André Maurois — December 2024

The Maison de Tante Léonie – Musée Marcel Proust holds two portraits of André Maurois that each testify, in their own way, to the profound ties woven between the academician and the work of Marcel Proust. The first, painted by Jacques-Émile Blanche in 1926, and the second, executed in 1949 by the Ecuadorian painter Eduardo Solá Franco, constitute precious milestones in the history of Proustian reception and posterity.

André Maurois was, in Jean-Yves Tadié's words, "a Proustian from the very first hour": as early as 1913, he had read Du côté de chez Swann upon its publication and had been, in his own words, "overwhelmed" by it. He devoted to Proust a pastiche (Le côté de Chelsea, 1929), a foundational biography (À la recherche de Marcel Proust, 1949), and the prefaces to the first Pléiade editions. This volume, bringing together the contributions of six authors, invites readers to explore these two paintings and the networks of ties — literary, social and affective — that make Maurois an essential intermediary between Proust and posterity.

Overview

The first portrait is the work of Jacques-Émile Blanche (1861–1942), a painter who, thirty years earlier, had already painted the face of Marcel Proust. Executed in 1926, the year of André Maurois's marriage to Simone de Caillavet, this painting depicts the writer seated in a Louis-Philippe armchair, turned slightly away from his desk. It follows a first, very luminous sketch made in 1924, now held at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen. The 1926 version, larger in format and more solemn in atmosphere, portrays Maurois as a meditative intellectual, in the tradition of nineteenth-century psychological and social portraiture. Owned by the Société des Hôtels Littéraires, this painting is on loan to the Maison de Tante Léonie until at least 2029, with the loan renewable.

The second portrait, executed in 1949 by Eduardo Solá Franco (1915–1996), depicts Simone and André Maurois. Born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, and trained in New York and then in Paris, Solá Franco had become a familiar presence in the Maurois household. His composition is striking for its mannerist character: two frontal, silent figures facing the viewer, surrounded by engravings representing the subjects of Maurois's biographies, from Shelley to Proust. In the background, the face of Marcel Proust appears as an identifying attribute, recalling the central place held by Proust's work in Maurois's intellectual identity. Through Simone de Caillavet, the painting also opens onto the Recherche itself: as early as 1907, Proust had decided to make Simone the model for Mademoiselle de Saint-Loup, "the keystone of the entire work." This painting was acquired by the Société des Amis de Marcel Proust thanks to the generosity of its patrons and members.

Authors and Contributors

Jérôme Bastianelli, president of the Société des Amis de Marcel Proust et des Amis de Combray, writes the introduction.

Jean-Yves Tadié, professor emeritus at the Sorbonne and vice-president of the Société, retraces the stages of Maurois's Proustianism: from his dazzling reading of Du côté de chez Swann in 1913 to the prefaces to the Pléiade editions, by way of the pastiche Le côté de Chelsea (1929) and the biography À la recherche de Marcel Proust (1949).

Jane Roberts, art historian and specialist on Jacques-Émile Blanche, analyses the two states of the portrait — the 1924 sketch and the definitive 1926 painting — and retraces the friendship between Blanche and Maurois, formed around 1918 through a shared love of England and literature.

Jacques Letertre, president of the Société des Hôtels Littéraires, presents Simone de Caillavet, wife of André Maurois and model for Mademoiselle de Saint-Loup in the Recherche.

Pauline Chougnet, curator at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, offers a biography of Eduardo Solá Franco (1915–1996), a multifaceted Ecuadorian painter — society portraitist, man of the theatre, and creator of ballets and choreographies.

Louis Peyrusse, art historian, analyses the two portraits from a stylistic point of view.

Dominique Bona, of the Académie française, novelist and biographer, retraces the romantic episode experienced by André Maurois in Lima in 1947. Her text, first published in Le Figaro in July 2006, sheds light on the human context in which the Solá Franco portrait was painted.

Contents

• Introduction, by Jérôme Bastianelli
• André Maurois and Marcel Proust, by Jean-Yves Tadié
• Jacques-Émile Blanche and André Maurois, by Jane Roberts
• Proust as an Instrument of Seduction, by Jacques Letertre
• Eduardo Solá Franco (1915–1996), by Pauline Chougnet
• An Art of Faces and Gestures, by Louis Peyrusse
• André Loses Himself in Lima with Marita, by Dominique Bona
• André Maurois: A Chronology

Bibliographic Information

• Format: paperback, 80 pages
• ISBN: 978-2-492318-27-6
• Price: 13 €
• Publisher: Société des Amis de Marcel Proust et des Amis de Combray
• Printer: Suisse Imprimerie, Paris
• Legal deposit: October 2024