COCTEAU Jean (1889 - 1963) Le Mystère de Jean l'Oiseleur. Self-Portrait No. 33. [1924]. Original Indian ink and collage drawing, numbered in red pencil, with autograph MANUSCRIT. 25.5 x 20 cm à vue (framed). In the margin of his self-portrait, Cocteau inscribed this comment: "Ronsard, Mozart, Uccello, Saint-Just, Radiguet, my starry friends, I aspire to join you." The project for Le Mystère de Jean l'Oiseleur was born in October 1924 in Villefranche-sur-mer. In his room at the Hôtel Welcome, Cocteau "had no one to talk to but himself. From the table in front of which he sits, he sees himself in the mirror of his wardrobe [...] The 31 self-portraits to which he adds a few sentences or snatches of text are among his treasures. Surety and simplicity of line, acuity of detail, relevance and sincerity of purpose [...] By blending writing and drawing, which is "a writing unraveled and reknotted differently", Cocteau offered publisher Édouard Champion with one of his finest Oeuvres poétiques: Le Mystère de Jean l'Oiseleur. [...] The title is intriguing. A bird-catcher catches birds with a net. Does Cocteau capture the thoughts that come to mind and squeeze them onto a page? These 31 self-portraits by Jean Cocteau are "plunging views into his soul" (Pierre Bergé). Le Mystère de Jean l'Oiseleur was published in 1925 by Édouard Champion as a phototypeset of the manuscript by Daniel Jacomet, with 142 copies printed. EXHIBITIONS Jean Cocteau, Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden, 1989, no. 247; Jean Cocteau, Musée d'Ixelles, Brussels, 1991; Jean Cocteau, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2003-2004; Jean Cocteau, sur les pas d'un magicien, Palais Lumière, Évian, 2010. PROVENANCE Collection Liliane et Étienne de Saint-Georges, Brussels; sale Sotheby's Paris, November 24, 2010, no. 216