. In-12, stapled. [10 ff.]. Each page features a coloured pencil drawing by Ferdinand Bac.
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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