Antoine François GELÉE (1796-1860) draftsman and... Lot 50

Antoine François GELÉE (1796-1860) draftsman and engraver. L.A.S., and 17 L.A.S. to him, 1819-1852. Very interesting together. Choisy-le-Roi October 17 [1819], to engraver Benoît Taurel, resident at the Villa Medici (4 p. in-4). Amusing and long letter in the form of an article written about himself, evoking his projects: a great etching "of the grandeur of Daphnis and Chloé and of Monsieur Laugier's Léandre" whose subject was given to him by the late Félix Boisselier. This is followed by news from Paris, with the winners of major prizes in painting, sculpture, architecture and musical composition. He comments on the Salon of 1819, notably the Departure of the Duchess of Bordeaux by Baron Gros and the Raft of the Medusa of Jericho [Géricault], Ingres ("son odaliske, car on rit de son autre tableau [Roger delivering Angelique]"), Horace Vernet, etc. He recounts a visit to Girodet's studio, commenting at length on the painting of Pygmalion and Galatea ... Benoît Taurel: 6, 1819-1822, long friendly and artistic letters about his stay at the Villa Medici, his boredom, his marriage, his walks in Rome, including a plate of L'Amour et Psyché (Love and Psyche), etc. Léon Cogniet, Rome June 11, 1821, about his Nymph Chasseresse which the Society of Friends of the Arts wants to have engraved by Caron, but which he prefers to entrust to Gelée; afterwards, Taurel rejoices at the break-up of the business initially concluded with Caron. C. Naudet, Bischwiller October 4, 1825, account of his journey from Paris to Geneva, then to Italy (Lake Como, Milan, Bergamo, Mantua, Venice), back to Switzerland (Fribourg, Bern, Luzerne, Basel) then to France via Strasbourg... Hippolyte Pauquet, with a drawing on the second page: he is in "the week of the competition of the places where we are all occupied with his figure"... Jacques-Ignace Hittorff (1831). The secretary of the commission for the monument to Claude Gelée in Épinal (1845). André Giroux, April 1