Details
BALZAC, Honoré de (1799-1850). Autograph letter signed ('B[alza]c') to Monsieur [Victor-Auguste] Moret, n.p., [Passy], 'Mardi 11 [ August 1846]', one page, 8vo, integral blank (small pinholes in bottom left corner).
A letter to his picture restorer. 'J'ai les 2 têtes et je demande la vôtre, ainsi que votre main pour me les mettre promptement en état de paraître superbes. Vous prendriez en même temps la tête de Holbein'. Another Flemish work is to be returned, and further instructions are continued in a postscript.
During his long affaire with Madame Hanska, Balzac, partly on account of his determination to furnish a suitable residence for her in Paris if she were ever persuaded to leave her Polish estates, bought antiques and pictures with increasing recklessness, including several works purchased in Rome earlier in 1846. The two heads referred to here were attributed to Greuze and Van Dyck and a Holbein portrait was listed in his 1848 inventory of his collection. All were later found to be copies or fakes.
Published in the Correspondence, ed. Roger Pierrot (1969, vol. V, no. 2438) (3)
A letter to his picture restorer. 'J'ai les 2 têtes et je demande la vôtre, ainsi que votre main pour me les mettre promptement en état de paraître superbes. Vous prendriez en même temps la tête de Holbein'. Another Flemish work is to be returned, and further instructions are continued in a postscript.
During his long affaire with Madame Hanska, Balzac, partly on account of his determination to furnish a suitable residence for her in Paris if she were ever persuaded to leave her Polish estates, bought antiques and pictures with increasing recklessness, including several works purchased in Rome earlier in 1846. The two heads referred to here were attributed to Greuze and Van Dyck and a Holbein portrait was listed in his 1848 inventory of his collection. All were later found to be copies or fakes.
Published in the Correspondence, ed. Roger Pierrot (1969, vol. V, no. 2438) (3)
Special notice
VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 15% on the buyer's premium