André BRETON. - Lot 195

Lot n° 195
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Estimation :
15000 - 20000 EUR
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Result : 24 000EUR
André BRETON. - Lot 195
André BRETON. Lighthouse of the bride. Without place or date [1934]. Signed autograph manuscript of 6 in-4 sheets of alternating blue and pink paper: black half-maroquin à la Bradel, plexiglass boards covering a profile portrait of Duchamp drawn on a gilt background on the first and, on the second, a painted decoration in gold, case (Mercher, 1960). Autograph manuscript signed; inscribed on alternating blue and pink leaves. The text appeared for the first time in the number 6 of the magazine Minotaure. Article of first importance devoted to the famous Bride put to the naked by her bachelors, even, one of the icons of the modernity. Conceived in 1911, left unfinished in New York in 1923, broken in 1927 on returning from its exhibition at the International Exhibition of Modern Art and then reconstructed in 1936 (after the publication of Breton's article), the Naked Bride was the subject of a publication by Marcel Duchamp in 1934, commonly called the "Green Box". It was this publication that prompted Breton to write the article in order to give his friend, then known to a few insiders, the place he deserved. "Lighthouse of the Bride": the title echoes Baudelaire's poem "Les Phares", implying that to the geniuses of painting cited by the poet, we must now add Duchamp. Title also called by a marginal note of the Green Box: remembering a joyful trip, in fanfare, made in 1912 in the Jura in the company of Apollinaire, Picabia and Gabrielle Buffet, Duchamp, playing on words, invents "the child-lighthouse", "which will be the winning instrument of this road Jura-Paris" (Breton, OEuvres complètes IV, Pléiade, p. 1282). Exceptional copy bearing, on a flyleaf of the binding, this signed autograph letter from Marcel Duchamp: To Louis Broder/the child-lighthouse/greetings/Marcel Duchamp/1963 Duchamp's anointing of this first and capital defense of his work adds an extra interest to the piece. Superb decorated binding by Mercher executed for the publisher Louis Broder. He has decorated the boards with gilt images covered with plexiglas, including a large profile portrait of Marcel Duchamp. Attached is a sheet of heavy wove paper (14.7 x 13.2 cm) bearing the autograph signatures of Marcel Duchamp and André Breton, with technical annotations. It was used to illustrate the catalog of the exhibition First Papers of Surrealism published in 1942 in New York.
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