Ancient coins

Georges ROCHEGROSSE (1859-1938). 27 L.A.S., [circa 1898]-1900 and 1921-1924, to Jérôme Doucet; 60 pages in-8 or in-12. Interesting correspondence on his work as a painter and illustrator. [Jérôme Doucet (1865-1957), writer and journalist, was also a bibliophile; he headed the Le Livre et l'Estampe company]. Many letters concern the illustration of Flaubert's Salammbô (Ferroud, 1900), and Jérôme Doucet's Trois légendes d'or, d'argent et de cuivre: Sainte Marie l'Égyptienne, le Beau Visage de la Mort, l'Âme du Samovar (Ferroud, 1901). From Tunis, he looks forward to doing this illustration: "I see it very, very worked and I know it will require a lot of work and... time"; he'll have "a lot of work not for Salambô, which I won't deliver for 2 years" but for things he had to give up to leave, and would like to come to an agreement with Doucet on the price. He sends his drawings to René Baschet, from whom he expects proofs for coloring: "I can't do the coloring on the drawings, Indian ink can't withstand watercolor until at least a year and a half or two years after it's been used". If he is late, "it's Flaubert's fault for making Salambô go to Africa .[...] and that I toil from morning till night making armor in the sun - which, incidentally, puts my eyes to shame"; in the evening he is "too exhausted to work much on something as delicate as the Morobovisage drawings"... He regrets not being able to illustrate the jewel that is La Chanson des Gens, whose chiseled verses require a very elaborate illustration; he reserves his time "to do well La Mort au Beau Visage and the other"... He congratulates Doucet on Sextine "but no tip on Sanart Bernah (if I dare say so). Don't know Clairin well enough to make an effective recommendation. You know I started Mage au beau Visort, finally!" He doesn't know "what to do with the ornate letter in chap. II of 'Death' [...] I don't see anything 'drawable'", nor for the last chapter "reserving the night-watchman for the terminal lamp-butt"... For the copper legend, he'd like "something very modern, very copper mines and very 'machines' with through passing little kobolds, people devoted to Mines, as you know, and very farcical in their appearance". He awaits information "on the copper mines of Siberia, which I am most ignorant of". On the subject of the grand luxes of Légendes, "I'd like nothing better than to make watercolor sketches for you", a word he prefers to the watercolor prospectus "which seems to me too 'big' for the price, given the 1000 frs of the grand luxe copies of Salambô". He orders wallpaper for his apartment. He finished Le Sphinx and Meloenis: "I imagined it lit by lamps placed on the floor like flamenco dancers". After his wife's death (1920), he signs his work, adding the initial of her name Marie; the letters are written from Djenam Meryem. February 21, 1921: of all bereavements, "the loss of one's wife, when one has a real one, is truly monstrous against nature [...] I absolutely have the sensation of amputation ... and of a wound that will never, ever close". In obedience to the dead woman's wish, he continues to work, and is prepared to do as Doucet asks, "but I'll make the watercolors a good third larger; that way you'll find it easier to place them". March 7: he prefers not to "discuss money by letter", and will see him in Paris in May. October 11: he regrets not having been able to meet him in Paris, but has fled "this moral and physical cesspool"; he is going to do the watercolor, but would like him to leave it to him. March 10, 1924: very moved by the dedication of the book and by "the charming work of art that is the book itself"...