Valéry (Paul) - Lot 106

Valéry (Paul) Ɵ Degas Danse Dessin. Excerpts from D.D.D. (degas-danse-dessin). Measures, 1935. First edition (23.7 x 18.7 cm). One of 5 copies of the print run (on alfa navarre), no. 3, with an original photographic postcard depicting Paul Valéry (cliché Gabriel Aubès). Á propos de Degas. NRF, 1935. First edition (22.7 x 14.4 cm). One of 12 copies of the edition (on vellum pur fil), no. 3. Envoi de l'auteur: "Ex-libris Baron de Cizancourt 'Le NU étant chose sacrée, c'est-à-dire impure Paul Valéry." Devauchelle slipcase. Extremely rare first editions in a unique edition reserved for the author, Valéry's tribute to Degas preceding and preparing his major 1936 work Degas Danse Dessin for Ambroise Vollard. Around 1896, Paul Valéry (1871-1945) met Edgar Degas (1834-1917) at the Rouart family home. A short list of the six personalities he admired included Degas as the only painter. In 1899, Valéry sketched out a study project in his Cahiers: Monsieur D - ou la peinture. The affinities between the two men quickly developed, not least through their interest in the creative process. Degas called his younger son "Monsieur Ange", who had adopted the painter's words: "You have to want it to see it", and developed the concept of "pictorial poetics" around him. Valéry was particularly fascinated by Degas' obsessive, repetitive gestures as he relentlessly drew the movements and postures of dancers, and for some twenty years he recorded his reflections on the painter. After Degas' funeral, Ambroise Vollard convinced Valéry to write a book on Degas' dance. Valéry didn't really get down to work until 1931, and the book was published in 1937 (the "achevé d'imprimer" indicated 1936), but it had been preceded by these few booklets, printed confidentially for the author and his friends. These two booklets contain, along with a preface that forms the basis of the introductory chapter Degas, the future chapters De la danse, Propos, Voir et Tracer, Travail et Méfiance, Du Sol et de l'Informe, Degas et la Révolution, Du nu, and Mimique. When the book was published by Vollard at the exorbitant price of 2,500 francs, Valéry, while thanking the publisher, expressed his regrets about the title: "I simply regret that the title does not consist of the three Ds in large capitals combined (with the three words in the subtitle) that I had indicated to you could distinguish the work from other publications on Degas. Only the present 1935 booklet D.D.D. (degas-danse-dessin), of which only five copies were printed (!), therefore bears the title Valéry had wanted. A new edition of the work was published in 1938 by Gallimard, with the same title as the one published by Vollard. Provenance: Baron Guy de Cizancourt.