EMILE ZOLA (1840-1902) Autograph manuscript signed «Emile Zola». “ARTISTIC TALK”

Autograph manuscript titled «Artistic talk» signed «Emile Zola». 6 pp. small in-4, with annotations on the back of 3 sheets. In French. Numerous erasures and corrections, additions in the text. Draft of an article about a charity sale of paintings organized for compatriots from Alsace who had been sent by the government to Algeria and who found themselves in poverty. “(...) I am leaving the private exhibition of the works to be sold, wishing for my part to contribute to a good work, by talking about some talented paintings that I have noticed. (…) The catalogue contains two hundred and eighty numbers. There are paintings, watercolours, drawings, etchings, engravings, plasters, bronzes and earthenware. Never has contemporary art been better represented (... ...).” Zola refrains from criticizing the works, because they are given out of charity, and then draws up a list of the painters he has chosen, including Bonnat, Auguste Bonheur, Daubigny, Fromentin, Isabey, Berthe Morisot, Manet, etc. “(...) I have chosen the works that I would like to present to you. (...) I have also kept three young painters, Messrs Monet, Pissarro and Sisley, who have each given a landscape. It is not here that it is good to study them. I am simply curious to see the public’s attitude towards these three paintings, which would certainly make the annual juries shout, and which are superb things of simplicity and power (...)”. Etc.