LESOUËF Auguste (EN)
Training
Auguste’s grandfather, Gilles Lesouëf (1744–1837), who came from Bayeux, was a silk textiles dealer in Paris. At the beginning of the century, he worked with his son Charles-Abel (1784–1857)—Auguste’s father—in the gold and silver trade. The latter stopped this activity in the mid 1820s; he invested his fortune in buildings, annuities, and bonds for railways, whose promising future he immediately foresaw (Champion, P., 1942. Champion, P., ‘Auguste Lesouef, Collectionneur’, La Gerbe, 15, 22 January 1942. Carteron, G., 1985).
Placed in a boarding school in 1839, the young Auguste Lesouëf soon showed an aptitude for various subjects that were very different from the paternal projects: poetry, drawing, history, Latin, and Greek. His uncle, Léonard-Auguste, a great traveller who had little talent for business, encouraged him to learn foreign languages, especially English, Italian, and German. Auguste Lesouëf studied for the baccalaureate exam; his father, who wanted him to become a dealer, initially sent him to stay with a relative in Marseille, a soap dealer. He then worked with Monsieur Duché, a solicitor, with whom he studied for his law degree.
It was probably in his father’s rich library that Auguste Lesouëf cultivated his taste for history and travel accounts. This reading matter, as well as his fascination for his uncle’s many travels, nourished the young Lesouëf’s curiosity for archaeology and the discovery of new lands, a curiosity that later came to focus on Far-Eastern civilisations. His interest in history and archaeology deepened during his first travels: in 1851 at the Universal Exhibition in London, and in 1863 in Italy. Thereafter he travelled little until the death of his mother in 1876; he stayed at her side and read to her in the apartment at 109 Boulevard Beaumarchais, which had belonged to his grandfather.
The fortune amassed by his father, the inheritance from his uncle in 1869, and his mother in 1876 provided Auguste Lesouëf with the financial means and free time to compile his collection. He devoted most of his fortune to achieving this goal: a significant portion of Lesouëf’s budget was devoted to these acquisitions, attesting to the collector’s exclusive passion for books. Incidentally, there was a certain parsimony in Lesouëf’s lifestyle, as he stayed in his apartment on the Boulevard Beaumarchais.
The elements of Auguste Lesouëf’s biography provide us with an idea of the characteristics of a certain type of collector, who was portrayed in contemporary publications: there was an absence of economic activity, he remained single, led a modest life, had little interest in appearances, and restricted his social activities to attending scholarly societies.
Scholarly sociability
Lesouëf belonged to a class of persons that had enough leisure time and financial means to join several scholarly societies and keep up with their activities. Lesouëf was presented to the Société d’Ethnographie by Léon de Rosny (1827–1914), the first professor of Japanese in France and a figure who directed the Société’s entire orientation. The circumstances of their encounter are unknown; Lesouëf seems to have played the role of a patron, funding travels and the publication of de Rosny’s facsimiles, as he did later for Pierre Champion (1880–1942) in 1904. Lesouëf was elected a member of the Société d’Ethnographie in April 1872 and immediately became a member of the Conseil of the Société d’Ethnographie, which enabled him to actively take part in the Société’s decisions, such as the selection of its administrators. He distinguished himself by proposing several prizes, with the aim of encouraging publications. The Urechia Prize, named after the delegate of Romania’s Institute of Ethnography, was created to reward ethnographic studies in this region. Lesouëf gave the researchers access to his collections of ancient Japanese and Chinese books and works on American studies, by publishing their catalogue in the form of a bulletin in the Société d’Ethnographie’s journals. The recognition of the collector’s services in the scholarly societies brought him various awards, honorary diplomas (1881), and medals (1883 and 1888).
The Société d’Ethnographie actively sought new members abroad, creating a network of scholarly sociability from around the world, which enabled Lesouëf to establish contacts with the European Americanists and Orientalists. For Lesouëf, who was passionately interested in foreign civilisations, the Société provided opportunities to go on missions to destinations that may not have been far flung, but which were at least original at the time, such as Romania or Bulgaria.
Lesouëf and de Rosny used this network for their various scientific travels: Finland, Spain, Portugal, Romania, and Greece. Lesouëf probably funded the scholar’s travels.
