Autograph manuscript of Journal d’un nègre à l’exposition de 1900.
1900-1901.
In-4 (275 x 220 mm), 48 pp., contemporary red half morocco with corners, smooth spine, untrimmed; small stain to binding (contemporary binding signed V. Champs).
Autograph manuscript of Journal d’un nègre à l’exposition de 1900, “traduit du nègre par Gaston Bergeret”, by Théophile Gautier’s son-in-law.
This work has been repeatedly discussed in scholarship for its representation of a Black man in France at the turn of the twentieth century.
This satirical and humorous guide was illustrated with 79 watercolours by Henry Somm, depicting the Black visitor dressed as a dandy, a representation which César A. Leal has notably related to the contemporary vogue for the American cakewalk.
The text and its illustrations have been extensively discussed and cited in studies devoted to representations of Black people and African American culture in Belle Époque France, including César A. Leal, America in the French Imaginary, 1789–1914: Music, Revolution and Race, “Cakewalking in Paris: New Representations and Contexts of African American Culture,” p. 326 ff.; Jeannene M. Przyblyski, in William L. Chew III, National Stereotypes in Perspective. Americans in France, Frenchmen in America, 2001, pp. 220–222; and James Smalls, “‘Race’ as Spectacle in Late Nineteenth-Century French Art and Popular Culture,” French Historical Studies, 26:2 (Spring 2003), pp. 351–382.
Léopold Carteret’s copy, the future publisher of the work, with Bergeret’s signed autograph presentation inscription on a front flyleaf: “A mon cher éditeur, souvenir de cordiale affection. Gaston Bergeret, Janvier 1901.” [“To my dear publisher, a token of cordial affection. Gaston Bergeret, January 1901.”] The work was published later that same year in an edition limited to only 400 copies.
The manuscript contains a number of corrections, deletions and textual additions. The first page also bears a partially erased binder’s note: “M. Carteret, cart. maroquin rouge coins” [“Mr Carteret, red morocco binding with corners”].
1 600€
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