Manuscripts, rare and antiques books, letters, photographs and more will be at auction at Aguttes on 20th December, 2017. Following Aristophil going into liquidation, with their collection being sealed off for more than two years, in 2015, Aguttes answered the French judicial authorities call for tenders. The Tribunal de Commerce selected Aguttes to handle the sale of the Aristophil collection.
[youtube id="4Srm1UtOpBg"]
The entire 130 000 works collection will be dispersed across 300 auctions which will take place over six years. Estimates in the auction taking place on December 20 will range from €200 to €6 million, with the total for total estimate for the auction at €12-16 million.
The oldest piece in the collection is a set of five illuminated folios from the 14th century.
The handwritten manuscript for one of the most famous erotica novels in history, The 120 Days of Sodom, written by the Marquis de Sade whilst he was imprisoned in Bastille will be part of the first auction at Aguttes.
On 29th February, 1974, the Marquis de Sade was moved imprisoned in Bastille. Two years prior to this, he had been working on 120 Days of Sodom. The handwritten scroll coming up for auction is signed by the Marquis: "This tape was written in 20 evenings from 7 to 10 pm and is finished this 12th of 1785...All this great band was started on the 22nd of 1785 and finished in 37 days.''
The pages of the scroll feature small writing in brown ink with some erasures, editing and annotations. The novel was written at the end of the reign of Louis XIV, shortly before the Regency.
Sade first presents at length the four principal protagonists, rich libertine aristocrats, the Duke of Blangis, his brother the bishop, the president of Curval and the financier Durcet; then their wives: Constance, "wife of the duke and daughter of Durcet", Adelaide, "wife of Durcet and daughter of the president", Julie, "wife of the president and eldest daughter of the duke", and Aline, "younger sister of Julie and really the bishop's daughter. "
The idea behind this is to divide the books into the behaviour of the ''four scoundrels,'' modelled after such works as The Arabian Nights and The Decameron.
All the characters live locked up for four months in the Silling castle, lost in the Black Forest, which Sade describes at length as being lavishly decorate before going on to write "most impure story that has ever been made since the world's existence."
French writer and literary critic Jean Paulhan labelled the Marquis de Sade work a "gigantic catalog of perversions" whilst writer Maurice Blanchot said of the text "It may be admitted that, in no literature of any time, there has been such a scandalous work that no one has hurt so deeply the feelings and thoughts of men.'' Publisher Jean-Jacques Pauvert said that "Never in any period of time, in any literature, had we written anything so scandalous, so repulsive, so unbearable.''
This scroll, originally stored in a case, and hidden between two stones, was abandoned by Sade in his cell of the Bastille. On 2nd July, 1789, Sade was moved to Charenton, and the text was found in his dungeon by certain Arnoux Saint-Maximin, who sold it to the Villeneuve-Trans family. The text was first published in 1904 by German psychiatrist and sexologist Iwan Bloch under the pseudonym Eugène Dühren. The manuscript was bought in 1929 by Charles and Marie-Laure de Noailles, who entrusted it to Maurice Heine.
When the Noailles passed away, the scroll was inherited by their daughter Nathalie. It was stolen in 1982 by the publisher Jean Grouet, who illegally sold it to the Swiss bibliophile Gérard Nordmann. A legal battle followed, led by Carlo Perrone, the son of Nathalie de Noailles. The Swiss justice system declared that the manuscript was the possession of Gérard Nordmann. The manuscript was placed in the collection of the Fondation Bodmer in Geneva. Carlo Perrone then acquired the scroll from the Nordmann family before March 2014 when Aristophil called that it be returned to France.
The 16 page manifesto was written in October, 1929 and is signed and dated by André Breton. The writing has erasures and corrections by André Breton done by hand.
The piece also features Breton's writing La Revolution Surrealiste. Breton writes ''the entire aim of Surrealism is to supply it with practical possibilities in no way competitive in the most immediate realm of consciousness.''
The text marks a turning point in Surrealism. A division occurred in 1929 between Breton and Bataille, in the same month both Breton’s Second Manifesto and Bataille's Le Jeu lugubre in Documents were published.
Although both men agreed that Surrealism lies in Freud'’s unconscious mind and dream state, Breton explored the Communist ideals of Karl Marx, not agreeing with Bataille on the basis of Marxism.
In his second Surrealist writing, Breton condemns Bataille who be believed was a threat to Surrealism. Breton wrote, ''What we are witnessing is an obnoxious return to old anti-dialectal materialism, which this time is trying to force its way gratuitously through Freud.''
These incredible pieces will be sure to make literary history. Discover more from Aguttes here.
