STENDHAL Marie-Henri Beyle dit Histoire de la peinture en Italie. Par. M.B.A.A.

Carteret, II, 344 (“ouvrage rare et important”) ; Clouzot, 256 ; Vicaire, I, 451.

First edition, printed at the author’s expenses.

Written between the end of 1811 and May 1817, the work, originally conceived as an art history textbook, is an aesthetic manifesto and deals mainly with the masters of the Florentine school, such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. Stendhal’s famous dedication “To the happy few” appears for the first time on the title of the second volume.

The work appeared in the last days of July 1817. It had taken almost ten months to print these two volumes, the sheets printed as they went along being riddled with printing errors, and no fewer than 26 cancels and 4 pages of errata were printed. Published anonymously, the edition was published three years later under Stendhal’s name.

Copy with the additional leaf 212 bis-212 ter in volume I and pp. 21-24 on a single leaf in volume II, as well as the uncorrected errors indicated on the erratum at the beginning of each volume. Without the dedication leaf to Tsar Alexander I, “the greatest existing sovereign”, which was probably only included in copies intended for export to Russia.

Prestigious provenance

Prosper Mérimée’s copy with his bookplate bearing his initials and Greek motto on the inside cover. The writer then gave it to the famous “Inconnue” Jeanne-Françoise Dacquin dite Jenny. Her signature appears on each endpaper, “Mademoiselle Dacquin”.

“Ce livre, en même temps qu’il évoque l’amitié célèbre de Stendhal et de Mérimée, semble être l’unique témoin matériel des liens qui existaient entre celui-ci et Jenny Dacquin. L’inconnue de Mérimée est restée mystérieuse ; le portrait qui en a été exposé et publié c’est &avéré d’une attribution inexacte, ce qui fait que son visage même est inconnu. Enfin il ne subsiste qu’un nombre infime de livres portant l’ex-libris de l’écrivain, sa bibliothèque ayant disparu dans l’incendie de la Cour des Comptes près de laquelle il habitait” (description in the  Goudeket sale).

A choice copy.

Other provenance : Goudeket (sale, 13 March 1961, lot 181, with Pierre Berès as expert).