Several translations were published under the name Lesouëf, as well as studies of the works in his collection; he also made speeches during sessions held in the Société d’Ethnographie. The subject matter related to very diverse content: the Peruvian, American-Indian, Oceanian, and Chinese civilisations. The eclecticism of the studies conducted by Lesouëf echoed the multidisciplinary project developed by the Société d’Ethnographie; it adopted the approach of a comparative study of civilisations that readily placed Japan and Greece side by side, an approach that was no longer fashionable at the end of the century.
Lesouëf was not only a member of the Société d’Ethnographie: he was appointed a titulary member of the Société d’Anthropologie de Paris in January 1877 and the Société Indochinoise in October 1877; in 1884, he became a titulary member of the Société de Géographie de Saint-Valéry-en-Caux; and, in 1887, an ordinary member of the Société Asiatique Italienne (BNF, Département des Manuscrits, Archives. Smith-Lesouëf, box 12: diplomas).
A focus on Paris after 1890
After 1889, Lesouëf rarely left Paris and spent his days mostly in bookshops, or attended the sessions held by scholarly societies. The only accounts of his interaction with the bookshops were provided by Pierre Champion, who overheard the conversations with customers who came to the shop of Honoré Champion (1846–1913) on the Quai Voltaire. This was a ‘librairie à chaises’ (bookshop with chairs), in which each habitué had his place (Monfrin, J., Honoré Champion, 1978, p. 32). Lesouëf was one of these habitués and established close links with the Maison Champion: he funded the creation of facsimiles of the Plus Anciens Monuments de la Typographie Parisienne (1904) and collaborated with Honoré Champion on publishing manuscripts and maps. ‘Auguste Lesouëf sat down in the circle, on a rattan chair, quietly contributing to the general conversation, most often merely listening; frowning, he made an observation, characterised by doubt and the most profound scepticism …’ (Champion, P., ‘Auguste Lesouef, Collectionneur’, La Gerbe, 15, 22 January 1942, p. 5).
In his last years, he gradually lost his sight due to diabetes. He died from his injuries after a traffic accident, when he was run over by a carriage in August 1906.
The acquisitions
In memoriam of Keiko Kosugi (1939–2000).
Rather than compiling a collection of objets d’art, Lesouëf devoted himself to creating a library. At what point did Lesouëf start collecting books? There are traces of acquisitions that date to the beginning of the 1860s. In 1869, he purchased a work on bibliophilia. His acquisitions were systematic over the years 1870–1890 and slowed down at the beginning of the century. After the 1889 Exposition Universelle, he began to take an interest in americana and abandoned Chinese and Japanese objects. Towards the end of his life, it appears that his purchases increased. In fact, almost blind at the time, Lesouëf found it hard to appreciate his collection of books and prints: he bought knives, firearms, tin soldiers, coins, statuettes, a suite of armour, and a Japanese helmet (Département des Manuscrits, Archives, BNF. Smith-Lesouëf, box 13: purchases).
The composition of the collection
The collection was recorded in the various inventories drawn up after the collector’s death and the catalogues published by the Bibliothèque Nationale after the 1913 bequest; classified as Smith-Lesouëf, without exception(s), it is currently distributed amongst the various departments of the Bibliothèque Nationale. The collections in the Département des Manuscrits are currently described in the BNF’s ‘Archives et Manuscrits’ database (‘Érudits et bibliophiles’ (‘Scholars and bibliophiles’), Smith-Lesouëf). The collections in the other departments are described in the BNF’s Catalogue Général. Part of the collection has been scanned and can be accessed in the Gallica digital library or the Mandragore database.
The collection’s diversity is striking: a simple glance at the provenances of the books and objects, the themes addressed, and the supports attests to the broad range of the collector’s centres of interest. Many of the items are related to the criteria that applied to contemporary bibliophilia, such as illuminated manuscripts, rich bindings, and prestigious provenances; but this collection certainly has documentary value, and reflects a desire to accumulate materials of historical importance.
Auguste Lesouëf compiled a collection of printed volumes dating from the fifteenth to the beginning of the twentieth century, prints relating to the history of France, printed scores from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, manuscripts, paintings, miniatures, coins, and so on. The collector’s curiosity was not limited to European history, and the eclecticism of his tastes led him to collect works about the most distant civilisations: the East, America, Mexico, and the Far-East.
