Formerly owned by Laure Moulin, sister of the resistance fighter, the photograph was given by the latter to Noëlle Guillaumet, wife of the aviator Henri Guillaumet, close friend of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and dedicated on the back: "To Noëlle Guillaumet with my deepest sympathy. Laure Moulin"
5.000€
Jean Moulin (1899.1943)
Original photograph.
The most famous portrait of the French resistance fighter.
Montpellier. 1940.
Silver print (17.40 x 12.30 cm) depicting Jean Moulin leaning against a stone wall, wearing an overcoat and scarf, wearing a felt hat.
Photograph of extraordinary provenance: former property of Laure Moulin (1892-1974), sister of the resistance fighter, it was offered by the latter to Noëlle Guillaumet, wife of the aviator Henri Guillaumet, close friend of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and dedicated on the back:
"To Noëlle Guillaumet with my deepest sympathy. Laure Moulin"
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This photograph of Jean Moulin helped fuel the legend of the Resistance hero. Predating the Occupation, it was chosen by his sister for the ceremony of transferring his ashes to the Pantheon on December 19, 1964, and used by her in 1969 as the front cover of the biography dedicated to her brother.
This photograph reveals the very essence of the character: tenacity and self-denial, humility and discretion. Logically, and because of its symbolic power, it has become the emblem of the martyred resistance fighter arrested in Caluire on June 21, 1943, and who died a few weeks later under torture at the hands of the Gestapo.
Some exegetes (including Laure Moulin herself) initially dated this ordeal after her suicide attempt on June 17, 1940, to explain that her scarf would have hidden her ugly scar. This is not the case. The circumstances are now known: having come to spend a few days with his mother and sister in Montpellier in mid-February 1940, Jean Moulin was photographed by his childhood friend Marcel Bernard, at Les Arceaux, near the Promenade du Peyrou.
This photograph is also the story of a friendship. Marcel Bernard was young Moulin's playmate on the Champ de Mars in Béziers. Having lost his older brother, Marcel transferred his brotherly affection to his childhood friend. "Jean loved Marcel Bernard like a brother," wrote Laure Moulin. The two men grew up together and were inseparable, considering each other like two brothers.
Very posed, and finding it too rigid, the photograph was not to the taste of Jean Moulin, dissatisfied with the shot of his friend Marcel: "It is not very brilliant for a virtuoso like him" (letter of March 12, 1940).
Whatever the resistance fighter's point of view on this shot, it remains today the embodiment of the greatness of this man who died for France.
The photograph is presented in a modern silver-rimmed frame.
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Origin :
Laure Moulin Collection.
Noëlle Guillaumet Collection.
Private collection.
Bibliography (non-exhaustive):
JP AZÉMA, Jean Moulin: the rebel, the politician, the resistance fighter , Perrin, 2003.
Daniel CORDIER, Jean Moulin: The Republic of the Catacombs , Gallimard, 1999.
Ch. LEVISSE-TOUZÉ, D. VEILLON, Jean Moulin: artist, prefect, resistance fighter , Tallandier, 2013.
Laure MOULIN, Jean Moulin , Paris, Presses de la Cité, “At a Glance” collection, 1969.