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Lot Essay
Degas avait une collection de gravures d'Edouard Manet presque complète, en plusieurs exemplaires d'états différents. Dans la vente des estampes de la Collection Edgar Degas, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 6 et 7 novembre 1918, figuraient deux épreuves de Charles Baudelaire de face, dont une avec des croquis allégoriques à la plume par Manet (voir lots 248 et 249, et C. Ives, S. Alyson Stein et J.A. Steiner, The Private Collection of Edgar Degas, A Summary Catalogue, New York, 1997, nos. 840 et 841). L'admiration de Degas pour les gravures de Manet était telle qu'il avait aussi acheté le quatrième état de cette épreuve. Cette version, avec la lettre, a été publiée dans la première biographie du grand poète et critique, Charles Baudelaire, sa vie et son oeuvre par Charles Asselineau, éditée en 1869, deux ans après la mort du poète. A ce même moment, Manet écrivait à Degas lui demandant de lui retourner "les deux volumes de Baudelaire que je vous ai prêtés", sans doute les volumes des critiques Curiosités esthétiques et L'Art romantique, publiés en 1868.
Degas had a virtually complete collection of Manet's prints, many in rare states. He owned two impressions of early states of this print, one with an allegorical pen drawing (see the catalogue of Degas's print collection, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 6-7 November 1918, lots 248 and 249, and C. Ives, S. Alyson Stein, and J.A. Steiner, The Private Collection of Edgar Degas; A Summary Catalogue, New York, 1997, nos. 840 and 841). Yet such was his admiration for Manet's prints, that he acquired this impression of the fourth state as well. This state, in which the letters were added, was printed in the first biography of the great poet and critic, Charles Asselineau's Charles Baudelaire, sa vie et son oeuvre, published in 1869, two years after his death. It was at just this time that Manet wrote to Degas, asking him to return "les deux volumes de Baudelaire que je vous ai prêtés", undoubtedly the volumes of art criticism, Curiosités esthétiques and L'Art romantique, published in 1868.
(fig. 1) Nadar, Portrait de Baudelaire, 1862, tirage argentique.
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.
Degas had a virtually complete collection of Manet's prints, many in rare states. He owned two impressions of early states of this print, one with an allegorical pen drawing (see the catalogue of Degas's print collection, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 6-7 November 1918, lots 248 and 249, and C. Ives, S. Alyson Stein, and J.A. Steiner, The Private Collection of Edgar Degas; A Summary Catalogue, New York, 1997, nos. 840 and 841). Yet such was his admiration for Manet's prints, that he acquired this impression of the fourth state as well. This state, in which the letters were added, was printed in the first biography of the great poet and critic, Charles Asselineau's Charles Baudelaire, sa vie et son oeuvre, published in 1869, two years after his death. It was at just this time that Manet wrote to Degas, asking him to return "les deux volumes de Baudelaire que je vous ai prêtés", undoubtedly the volumes of art criticism, Curiosités esthétiques and L'Art romantique, published in 1868.
(fig. 1) Nadar, Portrait de Baudelaire, 1862, tirage argentique.
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.