Description:

Edgar Degas Lengthy ALS Re: Burgundy Journey, From "Billiard Room at Ménil-Hubert" to "Strange Beauty" Monotype Landscapes

A 2pp autograph letter in French by Impressionist artist Edgar Degas (1834-1917), signed as "Degas" at the conclusion of the letter. Written at Ménil-Hubert, the chateau of Degas' old friend Paul Valpinçon in Normandy, France, where Degas often summered. N.d. but "Vendredi," or "Friday," but Degas scholar Theodore Reff has attributed it to be August 19, 1892. Inscribed on either side of cream laid watermarked stationery, and matted and framed behind glass. Not examined out of the frame. Expected wear including flattened transmittal folds. About 13 words appear as slightly more faded because Degas failed to replenish his ink, but they are still legible. Else near fine. The sight size of the letter is 4.125" x 6.75." Scattered minor superficial loss to the frame, which measures approximately 8.125" x 10.5" x .75." Accompanied by a complete translation into English.

Provenance: Ex-Collection of David Daniels of St. Paul, Minnesota, previously offered as part of Christie's May 11, 1995 auction (Sale 8080), "19 Works by Edgar Degas, Collection of David Daniels," in which the letter, Lot 308, sold for $3,200. Degas' letter is also fully transcribed and annotated in Theodore Reff, "Some Unpublished Letters of Edgar Degas," "The Art Bulletin," Vol. 50, No. 1, March 1968 (pp. 87-94) on pp. 92-93. See attached images for reference.

Degas wrote this letter to his close friend and travel companion, the fellow artist Paul-Albert Bartholomé (1848-1928). Two years earlier, in the Fall of 1890, Degas and Bartholomé had traveled by two-wheeled horse-drawn conveyance from Paris to Burgundy to visit their mutual friend, the illustrator, painter, and printmaker Pierre-Georges Jeanniot (1848-1934) (nicknamed "Puget"), at his home in Diénay, about 22 km north of Dijon. Theodore Reff describes this 1890 trip as the "famous journey through Burgundy" because it proved artistically fruitful for Degas. It marked Degas' latest exploration of monotype landscapes, to be further described below.

The 1890 journey was so delightful that Degas proposes a similar travel itinerary culminating in a visit to Puget's home. In addition to Diénay, Degas mentions no fewer than five additional travel destinations in his letter (Ancy-le-Franc, Carpentras, Dijon, and Tonnere in France, plus Geneva, Switzerland), and mentions an additional two locations (Scey and Ornans, France) in relation to their mutual friend Henri Delacroix (1849-1929), a portrait painter. Despite his uncertain health (Degas' eyesight was beginning to trouble him around this time), he certainly had ambitious plans, mapping out an extensive geographical area as far north as Tonnere, about 200 km southeast of Paris; as far south as Carpentras, about 23 km northeast of Avignon; and as far east as Geneva, Switzerland.

Degas wrote, translated in full:

"Ménil-Hubert - Friday

Certainly the marble will tremble before you, Monsieur Bartholomé, as it did for Puget...

I believe that I am going to rush to Carpentras, in order to go back up to Geneva and Dijon. Shall we strut our stuff at Diénay this month, or in October? Delacroix writes that he is in Scey, by Ornans, and that we will not be able to meet him in Geneva until after the 31st.

Zoé * wrote me that you gave her back 20 f[rancs], and I intend to keep these funds in my pocket until I rejoin you at Tonnerre. Why not at Tonnere, at the Soleil d'Or, since you are bound to be hungry? Why not at Ancy-le-Franc, chez Monsieur Lourdeley, as Monsieur Parrot wishes it?

At last it has rained, that is good, but we'll need strength to resist a drop [in temperature] of 20 degrees.

I don't see myself being en route before Monday or Tuesday. Hello to Salle.

Kind regards,
Degas."

* Zoé Closier served as Degas' housekeeper from 1882 until the artist's death. She can be seen in Degas' photographic self-portrait from ca. 1895.

When he wrote this letter, Degas was at Ménil-Hubert working on three paintings which ended up delaying his departure for Burgundy. Degas eventually completed two oils on canvas depicting the mustard-colored Billiard Room at the chateau (Paul-André Lemoisne, "Degas Et Ses Oeuvres," Vol. III, no. 1114 and 1115). The multiple angles and perspectives presented in these paintings--of the foreshortened billiard table, the complex arrangement of displayed artwork, and an open doorway leading into other rooms--made it technically challenging [see an image of Degas' "Billiard Room at Ménil-Hubert" (1892) included for reference.] During this visit, Degas also painted an interior view of his guest bedroom, a sunny, high-ceilinged room covered in floral wallpaper (Lemoisne, no. 312).

Degas was perhaps eager to embrace a freer, more abstract type of painting after his recent experience painting the complex domestic interiors at Ménil-Hubert. Degas used the 1892 trip to Burgundy, as he had also done in 1890, as an opportunity to observe and depict the natural landscape through monotype. (See a representative example of this included just for reference.) Degas had experimented with monotype--a printmaking process in which ink or paint was applied on a plate and run through a press--since the mid-1870s. Degas returned to the monotype to depict the verdant Burgundian countryside. He applied pastel over printed monotypes to soften the images, and retouched the works through smearing and scoring. These dreamlike "imaginary landscapes" were based on real physical impressions, but Degas' monotype process and his post-print reworking of them created a "strange beauty," as French poet Stéphane Mallarmé described it. Degas later exhibited about 50 of these monotypes, many depicting places he had visited in Burgundy, at the Durand Ruel Gallery in November 1892.

Paul-Albert Bartholomé initially trained as a painter, but after Degas' encouragement, he tried his hand at sculpture. Bartholomé later became closely associated with French funerary monuments in the 1880s and 1890s, such as the massive, multifigural "Monument Aux Morts" at Paris' Père-Lachaise Cemetery.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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