Jean COCTEAU - Illustrated autograph poem – “Uccello”.

Jean Cocteau (1889.1963)

Autograph poem – Uccello.

A page in-4° decorated with drawings and pen essays.

Slnd. [1926]

Magnificent study of verses – first draft – for his collection of Opera poems. Cocteau here lays the versified foundations of his poem Uccello : fourteen lines (including the last four crossed out) bearing numerous variations with the text finally published by Stock in 1927.

The title itself is taken several times, Cocteau hesitating: Adorable song or adorable song , then, crossed out Balance Bérénice , and finally the final title, marked with a star: Uccello.

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She's a bird

Bird of them

Cruel scissors

Cutting eyelashes

Rain that never sits

Unfolded birds

Rainwater

And the headlights

You get rid of

To get silence

I fight without wings and paws in the air with spears.

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Numerous ink stains giving the manuscript a very aesthetic character.

Pen tests and three trellis grid layouts.

On the back, sketch of a head in brown pencil.