VICTOR-MARIE HUGO (BESANÇON 1802-1885 PARIS) - photo 1
VICTOR-MARIE HUGO (BESANÇON 1802-1885 PARIS) - photo 2

VICTOR-MARIE HUGO (BESANÇON 1802-1885 PARIS)

Lot 79
22.03.2023 15:00UTC +01:00
Classic
Sold
€ 50 400
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationFrance, Paris
Archive
The auction is completed. No bids can be placed anymore.
Archive
ID 922534
Lot 79 | VICTOR-MARIE HUGO (BESANÇON 1802-1885 PARIS)
Estimate value
€ 40 000 – 60 000
VICTOR-MARIE HUGO (BESANÇON 1802-1885 PARIS)

Souvenir : château fantastique

inscrit ‘SOUVENIR’ (au centre) et ‘le Temple qui se perd dans la brume/ me dit/ Reviens, et le ciel bleu vaincra (?) le ciel noir’ (en bas à droite)

plume et encre brune, lavis brun, fusain, aquarelle et gouache

7,5 x 14,6 cm (3 x 5 3/4 in.)





Provenance

Offert par l'artiste à Louise Bertin (1805-1877); puis par descendance Marie Bertin et Jules Bapst; puis par descendance Cécile Bapst et Georges Patinot; puis par descendance au propriétaire actuel.





Post lot text

VICTOR HUGO, ‘SOUVENIR’, PEN AND BROWN INK, BROWN WASH, CHARCOAL, WATERCOLOUR AND BODYCOLOUR, INSCRIBED

Victor Hugo was fond of playing with words in his drawings, often with his own name and surname, as if creating a visiting card. More rarely, he uses the word ‘Souvenir’, as is the case in the present work. Jean Massin classifies these drawings as ‘works that start from a near or distant evocation of a memory but where the imaginary somehow prevails over the observed’. (Victor Hugo. Œuvres complètes, 1967, II, Œuvres graphiques, under the no. 446). Other drawings bearing the word ‘Souvenir’ are found at the Maison Victor Hugo, Paris; one of these was given by the artist to his lover, Léonie d’Aunet, wife of the painter François-Auguste Biard (inv. 926; see G. Audinet, Victor Hugo. Dessins, exhib. cat., Paris, Maison Victor Hugo, 2020, no. 154, ill.).
The subtle blue wash is not often found in Hugo’s graphic work; exceptions include two Landscapes with church steeples at the Maison Victor Hugo (inv. 993, 1000; see Audinet, op. cit., nos. 94-95, ill.), and three other drawn ‘cartes de visites’ with a large signature in red ink (inv. 43, 923, L.2015.0.31FOL21; see Audinet, op. cit., 2020, nos. 143, 150, 152, ill.).
The drawing offered here belonged to Louise Bertin (1805-1877), composer, pianist and great friend of the artist. She was the daughter of Louis-François Bertin (1766-1841), director of the Journal des débats and a member of the most eminent circles in Paris during the first half of the 19th century, and whose famous portrait painted by Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres in 1832 is preserved in the Louvre (inv. RF 1071). It is probably thanks to his literary salon that Victor Hugo met Louise Bertin with whom he would form a strong friendship. He often stayed with his family at the Château des Roches, the Bertins’ family property in Bièvres. Several letters testify to the friendship between Hugo’s children and Louise Bertin, especially Léopoldine, witness a letter written by Hugo and his daughter Léopoldine of 18 October 1832: ‘My dear Louise, I am very angry to have left you because I am very bored here since I do not see you’ (Christie’s, Paris, 28 November 2017, lot 454). In 1836, Hugo produced an opera libretto entitled La Esmeralda, based on his novel Notre-Dame de Paris (1831), which he offered to Louise Bertin. This dreamlike landscape, with a verse that seems to be unpublished in the artist’s literary work, inscribed at the bottom right, appears on the market today for the first time.
We are grateful to Pierre Georgel for supporting the attribution. The drawing will be included in the catalogue raisonné of the artist’s drawings in preparation.
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
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