Fourth Sale of the Kahn Collection: Old Masters, 19th-Century Books and Surrealism

"A Thousand Nights of Dreams," the title given to this collection after Paul Éluard's poem "Balance," follow one another with varying degrees of similarity. Begun on November 7, 2019, the sale focused on Dadaist and Surrealist  works. This new session was generous in this sphere, of course, but also left room for some Old Master paintings and 19th-century authors. A rarity in bibliophily, a paperback copy of the first edition (25 copies) of Alvare (Paris, 1818)—the only novel by Aimée de Coigny, Duchesse de Fleury and the model for La Jeune Captive immortalized by André Chénier—is expected to fetch €6,000/8,000, while the autograph manuscript of L'Écornifleur (The Scrounger, c. 1892) by Jules Renard, which was used for the print run and includes passages that were later deleted, should fetch €4,000/6,000. €8,000/12,000 are expected for a copy of the first edition of Le Lys dans la vallée (The Lily of the Valley, Paris, 1836) given by Balzac to Alfred Nettement, one of his very few supporters during the court case he brought against the Revue de Paris.

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