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Notes taken for Andre Breton

Arcane 17

Manuscript

Author

Author Kurt Seligmann
People cited R. Allendy, Bongus, Caylus, Censorinus, Charlemagne, Court de Gébelin, Elstworthy, Eusèbe, James George Frazer, Marc Haven, Jehan d'Arras, Juvénal, C. W. King, Macrobius, Mélusine, Dame de Lusignan, F. Nork, Gérard Encausse, dit Dr Papus, Platon, Plutarque, Postel, Ptolémée, Pythagore, Knorr von Rosenrath, Trithème, Pierre Valérien, Van Rensselaer, Oswald Wirth
Notes by André Breton

Description

Notes by Kurt Seligmann as documentation for Breton's then current manuscript, Arcane 17.

An accomplished documentalist, his friend Kurt Seligman was a valuable assistant for Breton when he began thinking about what would become Arcane 17. An enlightened enthusiastic owner of a library containing a profusion of iconographic documents, Seligman himself copied summaries of books on Isis, Osiris, tarot cards and the symbolism of numbers for Breton. The text is thus permeated by a discreet but always precise erudition, which Breton has endeavoured to rework; no doubt to make a work but also to avoid leaving reflections marked by a strong esoteric dimension in their raw state. [Atelier André Breton website, 2005]

Handwritten Texts, sd [1944].
- 24 pages in-4° (14 pages in-4° in ink and 10 pages in-4° in pencil, the majority on the letterhead of Kurt Seligmann, whose notes André Breton used for Arcane 17). Seligmann's handwritten texts are related to the 17th star of the Tarot, Melusine and the writings of Court de Gebelin and Oswald Wirth.
- 2 pages in-4°. Handwritten texts by Breton in pencil opposite notes from Frazer copied by Kurt Seligmann:
‘Isis perfumes the king's wives by blowing on them*; Isis nurses the king's child with her finger. [...]
‘The death of Osiris on the 17th day of the month Athyr, when the sun is in the sign of the scorpion, in the 28th year of Osiris' reign. Cutting her hair and dressing in mourning clothes, Isis goes looking for the body of Osiris. She is accompanied by seven scorpions.’
[sale catalogue, 2003 and André Breton website, 2013]

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