“In my work, the poem L’Ange Heurtebise has the importance of Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
in Picasso’s work,” declares Jean Cocteau in Le Passé défini in 1953.
Original edition drawn at 355 copies, this one being one of the 5 very rare copies on China paper, adorned with a rayograph by Man Ray as the frontispiece.
Copy preserved in a remarkable mosaic binding signed by Pierre-Lucien Martin.
Cocteau, Jean. L’Ange Heurtebise. Poem with a photograph of the angel by Man Ray.
Paris, Librairie Stock, 1925.
In-folio of (2) blank leaves, (1) half-title leaf, 1 full-page photograph as frontispiece, (1) title leaf, (1) blank leaf, 16 leaves each bearing a poem on recto, (1) leaf of colophon.
Half black box with strips, smooth spine with long title, boards adorned with a large polychrome mosaic composition of interlocking geometrical shapes of colored glazed papers, gilded head, covers preserved, soft cardboard slipcase with transparent spine, case, a small marginal tear on the restored title without loss. Pierre-Lucien Martin, 1960.
Dimensions of the binding: 376 x 278 mm.
Original edition drawn at 355 copies, this one being one of the 5 very rare copies on China paper.
This poem, written by Cocteau following the death of Raymond Radiguet in 1923, evokes the young novelist whose frontispiece is supposed to be the portrait.
Rayograph by Man Ray as the frontispiece (Man Ray used this process from 1922 in an issue of Vanity Fair, then to illustrate Tristan Tzara’s spectacular avant-garde work, Les Champs Délicieux), “photograph of the angel” reproduced in heliogravure.
L’ange Heurtebise was a guardian angel, but also a kind of demon for the artistic jack-of-all-trades, Jean Cocteau. He appeared as a muse but also as an angel of death and as the reincarnation of Cocteau’s lover, Raymond Radiguet, who died prematurely.
Legend has it that Cocteau was in an elevator when the angel spoke to him and revealed its name, identical to that of the elevator manufacturer, Heurtebise.
In a state of euphoria that lasted seven days, Cocteau wrote the poem L’ange Heurtebise, containing lines such as: ‘L’ange Heurtebise on the steps’. Although the angel was supposed to be unknowable and invisible, the surrealist photographer, Man Ray, managed to capture it on the sensitive plate, with an image called ‘Rayograph’, made by placing an object on photo paper and then exposing it to light. This book was reproduced using the heliogravure technique.
“In my work, the poem L’Ange Heurtebise has the importance of Les Demoiselles d’Avignon in Picasso’s work,” declares Jean Cocteau in Le Passé défini in 1953.
Elsewhere, he asserts that it is “the center of [his] poems, like the core of [his] poems” (Interviews with André Fraigneau, 1951). It shows the importance he attaches to this text where his writing and imagination are renewed, even approaching in some respects the surrealist automatic writing processes (a chapter of Diary of an Unknown recounts the birth of the poem).
This figure of an angel, far removed from traditional imagery, owes much to the appearance of Radiguet in his life and to his disappearance.
Copy preserved in a remarkable mosaic binding signed by Pierre-Lucien Martin.
