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an open book with a drawing of a farm and a house in the backgroundseveral old letters and pictures of people sitting on a benchseveral old papers with writing on them sitting on top of each otherfour old papers with writing on them sitting next to each other
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126 - Fernand Maillaud (1862–1948), painter and illustrator from t…
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Estimate €300 - €600
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Description
Fernand Maillaud (1862–1948), painter and illustrator from the Berry region Set of 29 autograph letters and postcards, 1916–1946, addressed to René Benjamin, including: Letter from the author, Draguignan, 25 December 1916 My dear friend, I have just received a letter from our Gabriel Nigond, who is so enthusiastic about your book: *Sous le Ciel de France*!!! ( ) You are an extraordinary writer, the most moving there is, simply because you have a big heart that knows how to see. I am well aware that your craft is admirable. But that is not what strikes me about you. It is something else, indefinable and compelling, like the truth ( ) Is it not possible, my dear friend, for you to ensure that Gabriel Nigond is protected? Just think, he is about to be posted to the heavy artillery; it weighs heavily on my heart. I have already lost a friend, a delightful and highly talented man. And for France, the loss of men of such calibre is irreparable! Equality, no doubt! But it is precisely the inequality of treating men as if they were all the same! Gabriel Nigond is a man of genius; you know him little, but I know him well. Do try to find some reason to prevent him from facing danger. He himself will never ask for anything, not the slightest favour. He will go along with it without objection. He is, however, very ill. Bear in mind that he is half-deaf and has discharge from his ears. He is losing a great deal of weight and I am deeply concerned for his health... L.A.S., Paris, 26 January 1921 My dear friend, I have just finished your *Amadou the Bolshevik*!! ( ) How can we meet except in the evening? Daylight is so scarce for painters, who have so much work to do, yet are satisfied with so little! Yesterday I saw your friend Lefort, who made some disconcerting remarks to me about the dignity of a painter! Namely, that the jury of the French Artists’ Society might humiliate him simply by subjecting him to their scrutiny, and that he felt suddenly elevated for having passed through the harlequin-like doors of that salon known as the Independents! As if the other salons were robbing you of all independence!! I put forward the opposite argument to him, that I felt elevated by the very act of setting my pride or vanity aside to be judged by my peers!! Did I offend and baffle him!! I do not know, but I am certain that no one can humiliate me! It is a power I know no one possesses, and on that point I am the sole judge. He does not like hierarchies or bosses; neither do I, but under no circumstances could they ever humiliate me. But I have no more regard for the rabble who would humiliate me if they had the power to do so!!... L.A.S., La Calabro, La Valette (Var), 16 March 1929 My dearest friend, I received your book here just as we arrived amidst the rubble of demolition. I have found a ruin which I am having restored, and I can assure you that I am going through a difficult time ( ) the place is truly the most Latin, the most Greek, the most ancient I have ever known! It lies lost in a foothill of the unreal ‘Coudoü’, enthroned like a god. Sometimes I feel daunted just looking at it. It is like something eternal. As for the colour, I know of nothing that could ever convey it; it’s a dizzying blend of mother-of-pearl, blue sky and faint freckles! (and those wretched painters who resort to synthesis) and, on the other side of the houses, the great plain that blocks the Mount of Birds ( ) and the sea above, all that blue. But what cannot be described are the old, winding paths lined with stones, olive trees and cork oaks, and those thousand thickets that link Africa and Corsica, and I am alone in this great little valley – what peace ( ) I haven’t thanked you yet because I’ve only been able to read for a few days; a month without painting – nothing like this has ever happened to me before... FIND THE FULL AND DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THIS LOT IN OUR ONLINE AUCTION CATALOGUE
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About the sale René Benjamin, the 20th-century Balzac scholar
Auction location
Auction time 10/06/2026 at 2:00 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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