GAUTIER Théophile (1811-1872)

Lot 123
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Estimation :
1200 - 1500 EUR
GAUTIER Théophile (1811-1872)
MANUSCRIPT autograph signed "Théophile Gautier", Revue des théâtres, [shortly before February 19, 1866]; 4 pages in-12 filled with small handwriting, mounted on 4 sheets in-8 (2 pages cut out for printing and reassembly). Feuilleton du Moniteur of February 19, 1866. The serialist is embarrassed: "The first performances are distributed in such a whimsical way that sometimes they accumulate and sometimes they become rarefied that there are weeks that are crowded and others that are completely empty. Orgy or famine there is no middle ground"... Such a premiere was delayed, such a long-standing success maintained, and rather than talking about rain or fine weather, there would be exhibitions . He recalls the fascination that CURTIUS' wax cabinet exerted on him as a child: "we would enter this long room populated by motionless ghosts. We watched with deep veneration the banquet of the sovereigns, where the royalty, with their breasts studded with rhinestone sputum and striped with red or blue moire ribbons, looked gravely with their glass eyes at peaches and alabaster apples from Florence. The great Turk with his long beard and his pipe enriched with diamond circles astonished us greatly; the Italian brigand who raised his blunderbuss and rolled black and white eyes by the effect of an inner mechanism inspired us with true terror and we asked if his rifle was loaded. But that Bathsheba in the bath half veiling her modest charms under a long blond hair seemed pretty to us. We contemplated her more innocently but no less lovingly than did the good King David"... The other day, Gautier entered the TALRICH museum, where the figures are arranged like groups of tableaux vivants : Hercules at the feet of Omphale, Renaud recognizing Armide, Dupuytren performing an autopsy... The most moving group represents a scene of torture, which Gautier describes with atrocious meticulousness: the tortured, the executioner, the doctor, the clerk, the jailer, the cruel instruments... All this "makes one think of Robert Fleury's inquisition scenes of such a dark and warm colour and of such an energetic and fierce execution"... An L.A.S. by Maurice BARRÈS is attached to a lady.
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