Charles BAUDELAIRE returns to his work on Francisco de GOYA.

Charles Baudelaire (1821.1867)

Autograph letter probably signed to Charles Yriarte.

One page in-8°. [Paris] February 22, 1864.

Unpublished letter to the Pléiade correspondence.

« … what I wrote about Goya is detestable…”

Remarkable letter from Baudelaire welcoming a publication project on Francisco de Goya. The poet refers his correspondent to the reference study published by Théophile Gautier in 1842 and to the catalog of Eugène Piot, while denigrating his own work on the Spanish master published in 1857.

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“Dear Sir, I thank you for your excellent intention – But what I wrote about Goya is detestable and if I reprint it, it will be very reworked. Your friend M. de Labrador can make an excellent Header with the little book on Goya , which you kindly gave me, - with the remarkable article by Gautier printed in the Cabinet de l'amateur directed by M. Piot, – and finally with the notes of Mr. Piot, relating to the political and satirical meaning of several of the Caprices (same collection). I know that Mr. Piot will publish new notes. Yes, speculation is good; but reproductions must be made according to good proofs, and it should be possible to guarantee that they will not fade. All yours. Baudelaire. »

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. In 1842, Théophile Gautier published "Francisco Goya y Lucientes" in the magazine Le Cabinet de l'amateur et de l'antiquaire , as a preamble to the first catalog raisonné of the engraved work of the Spanish master produced by his friend Eugène Piot ( with whom he had traveled through Spain in 1840). Gautier's study and Piot's catalog were landmarks and marked a decisive point of reference for the knowledge of Goya in France. Baudelaire refers to Gautier's article with praise and mentions it in the introduction to his own text on Goya, Some foreign caricaturists , published in 1857 in the magazine Le Present (article reprinted posthumously, in 1868, in the collection of his art criticism texts, Aesthetic Curiosities).

. Charles Yriarte, director of Le Monde Illustré , published a work of art history in 1867, entirely devoted to Goya. Ambitious work on two counts: on the one hand, because of the extreme rigor with which the study is carried out, on the other hand, because of the objective pursued by the author wishing to modify the perception of his contemporaries on the Aragonese artist, through “a definitive study which establishes the place he must occupy in the history of art”. Yriarte focused primarily on the painted work of Goya, much less known than his etchings, and included in his study “forty-five absolutely unpublished plates from his most famous and important works.”

Yriarte also paid tribute to Baudelaire two weeks after his death in 1867, through a publication highlighting not only his poetic genius but also his talents as a prose writer and translator.

. The collection of 80 engraved plates entitled Les Caprices (Los Caprichos) was published for the first time in 1799 by Goya. Fascinatingly rich, the work presents a thorough indictment against human defects, superstition, stupidity, corruption, prostitution, false manners, lies and the blindness of power.