Anonymous, France, circa 1900 Lise Deharme... - Lot 118 - Crait + Müller

Anonymous, France, circa 1900 Lise Deharme [André Breton] glove Bronze proof with golden patina 19 x 9 cm approx. Provenance: Private collection, South of France A very fine bronze cast of a woman's glove in goatskin with saddle-stitching and two small eyelets at the wrist is famous for having first been lent by the poetess Lise Deharme (1898-1980) to André Breton (1896-1966) to illustrate Nadja, before being offered by the muse to the writer. "I also remember the suggestion I made to a lady one day, in front of me, that she offer one of the astonishing sky-blue gloves she wore to show us the "Centrale surréaliste", the panic I felt when I saw her about to agree, and the pleas I made to her not to do so. I don't know what was so dreadfully, wonderfully decisive about the thought of that glove leaving that hand forever. Yet it only took on its greatest, its true proportions, I mean the ones it has retained, from the moment this lady planned to return and place on the table, where I had so hoped she would not leave the blue glove, a bronze glove she owned and which I have since seen in her home, a woman's glove too, with a bent wrist, fingers without thickness, a glove I've never been able to stop myself from lifting, always surprised by its weight and not caring about anything so much, it seems, as measuring the exact force with which it presses on what the other would not have pressed. " André Breton, Nadja, Œuvres complètes I, Gallimard, Paris, 1988, p. 679 The Atelier André Breton association estimates that there are currently eight known examples of this sculpture. The one by André Bre- ton donated by Aube and Oona Elléouët to the Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques-Doucet, Paris in 2003 has been on deposit at the Centre Pompidou since 2015. Another was in the collection of surrealist historian Arturo Schwarz, now at the Museum of Modern Art in Rome, one in a work by Alan Glass at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, and one in a private collection. Two silvered examples have been identified: one belonged to Jean Marais, sold on March 26, 2014 at Sotheby's, the other came from Madeleine Castaing, before joining the Andrée Putman collection dispersed on June 28, 2013. Two other models were sold at Hôtel Drouot, on November 22, 2017 and June 20, 2018. Mythical, this glove, a product of chance magnified by the eye and the mind, combines all the qualities of the surrealist object: mysterious, dreamlike, erotic, fetishistic, convulsive... Exhibition: (similar copy): - André Breton, La beauté convulsive, Musée National d'Art Moderne / Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1991. - El objeto surrealista, IVAM Centre Julio Gonzalez, Valencia, 1997-1998, rep. p. 33. - La révolution surréaliste, Musée Natio- nal d'Art Moderne / Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 2002 p. 441. - Surrealismus, 1914-1944, Kunstsam- mlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düssel- dorf, K20, 2002, p. 463. - Dada e surrealismo riscoperti, Com- plesso Monumentale del Vittoriano, Rome, 2009-2010, (another copy of an identical glove). - Cahors, Musée de Cahors Henri-Mar- tin, La Maison de verre, André Breton, initiateur découvreur, September 20 - December 29, 2014. Bibliography (similar copies): - André Breton (Édition de Marguerite Bonnet avec la collaboration de Phi- lippe Bernier, Étienne-Alain Hubert et José Pierre), Nadja, Œuvres complètes, tome I, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Paris, Gallimard, 1988, p. 679. - André Breton, La beauté convulsive, Musée National d'Art Moderne / Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1991, rep. p. 277. - Dada e surrealismo riscoperti, Com- plesso Monumentale del Vittoriano, Rome, 2009-2010, rep. p. 234. - Musée de Cahors Henri-Martin, La Maison de verre André Bret