A collection of lots relating to French poet and enfant terrible Arthur Rimbaud is coming to Sotheby’s.
The artefacts will be offered in a sale of fine books and manuscripts in Paris on February 8.
Rimbaud is one of France's most celebrated poets
Rimbaud is one of France’s most celebrated writers, even though he only worked for a short time and stopped writing at the age of 21.
He went on to travel the world, becoming a successful coffee merchant in Ethiopia.
Included is an original manuscript for his poem La Riverie de Cassis (1872), which is valued at $215,070-322,605.
Rimbaud copied this version out for fellow poet Paul Verlaine, while they were living in London.
Rimbaud was romantically involved with the older Verlaine from the age of 17. They had a short, mutually destructive relationship built on the crumbly twin pillars of drugs and alcohol.
It ended with Verlaine shooting Rimbaud in the arm during a drunken row in Paris in 1873.
Last year, Christie’s sold the gun Verlaine used for $467,109.
A collection of seven Rimbaud drawings dating to 1875 is offered with a valuation of $107,535-161,302.
The drawings originate from a notebook, the rest of which is housed in the Rimbaud Museum in his hometown of Charleville-Mezieres.
The drawings on offer include his earliest known self-portrait.
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