Gauguin (Paul) - Lot 55

Gauguin (Paul) Ɵ BEFORE and after, P.G. aux Marquises. [1903] [Kurt Wolff, Leipzig, 1918]. Complete 214-page facsimile reproducing the original 1903 notebook, with two sketches in the text, eight full-page compositions and nineteen plates laminated, engraving by Dürer (The Knight, Death and the Devil, from 1513) on the back cover and Japanese prints by Utagawa Kunisada on the endpapers. Inserted, a flyleaf of justification on laid paper (bifeuillet of four pages, the first with the justification, the other three blank). Publisher's boards and slipcase (signed with blue stamp "E. A. Enders, Leipzig"). First edition (30.5 x 22.5 cm). An intact and complete copy of Gauguin's first ever published facsimile, an introspective autobiography that was his last work written a few weeks before his death in the Marquesas Islands in 1903, and which is missing from French public libraries. Copy no. 59 (one hundred copies announced, but only a few known), as issued and complete with the often-missing flyleaf. This is the first work by Paul Gauguin published in facsimile, dedicated to André Fontainas. Its extreme rarity and the fact that it was printed in Germany may explain why it is largely unknown in France. It was Gauguin's last text, completed just before his death on May 8, 1903. The cover is adorned with masks, fleurs-de-lis and other flowers, a mermaid and the painter's two large initials, the second ending with the painter's name in a much smaller font. At the bottom is the inscription: "Aux Marquises 1903 - Pour Pleurer Pour Souffrir Pour Mourir - Pour Rire Pour Vivre Pour Jouir - In Secula Seculorum". AVANT et après is a collection of miscellaneous reflections, childhood memories, anecdotes and opinions on art, his relationship with van Gogh, and descriptions of his life in the Marquesas, with details such as the cyclone of January 7, 1903 that almost demolished his hut. It was the first of Gauguin's illustrated writings to be published in facsimile, and was reissued in 1948. Kurt Wolff had acquired the notebook from Mette Gauguin, and later sold it to his friend Erik Ernst Schwabach, who translated it into German. The manuscript then passed to Erich Goeritz, who emigrated to England in the 1930s, where it was recently found. Provenance: Private collection.