Marie Laurencin / Signed Autograph Letter / Drawing / Apollinaire / Mona Lisa

  
Autographed letter signed "Marie Laurencin" to Roger Nimier [Paris, March 20, 1952], 4 p. In-12° Autographed stamped and postmarked envelope included Two words crossed out by Marie Laurencin. The artist mentions her trial and the theft of the Mona Lisa in 1911, for which her former lover Guillaume Apollinaire had been briefly suspected. "Just a little hello - and a confession.

Trial I call a clerk for a document that I believe is important - after writing - he tells me not to upset his boss with my letters - I apologize but it's hard - this trial is getting to me. Suzanne [her adopted daughter Suzanne Moreau-Laurencin] lifts me up.

The judges scare me since the Guillaume Apollinaire incident. I thought he had spent fifteen days in the [Santé Prison] and I know very well that the investigating judge of that time had said to him [:] If you tell me where the Mona Lisa is, we'll release you! Poor Guillaume - It's not nice to have read all that and to end up with no cat or dog - but some fresh air. Goodbye Roger Nimier Marie Laurencin [Marie Laurencin completes her signature with freehand arabesques]. So let's not speak - he's a true gentleman.

A letter from G [uillaume] A [pollinaire] I sleep with the governess when they say in the same broadcast that this lady is 86 years old, lives in California, and above all wrote an admirable letter about Guillaume Apollinaire. The role of Jean Royère [French decorator] who is still alive welcomed Guillaume and.

With his wife had an open table for the poet - Mr. Adéma doesn't know everything [Marcel Adéma had just published Guillaume Apollinaire, the unloved].

Marie Laurencin is in the midst of a trial to recover the apartment from which she was evicted in 1944 because it was deemed too large for two people. She finds refuge with Count Étienne de Beaumont until March 1955, after a lengthy legal process. She wins her case and is finally able to return home in 1955. She dies there the following year at the age of 72. The theft of the Mona Lisa is carried out by the Italian glazier Vincenzo Peruggia, who wants to see the painting return to his homeland.

This is followed by a major investigation during which Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire are questioned.