[GIACOMELLI, Hector]. DUMAS Fils, Alexandre (1824-1895). - Lot 167

[GIACOMELLI, Hector]. DUMAS Fils, Alexandre (1824-1895). Very important correspondence of around 140 autograph letters and cards signed by Alexandre Dumas fils and his wife Henriette, addressed to the watercolorist and engraver Hector GIACOMELLI (1822-1904). Envelopes largely preserved. Long and beautiful unpublished conversation, lasting over 13 years. The last letter was sent by Dumas ten days before his death. -121 autograph letters and cards signed by Alexandre Dumas Fils to Hector Giacomelli. November 16, 1882 - November 13, 1895 (postmarks). Approx. 350 pages in-8 or in-12 oblong. Important and very long friendly and professional correspondence, of which only a few extracts will be quoted. Dumas Fils evokes many of his contemporaries, writers, artists, events, etc.; his personal life, his works, in particular La Dame aux Camélias & Sarah Bernhardt, La Route de Thèbes, La Princesse de Bagdad, Meissonnier's death, exhibition in Chicago, etc., as well as his personal life. About Émile Zola's La Débâcle, just published "I'm reading La Débâcle. The beginning is hard. I've already advanced a hundred pages of difficult digestion, but Les Débats said this morning that it's a masterpiece; let's continue. However, I have never seen a masterpiece begin with a hundred boring pages [...] It is on this book that I intend to base my efforts to get the author into the Académie. [...] He owes the ten votes he got the other day to me. Now let's talk business. Here are the prices of our paintings. Rouges gorges 430 [...] Mallet 140. Greuze 365. 1215. I'm not talking about the portrait of Made Vigée [...] hung as a counterpart to the portrait of ? by Chardin [...]". He gave prices, mentioned frames, a pastel by Jean-Baptiste Perronneau, etc. (July 1892). The next letter (August 14, 1892, 12 pp.) contains a lengthy critique of Zola and his style: "[...] you tell me about La Débâcle, the reading of which has left you with a nightmare in your soul. Why write books that give you nightmares? Why read them? I tried to read that one [...] this man [Zola] has certain lenses in his brain that make him see certain things in a certain color and from a certain angle, always magnifying these things excessively, but there won't be a whole work left of him. L'Assommoir remained a curiosity, not a masterpiece. Curious thing. From the books of this author, who describes so much useless filth, we will extract heaps of style [...]. I do believe, however, that this book, in which there is less crap, junk and holy crap than in the others, although "dirty pigs" are still used too often, has put the author in a better position for some of my fellow members of the Académie [...]". "You brought me these superb watercolors. You are the kindest man in the world [...]. You'll tell me, my lad, that you do these things with no trouble at all. I was at rehearsal and it was only when I got home [...] that I found the dead bird and the living bird. "[...] When the weather's nice, come and meet the yellow dwarf from the seaside. Yesterday I bought a signature by Molière. 2500 francs! [...] I thought of you during that orgy [...]". (20 ? 1884). Etc. Dense, to be studied. -33 letters and cards from Henriette Alexandre Dumas to Giacomelli. Approx. 118 pages in-8 or in-12 oblong. 1885 to 1900 and n.d. Mostly on mourning paper -2 L.A.S. and one C.V.A. from Colette Lippmann, daughter of Alexandre Dumas fils. MLL