Jean COCTEAU. 24 L.A.S. and one autograph MANUSCRIT signed, - Lot 33

Lot 33
Go to lot
Estimation :
800 - 1500 EUR
Register for the sale on drouot.com
Jean COCTEAU. 24 L.A.S. and one autograph MANUSCRIT signed, - Lot 33
Jean COCTEAU. 24 L.A.S. and one autograph MANUSCRIT signed, 1954-1955, to Jean-René LEGRAND; 29 pages in-4 or in-8, envelopes. Jean-René LEGRAND (1899-1959), born René Jean Steigelmann, film-maker and writer, is the author of esoteric works. In 1955, he published Méditations cabbalistiques sur des symboles traditionnels, with a preface by Jean Cocteau (cover enclosed). The manuscript of the Preface, on 4 pages in-4, shows a few erasures and corrections; it was sent on April 15, 1954: "There exists an invisible, unknown world, the true world without doubt, of which ours is only a fringe and which the Numbers seem to translate a little into the verb of human signs"... And Cocteau concludes: "The eternal mechanism must be very simple, complicated by our blindness alone. Far from further complicating it, esotericism seeks rules to help us discover that the vast is vast only in relation to us, that the void is a solid, that this solid is a thought, a thought that ours might be worthy of joining through the intermediary of those chemists we're wont to take for magicians". The correspondence, marked by Cocteau's interest in esotericism, relates to the reading of Legrand's manuscript, the writing of the Preface, delayed by the Cannes Festival... Cocteau talks about his friend René Bertrand, gives elements for Legrand to make his horoscope, then those of Doudou and Francine Weisweiler... He speaks of his fascination with numbers and the stars: "Do the stars speak or are they our ventriloquists? "He writes with difficulty his acceptance speech to the Académie, paints his chapel... Etc. Enclosed are 34 letters received by Legrand, most of them L.A.S., from Robert Amadou, René Bertrand (6), Jean de Broglie, Georges Migot (5), etc.; plus a file of preparatory notes, typescripts, drawings and graphics, etc. Expert: Thierry BODIN
My orders
Sale information
Sales conditions
Return to catalogue