RILKE, Rainer Maria (1875-1926) - photo 1
RILKE, Rainer Maria (1875-1926) - photo 2

RILKE, Rainer Maria (1875-1926)

Lot 190
10.07.2024 10:30UTC +00:00
Classic
Sold
£ 5 040
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1249757
Lot 190 | RILKE, Rainer Maria (1875-1926)
Estimate value
£ 4 000 – 6 000
RILKE, Rainer Maria (1875-1926)
Die Sonette an Orpheus. Leipzig: Insel-Verlag, 1923.
First edition of Rilke’s poetic masterpiece, enigmatically inscribed to an unnamed female acquaintance: ‘Der unmittelbaren Freundin / im Sinne freudiger Tage / als Maaß und Über-Maaß / R. / (Schöneck, im september 1923’ [‘To the immediate friend / in the spirit of happier days / as measure and more-than-measure / (Schöneck, September 1923’].

Rilke’s celebrated cycle of 55 sonnets, written in 1922 in the midst of a three-week ‘savage creative storm’, was dedicated to the memory of his daughter’s friend Wera Ouckama Knoop (1900-1919). Alongside his Duineser Elegien, published in the same year, it is regarded as the apotheosis of his extraordinary talent. As Rilke wrote to his Polish translator: ‘The Duino Elegies and the Sonnets support each other continually - and I see an infinite grace in the fact I was permitted to fill these two sails with the same breath: the little rust-coloured sail of the Sonnets and the gigantic white canvas of the Elegies’.

At the time the present copy was inscribed, Rilke was in residence at the Schöneck sanatorium in Switzerland, where he spent only a month between the end of August and the end of September 1923. Depressed and overwhelmed by physical ailments, he had abandoned his companion Baladine Klossowska, with whom he was traveling, to undertake his treatment. The ‘immediate friend’ to whom the inscription was addressed has not yet been identified.

Octavo (220 x 138mm). (A few leaves lightly stained by pressed petals.) Publisher’s marbled boards, green title label to upper cover lettered in gilt, top edge gilt (rebacked in calf, slight splitting to upper hinge); slipcase of cloth and marbled boards. Provenance: authorial presentation inscription in pencil on preliminary leaf – Venator and Hanstein, 28 March 2014, lot 698.
Place of origin:Western Europe, Germany, Europe
Auction house category:Books and manuscripts, Printed books
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
Preview
10.07.2024 – 10.07.2024
Phone +44 (0)20 7839 9060
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Rilke,R.M.
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