(Paris) A key piece in the history of the avant-gardes, namely corrected proofs of the Manifesto of Surrealism by André Breton, is up for auction, Christie’s said on Tuesday.
Posted at 12:07 p.m.
This lot, estimated between 70,000 and 100,000 euros ($95,000 and $136,000), is the most valuable of the 447 that will be auctioned in Paris on November 3 and 4.
This auction is the fifth part of the dispersion of the library of collector Paul Destribats (1926-2017).
A former Trotskyist militant, Paul Destribats, after having made a fortune on the commodity markets, had assembled an unparalleled collection of avant-garde manuscripts, journals and books from the 20e century.
This pre-copy of the famous Manifesto of Surrealism, dating from 1924, was already offered for sale for the first time in July 2019, without success. It was estimated at the time between 200,000 euros and 300,000 euros.
“We were coming out of setbacks in manuscripts, at the time of the Aristophil sales”, a company whose activity of purchasing manuscripts had artificially inflated prices before its bankruptcy in 2016, explained to AFP the director of the Books department of Christie’s Paris, Adrien Legendre.
“The market had not returned to a sufficient level of confidence. But from a purely literary point of view, these corrected proofs, which contain entirely handwritten parts, are of very great value,” he added.
On the cover page, for example, André Breton crossed out the title initially chosen, Introduction to surrealism, to prefer the one we know. The trials continue with that of Soluble fisha poetic collection whose Manifest was originally the preface.
In the library of Paul Destribats, the National Library of France had pre-empted in 2019 the manuscript of Second manifesto of surrealism from 1934, sold for 442,000 euros. Finally donated to the BnF, it was exhibited in 2021.
Initially scheduled for March 2022, a final part of the Paul Destribats library sale, devoted to Russian avant-gardes, has been postponed indefinitely.