Lot Essay
Ménil-Hubert Friday
The marble will certainly quake before you, as
it did for Puget...
I think that I will rush to Carpentras, on the way
back to Geneva and Dijon. Shall we strut our stuff
at Diénay this month, or in October? Delacroix
writes that he is in Scey, near Ornans and that we
will be able to meet in Geneva some time after the
31st.
Zoé wrote to me that you gave her back 20 francs,
and I am counting on having this amount in hand
when we get together in Tonnerre--let's meet at
the Soleil d'Or, since you are bound to be hungry.
Or why not at Ancy le Franc, Mr. Lourdsley's place,
as Mr. Parrot wished it.
At last it has rained, it's quite cozy here, but
we will need strength to endure a trip in 20C
[71F weather].
Kind regards,
Degas
Theodore Reff published this letter--which he has recently dated August 19, 1892--in 1968 (op. cit.) and will include it in his forthcoming new edition of Degas's correspondence. Degas wrote it while staying at Ménil-Hubert, the Norman château of his schoolfriend Paul Valpinçon. Degas had been familiar with the Valpinçon's family home since he was a child and was a regular visitor there in his later years. Around the time he wrote this letter he was working on two oil paintings of the billiard room at Ménil-Hubert and another painting of the guestroom he occupied (Lemoisne, vol. III, nos. 1114, 1115 and 312, respectively). Depicting interior perspective proved to be a challenge and Degas stayed longer than he planned in order to finish the paintings.
The letter is addressed to the sculptor Albert Bartholomé (1848-1928), who had been a close friend of Degas for more than twenty years. In 1890 Degas and Bartholomé set out from Paris in a tilbury (a light, two-wheeled carriage) drawn by a white horse and drove to the estate of their mutual friend the illustrator Pierre-Georges Jeanniot at Diénay in Burgundy. During his stay Degas used Jeanniot's printing press to produce the first of his landscape monotypes, setting down recollections of the countryside through which he and Bartholomé had traveled. For the next two years Degas made numerous excursions throughout France, and in this letter he discusses the itinerary with Bartholomé, suggesting that they meet in Tonnerre and perhaps go on to Diénay for a reunion with Jeanniot. Henry-Eugène Delacroix (1845-1930) was an artist who worked in Toulouse. Zoé Closier was Degas's housekeeper from 1882 to the end of the artist's life.
The marble will certainly quake before you, as
it did for Puget...
I think that I will rush to Carpentras, on the way
back to Geneva and Dijon. Shall we strut our stuff
at Diénay this month, or in October? Delacroix
writes that he is in Scey, near Ornans and that we
will be able to meet in Geneva some time after the
31st.
Zoé wrote to me that you gave her back 20 francs,
and I am counting on having this amount in hand
when we get together in Tonnerre--let's meet at
the Soleil d'Or, since you are bound to be hungry.
Or why not at Ancy le Franc, Mr. Lourdsley's place,
as Mr. Parrot wished it.
At last it has rained, it's quite cozy here, but
we will need strength to endure a trip in 20C
[71F weather].
Kind regards,
Degas
Theodore Reff published this letter--which he has recently dated August 19, 1892--in 1968 (op. cit.) and will include it in his forthcoming new edition of Degas's correspondence. Degas wrote it while staying at Ménil-Hubert, the Norman château of his schoolfriend Paul Valpinçon. Degas had been familiar with the Valpinçon's family home since he was a child and was a regular visitor there in his later years. Around the time he wrote this letter he was working on two oil paintings of the billiard room at Ménil-Hubert and another painting of the guestroom he occupied (Lemoisne, vol. III, nos. 1114, 1115 and 312, respectively). Depicting interior perspective proved to be a challenge and Degas stayed longer than he planned in order to finish the paintings.
The letter is addressed to the sculptor Albert Bartholomé (1848-1928), who had been a close friend of Degas for more than twenty years. In 1890 Degas and Bartholomé set out from Paris in a tilbury (a light, two-wheeled carriage) drawn by a white horse and drove to the estate of their mutual friend the illustrator Pierre-Georges Jeanniot at Diénay in Burgundy. During his stay Degas used Jeanniot's printing press to produce the first of his landscape monotypes, setting down recollections of the countryside through which he and Bartholomé had traveled. For the next two years Degas made numerous excursions throughout France, and in this letter he discusses the itinerary with Bartholomé, suggesting that they meet in Tonnerre and perhaps go on to Diénay for a reunion with Jeanniot. Henry-Eugène Delacroix (1845-1930) was an artist who worked in Toulouse. Zoé Closier was Degas's housekeeper from 1882 to the end of the artist's life.