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[Response to an enquiry by Figaro Litteraire]

Treasure of Vix

Manuscript

Author

Author André Breton
People cited René Joffroy, Moisson

Description

André Breton’s manuscript dated 28 December 1953 to an enquiry by Figaro Littéraire published on 2 January 1954.

This response to an enquiry by the Figaro Littéraire, reprinted at the end of Alentours II of the third volume of the Œuvres complètes, attests to Breton's growing interest from the early 1950s in Gallic and Gallo-Roman antiquities. The treasure of Vix, the circumstances of whose discovery he narrates with a voracious pleasure, appears a kind of revelation to him, one in any case he would have liked to witness. We know that in 1955, with Charles Estienne, he curated the great exhibition ‘Perennity of Gallic art’, in the preface of which he links this forgotten aesthetic to the non-retinal art of which Marcel Duchamp dreamt. [Atelier André Breton website, 2005]

Handwritten manuscript (two states), 28 December 1953.
- 1/2 page in-4 handwritten, dated and signed André Breton, on Médium letterhead, in response to the Figaro Littéraire enquiry. A first draft with numerous erasures and corrections.
- 1 page in-4 handwritten and signed by Breton in black ink, with a few erasures and corrections on letterhead, of the final text in response to the Figaro Littéraire enquiry:
‘It would be coquetry to look beyond what you suggest: the discovery of the treasure of Vix for certain. I’d have given part of my life to be there at dusk on 8 January 1953 when Moisson, the ‘cultivator and gravedigger’ (on the path of alchemy), discovered the first vase handle, which seemed to him to be a ‘horse’s saddle’. [sale catalogue, 2003]

The Musée du Chatillonais preserves the Treasure of Vix and paid tribute to its discoverers, 60 years later, 3 January 2013.

An article by Catherine Rigollet on the Vix Treasure, in L'Agora des arts, 2012.

*This entry was translated from the French by Michael Richardson.

Bibliography

André Breton (Édition de Marguerite Bonnet avec la collaboration de Philippe Bernier, Marie-Claire Dumas, Étienne-Alain Hubert et José Pierre), « [Réponse à une enquête du Figaro Littéraire] », [Alentours II], Œuvres complètes, tome III, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Paris, Gallimard, 1999, p. 1104, notice p. 1467.