PROUST (Marcel). - Lot 185

PROUST (Marcel). Born in Paris. 1871-1922. French writer. Author of A la Recherche du temps perdu (published from 1913 to 1926. Prix Goncourt for Les Jeunes filles en fleurs. L.A.S. "Marcel Proust" to "Cher Monsieur" [art historian and critic Auguste Marguillier]. S.l.n.d. [June 1906]. 5 pp. in-8. Mourning paper (Marcel Proust's mother died in September 1905). ̀́́̂TRÈS BELLE ET INTE?RESSANTE LETTRE DANS LAQUELLE MARCEL PROUST ÉVOQUE LE PEINTRE VÉNITIEN VITTORE CARPACCIO [for Proust, the very symbol of Venice, which he would use in Albertine disparue] ET LES "MORNINGS IN FLORENCE" DE RUSKIN, publiés par Laurens (en 1908) : .... If later your collaborator returns the Italian Carpaccio (which I don't know) I'll be very happy to read it, if you can lend it to me. As for the French, I'll write to Venice, where I'm told it has been published. Carpaccio is such a charming artist that one wishes one could know more and more? about his work and his life. If you hadn't already done so, I would have made myself available to you. If Mr. Laurens publishes Mornings in Florence, you should advise him of the following. Ruskin's magnificent Library Edition, published by Alen... Proust points out that the Mornings contain a very interesting unpublished "The visible church". M. Laurens would not have the right to publish it, as it has not been published long enough. But by way of an appendix or note, he could give long extracts, saying frankly where he got it from. Besides, Mornings in Florence is too short to constitute a volume; he should add Val d'Arno, which is infinitely superior to Mornings in Florence, which is Ruskin's worst work, frankly mediocre... As a great admirer of the English art critic John Ruskin, and following the translation he made (with the help of his mother Jeanne Proust) of the English critic's La Bible d'Amiens (published by Mercure de France, 1904), Marcel Proust had been promoted to "expert in Ruskinian studies".In November 1905, Proust was approached by Auguste Marguillier, a former collaborator of Charles Ephrussi (a friend of Proust's), now director of La Chronique des arts, for a review of Ruskin's Pierres de Venise, which Mathilde Crémieux, a cousin of Proust's, had just translated and which was to be published by Henri Laurens, the future publisher of Ruskin's Matins de Florence. In January 1906, Proust sent Marguillier a note about Gabrielo Mourey's Gainsborough, which appeared in La Chronique des Arts, then in "Villes d'art", a collection (edited by H. Laurens) much appreciated by the author of La Recherche; still in the same collection, Proust was delighted to discover G. and L. Rosenthal's Carpaccio (published by H. Laurens). The Venetian painter Vittore Carpaccio (1460-1526) was introduced in La Recherche, through the shimmering dresses of the couturier Fortuny, given to Albertine by the Narrator, and studied at length by Proust during his stays in Venice, thanks to Ruskin's works.