[Dumas fils: Alexandre Dumas the younger, French novelist and playwright.] Autograph Letter Signed [to a prospective agent?] with regard to the sale of paintings in his Paris house.

An interesting item occupying the zone in which French connoisseurship and literature overlap. In 1880 - three years before the present item - Maurice Mauris (Marchese di Calenzano) described a visit to Dumas fils’s Paris house in Rue de Villers. ‘The walls above the library are enriched with a priceless collection of paintings, modern and antique. Diaz, Fortuny, Marchal, Vernet, Delacroix are there seen at their best. Dumas generally presents himself with a new painting after he has presented a new book to the public. Those paintings he styles “the prizes of encouragement he has won.” This letter is 5pp, 12mo. Fifty-six lines, neatly written. On two matching bifoliate letterheads. In good condition, lightly aged, with unobtrusive remains of tape mounts. Folded once for postage. Addressed to ‘Mon cher ami’ and signed ‘A vous. | A. Dumas fils’. No dated, but with ‘1883’ in another hand at top right of first page. He begins by explaining why he is ‘à la campagne’, and noting that he doesn’t have a very good recollection of the pictures and their prices. He begins by stating: ‘Il y avait, je crois, un paysage de Courbet dont je ne demandais que 1200 f. pour moi’. He proceeds to refer to ‘un paysage de Rousseau, avec soleil couchant’, and ‘un jeune fille de Diaz assise dans un jardin avec des fleurs - Homme au balai de Meissonier 1500 f.’ The prices, he explains, are ‘pour vous et dans l’espérance de vous êtes utile’. The recipient can ask ‘2 ou 300 f de plus de chaque chose’, and the outcome ‘fera encore une bonne affaire’. He refers to a ‘très joli Fromentin dont Petit m’a offert 1700 f. et que Je lui ai refusé si vous le voulez pour ce prix, il est à vous. Si j’étais a Paris, je trouverais peut être autre chose. Je ne me souviens plus de quelles acquarelles vous voulez parler. Seulement, cette fois, vous le comprenez, les tableaux me peuvent partir que vendus. Ah! il y avait aussi un paysage de Rousseau, crépuscule’. There is another Rousseau, ‘de sa première manière, très intéressantes entre 250 et 400 f. selon la dimensions - des Daubigny, des Troyon - Je ne me rappelle plus tout - il y en a dans toutes les chambres’.