COCTEAU Jean

Lot 39
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Estimation :
10000 - 15000 EUR
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Result : 9 500EUR
COCTEAU Jean
Autograph MANUSCRIT signed "Jean Cocteau", L'ange Heurtebise, poem, 1925; 19 sheets of an oblong drawing album in-fol. (23.5 x 32.5 cm), beige canvas cardboard with closing tape. The only existing manuscript of this magnificent and mysterious poem. L'Ange Heurtebise, after its publication in May-June 1925 in the journal Les Feuilles Libres, was published by Stock the same year, with a print run of 355 copies, with a photographic frontispiece by Man Ray. He was collected in 1927 in Opera. Jean Cocteau composed this poem in seven days, as an "expulsion" of the appearance of the Angel Heurtebise that haunted him for a long time, linked to the missing figure of Raymond Radiguet. "In my work, the poem L'Ange Heurtebise has the importance of the Demoiselles d'Avignon in Picasso's work" (Le Passé défini, II, p. 255). The manuscript is composed in an oblong drawing album (watermarked paper PM Fabriano). He remained unknown to the publishers of the complete poetic works in the Pleiad. On the canvas cover, Cocteau called out the title in blue pencil and black ink: "The angel Heurtebise/poem/1925"; he added to the black ink: "with[a frontispiece by the author and crossed out] a photograph of the angel by Man Ray". Large original drawing in black ink occupying the entire chamois paper cover page (23 x 32 cm), representing the angel Heurtebise flying over Paris, with the calligraphic title. This drawing had to correspond to the author's frontispiece project. On the first page of the album, Cocteau drew a new title, and drew the cover model, and a face fragment. Each of the 16 verses of the poem is written on a page on the front of the leaflet. Most were written in pencil, and ironed in black ink; some were then corrected in ink (2, 3, 9, 11, 15). Each verse is numbered from 1 to 15, the last one being called Minutes. Stanza 8 has been completely and carefully cancelled, and rewritten in ink on the opposite page. On th
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