Alexandre Dumas pére (1803-1870)
Félix Nadar, 1858
Preliminary drawing for Nadar's Pantheon (N° 22 in the Pantheon)
Charcoal drawing on brown paper with white-gouache highlights, 23.2 x 15.3 cm.
BnF, Prints and Photographs Department, STORAGE NA-88-ÉCU BOX
© Bibliothèque nationale de France
Along with Victor Hugo and Théophile Gautier, Alexandre Dumas was one of Nadar's boyhood literary idols. In 1858, he caricatured him enthusiastically for Journal amusant, pairing the medallion profile with a text, of which the following is an excerpt:
"A neck like a proconsul's. A sooty complexion. A fine nose. Microscopic ears. Blue eyes. Thick, Mesopotamian-style lips that wander around. Something magnetic radiates from this whole: irressistible waves of compassion and cordiality."
The novelist’s exceptional status on the literary scene justifies the fact that he leads off Nadar’s Contemporaries. “A thousand books written, three million francs earned by the tip of his pen. I have not been informed about how much of that he has spent,” Nadar quips, before concluding, “I don’t know of a nicer or more charming man on earth; there would have to be a creditor somewhere for Dumas to have an enemy.” The author of Trois Mousquetaires (The Three Musketeers, 1844), the Comte de Monte-Cristo (The Count of Monte Cristo, 1845-1846), La Dame de Monsoreau (1846) – in sum, of a body of work that Réginald Hamel established at 650 titles featuring 4,056 main characters, 8,872 secondary ones, and 24,339 minor roles – wrote to Félix, “I hereby authorize my friend Nadar to make me look as ugly as possible, as the difference will be to my advantage." (1858)
"A neck like a proconsul's. A sooty complexion. A fine nose. Microscopic ears. Blue eyes. Thick, Mesopotamian-style lips that wander around. Something magnetic radiates from this whole: irressistible waves of compassion and cordiality."
The novelist’s exceptional status on the literary scene justifies the fact that he leads off Nadar’s Contemporaries. “A thousand books written, three million francs earned by the tip of his pen. I have not been informed about how much of that he has spent,” Nadar quips, before concluding, “I don’t know of a nicer or more charming man on earth; there would have to be a creditor somewhere for Dumas to have an enemy.” The author of Trois Mousquetaires (The Three Musketeers, 1844), the Comte de Monte-Cristo (The Count of Monte Cristo, 1845-1846), La Dame de Monsoreau (1846) – in sum, of a body of work that Réginald Hamel established at 650 titles featuring 4,056 main characters, 8,872 secondary ones, and 24,339 minor roles – wrote to Félix, “I hereby authorize my friend Nadar to make me look as ugly as possible, as the difference will be to my advantage." (1858)
