COCTEAU Jean Original DESIGN signed "Jean Cocteau",[Max Jacob], 1961; lead pencil drawing, signed and dated lower right, 26 x 20 cm (framed). Magnificent and famous portrait of Max Jacob. The portrait of the poet in bust is labelled in the upper part: "Cocasse et magnifique comme le rêve" This very beautiful portrait of Max Jacob in bust was made seventeen years after his death. The two poets had met in the late 1910s through Picasso. When Max Jacob retired in 1921 to Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire, he and Cocteau exchanged an abundant correspondence. When you read it, you can see that Max Jacob is a compass for Cocteau. It is to him that he inevitably turns to seek comfort and support after each attack of which he is a victim on the Parisian letter scene. Arrested by the Gestapo, Max Jacob died in 1944 at the Drancy camp, despite all Cocteau's efforts to obtain his release. Cocteau always kept in him the memory of his friend, in whom he saw from then on a kind of protective angel. Produced from memory seventeen years after Max Jacob's death, this portrait proves that this memory remains as vivid as ever and is one of the most moving tributes paid to his memory. Origin: André BERNARD collection