- Paris 18 mars 1905, 13,1x20,9cm, 3 pages sur un double feuillet. - Handwritten signed letter from Victor Segalen addressed to Emile Mignard: "Great success with my Gauguin unpacking" Paris 18 March 1905 | 13,1 x 20,9 cm | 3 pages on a double leaf Handwritten signed letter from Victor Segalen addressed to émile Mignard, three pages written in black ink on a double leaf of squared paper. Transverse folds from having been sent. One of the very rare letters recounting the extraordinary rescue of Gauguin's works by his "champion". Segalen left Tahiti, after having transited through Colombo, Port Said and Toulon, he is in Paris for a few days and tells his friend of the reactions to Gauguin's works that he brought back from Polynesia. The auction of Gauguin's goods and works, which remained in his Maison du Jouir after his death, took place in the autumn of 1903. One of the few purchasers present at the liquidation was Victor Segalen who thus made it possible to rescue several of the painter's capital pieces, which were at risk of being destroyed in general indifference. Segalen, who had hoped to arrive in time to meet Gauguin, revives his memory by trying to acquire - despite his low salary - as many works as possible from his late mentor. In his « Hommage à Gauguin » (preface to Lettres de Paul Gauguin à George-Daniel de Monfreid, 1918), he recounts this now incredible dispersion: "Then there is the judicial sale, in the most legal, most sordid forms. The 'useful' objects, clothing, cookware, preserves and wines were sold on site. Another auction sale took place in Papeete and included some paintings, two albums, the image of Satan and of the concubine Thérèse, the pediment and the panels of the Maison du Jouir, the painter's cane, his palette. For purchasers: merchants and civil servants; some naval officers; the reigning governor at the time; onlookers, a teacher of painting without pupils who became a public writer. [.] The palette fell to me for forty cents. I acquired at random everything that I could grasp on the run from the auction. A painting [Village breton sous la neige], presented upside down by the auctioneer who called it 'Niagara Falls', was met with great laughter. It became my property for the sum of seven francs. As for the woods - pediment and metopes from the Maison du Jouir, no one bid higher than my.one hundred cents! And they stayed with me. [.] The woods of the Maison du Jour, I then destined them to this Breton Mansion, at the other end of the world, that Saint-Pol-Roux also built as a final home, overlooking the Toulinguet bay, on the Atlantic peninsula. The palette, I could not decently pay better tribute to it than to the only one worthy of holding it, - not between his fingers, like a relic whose origin we assess with faith, - but passing the thumb through the oval to the double bevel which carries and presents the song of colors, . to Georges Daniel de Monfreid. [.] This painting (Village breton sous la neige), I have kept. The gift itself would be insulting. Gauguin died painting it, it is a legacy." David Haziot's biography of Gauguin gives an accurate inventory of the works purchased by Segalen: "Segalen was able to acquire seven out of ten paintings. Among them the self-portrait Près du Golgotha [today at the Saõ Paulo Art Museum]. The sculptures Père Paillard and Thérèse disappeared, as did a second version of the three women by the sea including one breastfeeding at their feet. [.] Segalen [.] took away the sketchbook from Auckland, four of the five wooden panels that adorned the door of the Maison du Jouir (for 100 cents!), the photographs of Arosa, notably with the images of Borobudur and the Parthenon, and the Village breton sous la neige painted after the Concarneau disaster and which Gauguin took with him." These works, among the most famous of our artistic heritage, are today preserved at the Musée d'Orsay (Paris) and in other major world institutions. "Great succes
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