Burty (Philippe) - Lot 14

Burty (Philippe) Exhibition of Corot's work at the École nationale des Beaux-Arts, Typographie Jules Juteau & Cie, Paris, 1875. Biographical note by Ph. Burty. Photographic portrait of Corot (2 original photographs of Corot two years before his death, in bust and on the ground, with his famous umbrella unfurled, by Charles Desavary). First edition (24 x 15.5 cm). Binding: Full contemporary vellum by Pierson (Burty's usual bookbinder) with his stork figure in the center of the boards. The personal deluxe copy of Philippe Burty, prefacer of the famous Corot exhibition of 1875, a tribute to the painter who died that year. The copy is on beautiful reprinted paper, the deluxe papers sold at the time for 2 francs, whereas the current print run was 1 franc. Attached is an engraving of the 1841 painting Démocrite et les Abderitains. The engraving is inverted and signed in graphite Carot (?) and bears the red stamp of the Burty collection. Philippe Burty (1830-1890) was a regular at Gustave Flaubert's "Sundays" and a promoter of Japonism. A Republican with links to Gambetta, in 1871 he became an influential critic for La république française, and in 1881 an active and well-informed buyer for the State, as Inspector of Fine Arts. But his name will remain indelibly linked to the Impressionists through the preface he wrote for the catalog of the first large-scale dispersal of paintings (73 works) requested by painters such as Monet, Pissarro, Sisley, Morisot and Renoir, for which Durand-Ruel was expert appraiser, on March 24, 1875 at the Hôtel Drouot. In the same year, he published this tribute to Camille Corot (1796-1875), just after his death on February 22.