DELACROIX Eugène (1798-1863).

Lot 42
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Estimation :
1500 - 2000 EUR
Result with fees
Result : 2 340EUR
DELACROIX Eugène (1798-1863).
L.A., 21 November 1823, to Félix GUILLEMARDET in Mâcon; following a L.A.S. from Jean-Baptiste PIERRET; 3 1/4 pages in-4 (including 1 ¼ by Pierret), address (small tear in seal repaired). Friendly letter to his fellow artist, while painting the Massacres of Scio. [Félix Guillemardet (1796-1842) and Jean-Baptiste Pierret (1795-1854) had been Delacroix's fellow students at the Lycée impérial (now Louis-le-Grand), and they would always remain his loyal friends]. The letter is begun by Pierret on November 14, when he "came to spend the evening at Delacroix's [...] He draws I write to you. [...] We no longer need to write to each other to learn about certain things. After centuries of separation and taciturnity, I have the confidence that I would find you again at the point where I had left you. [...] Delacroix and I have asked ourselves many times: what is he doing? On November 21st, Delacroix writes to his friend apologizing for the delay of his letter... "Hyver or summer, there is always time to enjoy the countryside and you feel it: it is also natural that you regret the pleasure that can be obtained here and that we all neglect so scandalously: but these projects, I myself have formed them a thousand times when I was far from Paris. When we are hundreds of leagues apart, it seems that the Rue du Bac and the Pont are nothing to cross. In the country a walk is a league and it is only a joke. Here it is something else and I can hardly explain why. [...] Besides, there is one justice to be done to you, and that is that you are unquestionably the most devoted to long journeys and that you consider a trip to the fauxbourg St Germain as nothing, when you suppose you can find us there. For a man of the cabinet and of the robe, you have taken your time to be absent very badly. There are many delightful cases of murder and poisoning in the Palace which make all those who wear the ermine, genti togatæ, turn their heads. I am only talking to you about the ones that are about to happen, not counting the Castaing affair [the poisoner] which has just occupied all the voices of fame for days and which is no longer spoken of. Come back and see the establishment of our good dressmaker Pierret. He has a charming little salon where the evenings will pass too quickly between a thousand pleasant feelings. [...] As for me, I am doing my painting [Massacres of Scio] in the same studio [rue de Grenelle Saint-Germain] since it is impossible to get another one. I had hoped that the Salon would be delayed, it will not be. Here I am forced to take up the collar again and to hurry. So much the better. That will perhaps be more successful for me"... Lettres intimes (XXXI, p. 143).
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