Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) Le Mystère et Antigone. Saint Mandrier Août 1932. [Esquisse]s...

Jean Cocteau (French, 1889-1963)
Le Mystère et Antigone. Saint Mandrier Août 1932. [Esquisse]s de Bébé 29 ans le 20 août 1932
carnet d'esquisses à spirales, contenant 30 feuillets (dont 4 laissés vierges), une feuille détachée, plats de carton gris, de la marque 'La Reliure spirale RS', petites taches sur les couvertures et pliures surtout aux coins, grand in-4 (32.5 x 23.8cm), Août 1932

autograph sketchbook, containing 30 leaves (of which 4 left blank), one leaf detached, spiral-bound grey notebook by the brand 'La Reliure spirale RS', minor staining and creasing to covers, large 4to (32.5 x 23.8cm), August 1932
Footnotes:
A group of 25 full-page sketches, including portraits (4), male figure studies (10), and theatre designs. The poet Jean Desbordes (1906-1944) and Cocteau were living together in the mid-1920s, and Cocteau wrote the preface to Desbordes' J'Adore. Cocteau exhibited his portraits of Desbordes, and published them under the title 25 dessins d'un dormeur (1929), showing him asleep in a sailor's suit.

In 1932, Cocteau travelled with Debordes to Saint-Mandrier where these drawings were executed. The artist adds his profile and star design to lower cover, a list of art supplies ('Album gros papier colorié, gouaches Lefranc blanche / tubes d'aquarelles Lefranc [suivent plusieurs couleurs] / Godet d'or / Pinceau d'aquarelle de martre'), and on six leaves some set designs - ostensibly for Antigone although it was premiered a decade before. They could also be for La Machine infernale, which he wrote in 1932.

Provenance
Christie's, Paris, 27 April 2015, lot 182.
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