MALLARMÉ, Stéphane (1842-1898)

MALLARMÉ, Stéphane (1842-1898)

Autograph card signed « PAPA » to his daughter Geneviève Mallarmé
[Valvins, 12th July 1891], 1 p. in-8°
Autograph address: « [M]ademoiselle Geneviève Mallarmé – Châlet Suisse, route de Trouville, Honfleur – Calvados »
Central fold mark

Inside the intimacy of the Mallarmé family through a tender letter from the poet to his daughter

« Les petits gâteaux, me prie de t’écrire ta mère, sont arrivés hier soir : des merveilles, et l’on mangerait jusqu’à l’emballage. Ceci, pour te remercier tout de suite, et te rassurer, la poste ne laissant pas le temps de longuement écrire, par ce sot dimanche.
PAPA »

It was from the 1890s that Mallarmé stayed regularly in his small house in Valvins, not far from Fontainebleau. He had important work done there and settled there all summer, from April to October. In frail health, his daughter Geneviève (1864-1919) watched over him. It was also in this year 1891 that Geneviève Mallarmé stayed several times in Honfleur, in the chalet of Marguerite Ponsot, whose daughter Éva was one of her intimates.