Eduard Vuillard Artwork Details

 

 

Detailed Description

Note 1: This was published in “Amour” by Paul Leautard in 1934 in “Editions Spiral”. The stone was cancelled and an example struck from the cancellation is in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris

Note 2: Paul Léautaud was born on 18 January 1872 as son of Firmin Léautaud (prompter) and Jeanne Forestier (actress). The family did not stay long together. The first to leave was his mother, whose place was taken by her sister and after her others. Soon after his mother left, little Paul was given to the care of an old former prostitute, Marie Pezée. She in fact raised Paul Léautaud. When Paul finished elementary school in 1887, his father decided it was the best for him to find a job, so the family would have some extra money. In 1896 he left the family home permanently. He already had spent some nights elsewhere after rows with his father and his mistress. He got his steady job at the publishing house Le Mercure de France in 1908 after many jobs and working there on a non-permanent base. Officially he was a secretary, but it was obvious they gave him the job to provide him with a steady income, so he could write. His job consisted of sending proves to authors, checking corrections, distributing the mail and returning manuscripts. He was very free in his job, as he more than once spent most of the day elsewhere. Paul's greatest love were animals. He always had at least one in his house. During his lifetime he had about 300 cats, 150 dogs, a goose, a goat and a monkey as pets. Sometimes there were more than 50 animals in the house. One should therefore not be surprised that his greatest worry was how to feed all these animals. All of his income was spent to feed his pets and most of the day he was busy to gather it. He even went so far as to sell his correspondence with Paul Valéry, a portrait by Matisse and signed first editions of famous authors he got for his work at the Mercure, to have money to feed his animals. He got his house in Fontenay-aux-Roses because his then girlfriend Blanche Blanc told him that if he brought one more animal with him, she would part. That same evening she packed her bags and left the house, because he brought another dog with him. Apart from his own animals, he also fed cats that lived in the Parisian parks and wherever he encountered one. From 1912 onwards Léautaud lived in the Parisian suburb Fontenay-aux-Roses, where he lived until he died. Almost daily he took the train to his work in the centre of Paris. Léautaud never was married but (or because of that) he had a turbulent love life, as one may find in his dairies. The most important affairs were with Jeanne Marié (1889-1893, the love of his youth in Courbevoie and later Paris), Georgette Crozier (1894-1895), Blanche Blanc (1897-1914), Anne Cayssac (1914-1933 and better known as Le Fléau or Le Panthère and Marie Dormoy (the editor of his Journal littéraire, their affair became public only after she died).

Reference: Roger Max (Catalogue Raisonee) reference : 60, page 156

Condition: Unexamined out of frame. There is a crease on the top left of the image. Size: Image size 14 x 19.5 cms