Lot n° 169
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Result
: 30 000EUR
87 autograph letters from Victor Segalen:... - Lot 169 - Pierre Bergé & Associés
87 autograph letters from Victor Segalen: his youth, Polynesia and Paul Gauguin.
SEGALEN (Victor). Important set of about 87 autograph letters, cards and bills, signed and addressed to Émile Mignard, dated from October 14, 1895 to February 19, 1905, and sent from Brest, Bordeaux, Toulon, San Francisco, Tahiti, Port-Said, Colombo... In-8, modern blue morocco, smooth spine faded, lined slipcase (Raymonde Moretti)
- about 76 letters mounted on tabs (most on several pages, some on blue paper and on wood paper; envelopes preserved; some letters restored).
- 7 postcards (one cut out)
- and 4 bills laminated on strong paper.
Precious correspondence from the formative years of the young Victor Segalen to one of his dearest friends, Émile Mignard: from their common Brittany to the discovery of Polynesia and the work of Paul Gauguin.
This volume contains all the letters that Segalen addressed to his friend from the Jesuit school Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours in Brest, whom he called "Mon cher petit", "My dear little brother", and at whose wedding he met his future wife Yvonne Hébert.
In this regular correspondence, Segalen shares his passion for music, for contemporary literature, his expectations, his depressive episodes, his travels, his stay in Polynesia, his incredible encounter with the work of Paul Gauguin and his return to France in February 1905....
In 1909, Segalen will send a letter of rupture to Mignard, a rupture that remains unexplained.
This precious volume belonged to Professor Henry Bouillier, one of the specialists of Victor Segalen, to whom he dedicated a thesis in 1961 when this poet was still unknown.
Henry Bouillier, in his Bibliography, Victor Segalen, Correspondance T.I (1893-1912) [Fayard, 2004] underlines the liberated character of these letters, compared to those addressed to his family: "It is normal that this correspondence is much freer, even cynical, on the sexual and sentimental level, with regard to their often common girlfriends, as well as his female adventures in Tahiti".
"At this time [the second period, from 1900], in any case, Mignard is, with his parents, his favorite interlocutor. The content of these letters obviously differs in subject and tone. They complement each other wonderfully. To Mignard go the saucy confidences, the easy adventure stories with exquisite Tahitian women; to his parents, the stories of campaign and medical work".
Most of Victor Segalen's autograph letters are in the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
This volume is thus one of the most important sets still in private hands.
Victor Segalen was sent to Rennes and then to the École de Santé Navale in Bordeaux for his medical studies in 1898. Nevertheless, his musical life remained in the forefront for some time: "... instead of starting with the complete orchestration, I will first compose the reduction for piano and voice, so that it will go much faster. I am working hard on my divine Lohengrin... "Letter of 10/11/97.
His first depression, after a sentimental rupture (with Marie Gailhac), is a terrible evil, which he describes with pain: "That others were imprudent matters little to me; it came to me one day, it now moves away from me, leaving me bruised but not disoriented, having taken a little of me, of what I could have of better, but leaving me with an immense memory: eight months of moral equilibrium, and the image of a dreamy figure, around which deep emotions of all kinds clustered ... is that nothing? [...] And I am less surprised, despite two days of depression as I did not believe myself capable of, not to feel inert despite this terrible shock. "Letter of 27/09/99.
In April 1900, Victor Segalen travels through Brittany and retains magical images: "We drove without incident to the Forest, where the castle of Joyeuse-Garde still stands, all gaunt, half-buried in a shroud of earth and grass... Lancelot, perhaps Tristan and Yseult...". Letter of 17/4/1900
His first writings : "At the time, Rémy de Gourmont had kept my article for me. For some family review, benign and lukewarm, I thought. Not so. For the Mercure itself, a little always the Parnassus of my literary desires... I would have wanted to cry while going down the stairs and I walked a long time. I will appear in the January or February issue... "Letter of 22/11/1901
The United States: "Chicago - The deplorable summum of the acute Americanism. Suppose a mass of sandstone having crystallized according to the cubic system
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