This letter will not be blown away by an evil wind like a dead leaf.
A drawing representing the poets Paul Verlaine, the author of
Chanson d'automne
, and Arthur Rimbaud, that of the
Dormeur du Val
, in a missive, often reproduced but never exhibited, will go on sale on November 3 at Christie's, announced Tuesday the auction house, while the very French debate rages on for entry into the Pantheon of the two poets.
Read also: Verlaine-Rimbaud: the background of the campaign for their entry into the Panthéon
This drawing is the work of the satirical designer Félix Régamey (1844-1907).
The stylized sketch of the two poets illustrates a letter to his brother, dated 1872. It shows the two men walking down the street in London, passing by a "bobby" drawn in the background.
“Now guess who I've been on my back for three days.
Verlaine and Rimbaud - arriving from Brussels - Verlaine handsome in his own way.
Rimbaud, hideous.
Both without linen elsewhere.
They decided on Gin without hesitation, ”
wrote Régamey in his epistole.
Read also: Rimbaud and Verlaine, too free for the Panthéon
Verlaine and Rimbaud at the Panthéon?
This sketch, Christie's said in a statement, is "
the only drawing showing Verlaine and Rimbaud together during their famous flight between 1872 and 1873, one of Rimbaud's major creative periods
.
"
It has been reproduced many times, from a book on Verlaine published by Régamey in 1896. But the original has remained in the caricaturist's family for nearly a century and a half.
The figures of Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud are the subject of a campaign by several admirers to bring them together in the Pantheon, an idea favored by the Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot, but against which pleaded a descendant of the brother of Rimbaud and several intellectuals.
The sale is scheduled for November 3 at Christie's in Paris.
The estimate is between 70,000 and 100,000 euros.
