Hôtel Drouot > Auction highlights > OVA - THE ARISTOPHIL COLLECTIONS - Sale n°10 - LITERATURE

OVA - THE ARISTOPHIL COLLECTIONS - Sale n°10 - LITERATURE

Wednesday 14 November 2018

RARE BOOKS - Expert: Jacques Benelli

The first part of the sale will be devoted to rare books and first editions from the 17th to the late 19th century. These precious works include the beautiful Les Roses illustrated by Pierre-Joseph Redouté, Molière’s great classics L’Avare, Les Fourberies de Scapin, and L’École des Femmes, La Fontaine’s famous Fables and Perrault’s fairy tales. First editions with moving dedications —Honoré de Balzac to his sister or mother, George Sand to Musset and Flaubert to a reader —represent 19th century novelists.

Jean DE LA FONTAINE’s (1621-1695) famous Fables need no introduction. They are yet among the sale’s rare books. The four-volume Fables choisies dedicated to King Louis XV by Louis de Montenault, head of the Desaint & Saillant, Durand publishing company, include 275 insets by Jean-Baptiste OUDRY (1686-1755) printed from coloured copperplate engravings after washes by Oudry. In 1783, a Paris bookseller, Mademoiselle Néviance, took the initiative of having some unsold copies of the 1755-1757 edition coloured. The high price, 550 French Livres, dampened potential buyers’ enthusiasm. The estimate for this outstanding copy is €30,000-40,000.

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A first edition of Leila, written by George SAND (1804-1876) in 1833, is estimated at €80,000-100,000. The author gave Alfred de Musset a precious copy at the beginning of their affair. Each volume’s title page bears an autograph dedication: A Monsieur mon gamin d’Alfred. George on the first, A Monsieur, Monsieur le Vicomte Alfred de Musset. Hommage respectueux de son dévoué serviteur, George Sand on the second.

Each dedication’s tone reflects the change in their relationship as well as opposite aspects of Musset’s personality. On the one hand, the 23-year-old gamin, French slang for “little boy”, still has an adolescent sensibility. “I love you like a child,” he once wrote to Sand. On the other hand, “Monsieur le Vicomte”, the Paris aristocrat and brilliant conversationalist, was able to seduce the iron-willed author.

There are two different kinds of nobles: those who are noble because of the merit and services they or their ancestors rendered to the State; and those who have purchased their nobility with money. The former are useful to the State because they support and honour it, whereas the latter are dependent on it, as the opening lines of this treatise demonstrate.
Sébastien LE PRESTRE DE VAUBAN (1633-1707), Projet d’une dixme royale, 1707.
Far ahead of his time, Vauban proposed an income-based tax that would replace other taxes and be levied on all categories of the population. He secretly, privately and anonymously had 300 copies of his project printed. But King Louis XIV’s privy council definitively shelved the dîme royale on 14 February 1707; Vauban died of natural causes on the following 30 March. This auction offers one of the few surviving copies, complete with the author’s annotations. The estimate is €180,000-200,000.

CLASSIC AUTHORS - Expert: Thierry Bodin
Part two offers connoisseurs and collectors a glimpse into the work and thoughts of famous 17th to early 19th century writers: a great playwright —Racine— poets and storytellers —Goethe and La Fontaine— and prominent thinkers —Descartes, Kant, Voltaire, d’Alembert, Diderot, and Rousseau. Two works by Rousseau stand out: the manuscript of La Nouvelle Héloïse and his correspondence with Madame d’Épinay. Several letters from the notorious marquis de Sade and Casanova, as well as epistolary exchanges between women of letters such as Madame du Beffand, are also part of the sale.

Eighteen sewn notebooks written by Germaine Necker, baronne DE STAËL (1766-1817), between 1813 and 1817 contain the first draft of her final, unfinished work, Considérations sur la Révolution française. Madame de Staël began writing the manuscript in 1813 while still working on Dix années d’exil (estimate: €300,000-400 000). She started it on 24 September 1814 in Clichy, where she had settled after returning to France following the fall of Napoleon. At first intended as a tribute to her father, Necker, the work eventually became a study of the entire French Revolution. In addition to her father’s political role, she tried to understand and explain the events that shaped the Revolution, its various currents, its consequences, the Empire, Napoleon’s regime, etc. Her death left the work unfinished, although she had already corrected and revised a substantial part of it. Her son completed the revision and added the finishing touches for the posthumous edition: Considérations sur les principaux événemens de la Révolution française, ouvrage posthume de Mme la baronne de Staël, publié par M. le duc de Broglie et M. le baron de Staël (Paris, Delaunay, 1818).

The precious manuscript of the third part of Lettres de deux amans, habitans d’une petite ville aux pieds des Alpes [La Nouvelle Héloïse] by Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU (1712-1778), complete with his 26 letters, belonged to the writer (estimate: €400,000-500,000). The abundantly revised manuscript has over 900 corrections, cross-outs, and changes. This masterpiece of an epistolary novel about the star-crossed lovers Julie d’Étange and de Saint-Preux met with tremendous success when it came out in 1761, going through approximately 100 editions, including counterfeits, by the end of the century.

Many letters from Rousseau to his friend and protector Madame d’Épinay, who hosted the philosopher at her château La Chevrette and housed him in the Hermitage near Montmorency until their falling out, will also be presented (€200,000-250,000).

This sale, n° 10, is organised by Aguttes
Total number of lots: 315
Global estimate: €2,500,000

Public auction – Drouot – Room 1
Wednesday 14 November 2018 – 2pm

Public exhibition – Drouot – Room 1/7
Monday 12 November – 11am / 6pm
Thuesday 13 November – 11am / 6pm
Wednesday 14 November – 11am / 12pm

Consultation on demand