[Louis ANQUETIN]. Stéphane MALLARMÉ. "Invitation à la soirée d'inauguration de la Revue Indépendante," March 3, 1887 (1920 title, infra). From Mallarmé, a triple quatrain printed diagonally in italics on a japonisante drypoint by Louis Anquetin printed on vieux Japon (f. 16 x 12.5), without margins at bottom and right, as in the rare known proofs, no doubt to facilitate mailing. [Anquetin will do Dujardin's portrait-charge for Les Hommes d'aujourd'hui (no. 388, early May 1891)]. Édouard Dujardin approached his friend and collaborator Mallarmé on November 6, 1887: "Et puis... je projetette pendre une crémaillère noble avec les collaborateurs de la Revue, un soir (non dîner, mais des bocks, quelques ailes de poulet et - oh peut-être! - a few champagnes) at 11 de la Chaussée d'Antin... But I'd like to send the guests a nice invitation (on a beautiful piece of paper illustrated by our [Jacques-Émile] Blanche), and in verse! With the ulterior motive that all the newspapers would reproduce the text of the poetic invitation. - Forgive me for making such a request, but only you, my dear Master, could complete this piece of writing. Four or six verses (more would be uninscribable in the daily papers), very simple (this is essential for the intelligence of the guests; besides, the papers mustn't say we're decadent!), things like this: come without ceremony (without dress) - in the text or in a prose postscript. And in the text, the date of the party: November 26, Saturday, 9 p.m., 11, Chaussée d'Antin. Ah! isn't it indecent, my request, indecent above all that I should not go and tell you? but this installation [change of address] is so costly in hours!"... (Austin, Corr. III p.144-45). The poet complied for a first invitation dated November 26, 1887, rhymed in 4 quatrains with "blanc de poulet", which disappears in our rhymed version in 3 quatrains for the invitation postponed to March 3, 1888. Dujardin's first thought was of J.-E. Blanche, because Blanche was going to engrave his portrait for the frontispiece of the now famous Lauriers sont coupés published by his magazine at the end of March 1888. He also dedicated his Litanies to her in April 88 [see 50]. Reference: La Revue indépendante, t. VII, no. 18, [April 1] 1888, giving a reduced shot of the engraving on the last page 203, probably added at the last moment (see photo). - Unknown pre-original: "Des vers oubliés de Stéphane Mallarmé" in Vers et Prose, t. XXXV, oct.-dec. [=end of dec.] 1913. Communicated to director Paul Fort by Gaston Picard, who discovered them in La Revue Indépendante. - E.O.: Vers de Circonstance, P., NRF, 1920 p. 177-78 preceded by the Nov. 26 version - B. Marchal OC. I, 1998 p. 356 and 1313. Provenance: Félicien Rops, Demi-Lune, Corbeil-Essonnes. Rops coll. stamp on verso. [Since 1887 and his frontispiece for the Poésies photolithographiées, edited by Dujardin, Rops had been in the editorial spotlight]. Another ex., without provenance, appeared at the sale [Bernard Loliée], Binoche et Giquello, Sotheby's, 9/10/2018 n° 151, pre-empted by the Biblioth. littér. J. Doucet. Extremely rare. Enclosed: [Toast to Jean Moréas] - Small printed invitation card: "A une Fête amicale, présidée par Stéphane Mallarmé, à l'occasion du Pélerin Passioné (sic) de Jean Moréas"... for the 10-fr. dinner at the Hôtel des Sociétés Savantes, 28, rue Serpente on February 2 [1891], organized by Maurice Barrès and Henri de Régnier. Consecrated by the famous toast "To Jean Moréas, who was the first to make a meal the consequence of a book of verse, and to unite, in celebration of the passionate Pilgrim, a whole auroral youth with a few ancestors"... The banquet of 90 guests "appeared to be the family celebration of the Symbolist school", notes B. Marchal Pl. t. II, 2003 p. 685 and 1740. Provenance: Félicien Rops, id. with stamp on verso.