Auguste-Henry-Édouard, marquis de QUEUX de SAINT-HILAIRE (18 - Lot 129

Auguste-Henry-Édouard, marquis de QUEUX de SAINT-HILAIRE (1837-1889) scholar and collector. 51 L.A.S. and 6 cartes de visite, 1873-1889, to Alidor Delzant; 118pages in-8 or in-12, many with his crowned cipher or on the letterhead of the Cercle de l'Union Artistique, bound with attached documents in an in-8 full ivory vellum Bradel-style volume with small flaps. Beautiful, friendly and musical correspondence from the Hellenist, medievalist, collector and music lover, to his "dear colleague" Alidor Delzant (1848-1905), literary scholar, former secretary to the Goncourts, and also a collector and music lover. Invitations, meetings, news of artistic and literary life. There is much talk of music, with Saint-Hilaire organizing private concerts with his mother, attended by Delzant and his brother, or at the Cercle de l'Union Artistique, where the violinist Alard is expected; he indicates the works played. He regularly asks his colleague to stand in for him and give the annual address to the Société des Enfants d'Apollon, and provides information on potential candidates: composers René de Boisdeffre, Albert Cahen, the Greek Spiro Samara, collector Gustave Dreyfus, friend of Massenet, Jules Beer, nephew of Meyerbeer, art historian Maurice Faucon, singers and opera singers. He was to go "to the Comte de Morny with Mme de Rothschild to see some unknown drawings by Delacroix". He would have liked to introduce him to Paul d'Estournelles, author of La Vie de province en Grèce. He deplored the death of the Bibliophile Jacob (1884); he suggested to Delzant that he should come to his home to see the letters by Théophile Gautier that he possessed: "my windows are at your disposal [...] but come early, because the eagerness and curiosity are such that you are the 20th person who has so far asked me for hospitality to see the procession of Victor Hugo"... (May 29, 1885)... Etc. 2 letters from his mother the Dowager Marchioness (with a commemorative image of her death, 1883), an admission card to the Cercle de l'Union Artistique for Delzant, the Marquis's death announcement and his engraved portrait are bound in the volume. Bookplate of Alidor Delzant, engraved by Édouard Loviot.