MONTESQUIOU (Robert de). - Lot 170

MONTESQUIOU (Robert de). Born in Paris. 1855-1921. Man of letters, "insolent dandy", he served as a model for des Esseintes in Huysmans' À Rebours and for Proust in La Recherche du temps perdu for Baron de Charlus. Autograph poem "Offrande épistolaire, composé par l'aspirant Biguet". 1 p. gr. in-4. Author's purple stamp. Poem published in "Sabliers et Lacrymoires" (Sansot, 1917): BEAUTIFUL POEM ON NATIVITY ...Hard, wet, shiny and thin, If the rushes / Which serve as your bed, are as you say, / Young man almost child, to whom we plunge / Our eyes in the nights, yours are inscribed / Near her who saw the God of pure Christmases / Born, with majesty, in a poor stable, / And, on shiny rushes, thin wet, hard / Prepare the salvation of lamentable Man. / But as the reeds used for this, / Came from the Syrinx where Pan joined his lips / A song arose, which owes itself to your fevers / Since from them will be born our salvation too...... A descendant of Blaise de Montluc, Count Robert de Montesquiou-Fézensac is a writer best known for appearing in the works of others. He was nicknamed "Grotesquiou", but Proust saw in him a "teacher of beauty", and he proclaimed himself - the title of one of his poetic collections, the expression coming from Flaubert, in Salammbô - "the Chief of sweet smells". "I am the ruler of transitory things", he also defined himself in an alexandrine. He is said to be both the model for Des Esseintes, in À rebours, by Joris-Karl Huysmans, whom he never knew, and for Baron de Charlus, in the work of Proust, to whom he was close (we also see him in Monsieur de Phocas by Jean Lorrain and Chantecler by Edmond Rostand). During his lifetime, he was already a household name, both in the art world and in the world at large, where he exercised his Baudelairian "aristocratic pleasure of displeasing": he was painted by James Whistler, Antonio La Gandara and Giovanni Boldini, photographed by Nadar, drawn by Caran d'Ache on the front cover of Figaro. Familiar with Gustave Moreau, he was a renowned critic. In music, he supported Claude Debussy and Gabriel Fauré.