Marcelle Methlin's Copy of Hommage à Toulouse-Lautrec by Ronald Searle

Ronald Searle published Hommage à Toulouse-Lautrec in 1969. The book reproduces a fanciful series of drawings and lithographs which depict the diminutive artist and his scantily-clad models in the brothels of Paris. It's safe to say this cartoon book is unlike anything else Searle created. It's unlike anything else, period.

Marcelle Methlin of the Restaurant des Beaux-Arts in Paris provided Searle with fine food and drink, and Searle in turn provided him, presumably the Marcelle in the dedication below, with outstanding personalized copies of his books. They're on a first-name basis, of course. It is Christmas of 1969. Searle adds a full length ink drawing of his Toulouse. The dedication "Pour Marcelle with love" neatly covers two languages.

Four smaller lithographs of Toulouse-Lautrec in portrait orientation were included with a limited edition of the book and are not too difficult to find today, coming from an edition size of 200. The larger suite of lithographs, those in landscape orientation like the book's cover, suffered a different fate. Most of the portfolio edition of 70 seems to have disappeared, as told to me by Searle's agent John Locke. At any rate, Searle was unable to determine what became of them. He had only a small number of the artist's proofs remaining in his possession, full suites of which he put on the market for $10,000.

Ronald Searle
eBay listing ended September 24, 2023

https://www.ebay.com/itm/124015197989?hash=item1cdfe1bf25:g:M5MAAOSwMLtd3mf8&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA0P3%2BpCrzAg1QEUIx8ZEAiziSgGGK57qF%2FkJ0iGzxEBVGGzOdnxJkNZTrxW5zdb9h%2BmPjPOTwIbN5Ndftg%2F7xM5dcCWLot633TPfLR7UV3ISKe90syX75xHTxk

iw%2BT2XXFB8pfc0jNWNPFWfde11kfzHGCt73eaa2nENOsYIStypnoWK%2FeOBxROxONwZyHEfwRH0my9wTHbsGZWT1S2M%2BGVotZIl%2BxcYlYQQTQyfhvbnPY0OUMHlVl5zEEP%2FPB47Ry4I%2FL%2BWk76TfNwOLaLhPh1s%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR4i--q3pYg

Sold for a best offer of 1,500 Euros

I asked the eBay seller for any additional information he might have about these three extraordinary books from the library of Marcelle. The seller knew nothing of Marcelle. He reported that the books turned up at a flea market in Paris five years ago. Sic transit gloria mundi.

Note:  I might as well add this to my virtual collection of "best copies." If you know of a contender, by all means send me some images. This blog, rumor has it, is always eager to show outstanding work by Ronald Searle, including personalized copies of his books.

"Bohème," you will recall, is Matt Jones's 2014 post for Perpetua, a.k.a. the Ronald Searle Tribute blog, complete with photographs of the Restaurant des Beaux-Arts, now defunct. According to Matt, Marcelle Methlin hosted many cartoonists and satirists. I would like to hear from anyone with personal recollections or other books from his library.

As long as I brought it up, anyone knowing the whereabouts of the "lost" edition of Searle's Hommage à Toulouse-Lautrec portfolio of six lithographs should get in touch. As mentioned above, the suite of lithographs was published in horizontal orientation in an edition of 70. Those few individual prints that I do see online seem to have been distributed by the Ferdinand Roten Galleries of Baltimore. I do like looking for needles in haystacks. By the way, Matt Jones writes of "Toulouse Lautrec & the Whores of Hamburg" here.

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