Bidspirit auction | [VARIOUS AUTOGRAPHS, LETTERS, & DOCUMENTS]

[VARIOUS AUTOGRAPHS, LETTERS, & DOCUMENTS] - HENRI DE TOULOUSE-LAUTREC (1864–1901) - Important Early Autograph Letter Signed to his cousin Raoul Tapié de Céleyran - HENRI DE TOULOUSE-LAUTREC (1864–1901) “JE M’ÉTAIS DIT AVEC PLAISIR QUE NOUS RECOMMENCERIONS LES AGRÉABLES VACANCES DU JOUR DE L’AN” Important Early Autograph Letter Signed to his cousin Raoul Tapié de Céleyran, written in the aftermath of the accidents that transformed his life, Céleyran, December 1879 Autograph letter signed, in French, Céleyran, December 1879, to his young cousin Raoul Tapié de Céleyran (1868–1937). Four pages, small octavo, closely written in pencil on a single folded sheet. An unusually early and intimate letter by the fifteen-year-old Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, addressed to his cousin Raoul Tapié de Céleyran and written during one of the most consequential periods of the future artist’s youth. Lautrec writes with affectionate urgency after learning that his young cousins’ school results have been so unsatisfactory that they may be prevented from joining the family for the New Year holidays. He reminds Raoul of his promises to work harder and expresses his disappointment at the prospect that they may not be able to spend the holidays together: “Je m’étais dit avec plaisir que nous recommencerions les agréables vacances du jour de l’an.” (“I had been happily thinking that we would once again enjoy those pleasant New Year holidays together.”) He urges Raoul to make every possible effort to avoid the threatened punishment: “Tu comprends ma peine, et je viens vous exhorter à faire votre possible pour que cette punition n’ait pas lieu.” (“You understand how distressed I am, and I urge you to do everything possible so that this punishment does not take place.”) The letter continues in the animated, spontaneous voice of an adolescent writing to a much-loved younger cousin. Lautrec encourages Raoul to work hard enough to persuade his parents to relent, repeatedly returning to the prospect of their spending the holidays together. The document acquires particular poignancy from its date. In 1878 and 1879 Lautrec had suffered the two severe fractures of his legs that permanently affected his physical development. In August 1879, only a few months before the present letter, he had suffered the second fracture while staying at Barèges. The long periods of convalescence associated with these injuries coincided with the increasingly central place that drawing was assuming in his life. Yet there is strikingly little sense of his own circumstances in the letter. Instead, the fifteen-year-old Lautrec is absorbed by family life, school marks, holidays and the prospect of seeing his cousins again. The contrast between the seriousness of his recent injuries and the affectionate, entirely youthful concerns of the letter gives it particular biographical appeal. The recipient, Raoul Tapié de Céleyran, was Lautrec’s first cousin and remained closely connected with the artist throughout his life. The two belonged to the closely interwoven Toulouse-Lautrec and Tapié de Céleyran families, whose houses and estates formed the landscape of Lautrec’s childhood. Raoul would later appear in Lautrec’s work and own several paintings from the artist’s estate. The relationship between the cousins was therefore far from incidental. Surviving correspondence records Lautrec writing to Raoul from an early age, and the present letter belongs to the formative period in which his physical circumstances were changing dramatically while his commitment to drawing was steadily developing. A compelling document from the dawn of Toulouse-Lautrec’s artistic life: the future chronicler of Montmartre, only fifteen years old and recovering from the injuries that would permanently alter his physical development, writing with youthful urgency about school marks, family affection and the hope of spending New Year with his cousins. Provenance: Raoul Tapié de Céleyran (1868–1937), cousin of the artist; subsequently offered at L’Autographe Auctions, lot 974, where described as an autograph letter signed, dated “Céleyran Xbre 79”, to Raoul Tapié de Céleyran. Condition: Written in pencil, generally pale but substantially legible; original horizontal and vertical folds; light age-toning, handling wear and occasional darker pencil emphasis or contemporary markings. Overall good to very good.