The collection of printed books comprised around 18,000 works, classified as Smith-Lesouëf (BNF: Département Philosophie, Histoire, Sciences de l'Homme). The classification of the collection of printed works corresponds to the material organisation of the collection at the Fondation Smith-Lesouëf in Nogent-sur-Marne, where it was held between 1919 and 1980: ‘Salle’ (‘S’) for works accessible to the general public in the reading room, and ‘Réserve’ (‘R’) for works held in the storeroom. The largest section concerns literature, in bibliophile editions, and history, mainly the history of Paris, the history of costumes, and the history of art. French, Latin, and Greek classical works are abundant. There are also thousands of volumes about Asia and America: the first printed texts, first travel accounts, and language manuals. The most precious printed works—the incunables, sixteenth-century books, original editions by seventeenth-century authors, a collection of ‘Nains’ (literally ‘dwarfs’, or very-small format books), and an ‘Enfer’—are held in the BNF’s Réserve des Livres Rares (‘Rare book storeroom’, comprising 3,000 works).
The Western engravings held in the BNF’s Département des Estampes et de la Photographie include almost 17,500 articles that may contain several objects. This collection is divided into five major categories: topography (old Paris being one of Lesouëf’s main interests); history (particularly revolutionary history); fashion and costumes, military uniforms, and art, with an ensemble of original prints and reproductions (Beaumont-Maillet, L., 1993. The BNF’s Comité d’Histoire, Lesouëf (Estampes de la collection Smith-Lesouëf)). Unlike contemporary collectors, Lesouëf only acquired a few Japanese prints, choosing instead to collect paintings and manuscripts.
The BNF’s Département des Manuscrits holds the Western manuscripts, as well as the ancient Eastern and Far-Eastern collections: woodblock prints, stampings, paintings, and manuscripts (Berthier, A. 2000).
The Smith-Lesouëf collection of Western manuscripts comprises 200 manuscripts ranging from the eleventh to nineteenth century, selected for their rich bindings (for example, an eleventh-century Gospel book (Smith-Lesouëf 1)), their precious illuminated manuscripts (Le Livre des trois âges, a fifteenth-century illuminated manuscript that illustrates hunting scenes; Smith-Lesouëf 70), or their prestigious provenance. It also includes volumes of autographs and manuscripts of Orientalists, in particular, Ferdinand Denis (1798–1890).
Fifty-eight manuscripts concerning the Muslim world: Qur’ans, Persian manuscripts (16 volumes, including 11 with paintings) and Turkish manuscripts, volumes of paintings and Moghul calligraphies with famous provenances (Firmin-Didot); this ensemble attests to the collector’s taste for the art of miniatures (collection of Indo-Persian paintings; Smith-Lesouëf 242). Twenty-nine manuscripts have diverse origins: Russian (3), Armenian (4), Hebrew (2), Coptic (1), Ethiopian (2), Cambodian (4), Javanese (2), Pali-Burmese (2), Siamese (2) Singhalese (1), and Mexican (5). And fifteen manuscripts concern contemporary American and Mexican studies (Smith-Lesouëf 177–192). Smith-Lesouëf’s Vietnamese Collection comprises twenty-six works; these are texts about Christian doctrine, printed at the western Tonkin Mission between 1860 and 1870. The collections of Chinese and Japanese woodblock prints and manuscripts attest to Auguste Lesouëf’s links with Léon de Rosny and the Société des Études Japonaises, which was part of the Société d’Ethnographie.
Smith-Lesouëf’s Chinese collection comprises just over 200 works. It includes editions of classical works, novels, and dictionaries. Two imperial editions stand out: the 1696 Gengzhitu in watercolours (Smith-Lesouëf, ‘Chinois’ 69) and the Xiqing gujian. There are also albums of paintings: flowers and birds, and scenes from Chinese life, dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Feng yue qiu sheng [tu ce], 1846, Smith-Lesouef ‘Chinois’ 52; albums of paintings of arhat, on leaves from the BodhiTree, Smith-Lesouëf ‘Chinois’ 57).
The Smith-Lesouëf Japanese collection comprises 275 works. It encompasses a period that spans from the Kanbun era (1661–1673) to 1895. It mainly comprises woodblock prints dating from the second half of the nineteenth century; the most represented fields are art and geography. It is worth noting the relative importance of the albums of paintings (Nara ehon), such as the Ikoku monogatari (Smith-Lesouëf ‘Japonais’ 3) and illuminated scrolls (such as Kikuchi Yōsai’s KannonSutra, 1835, Smith-Lesouëf, ‘Japonais’: K 44); this orientation was what made Lesouëf’s research so original compared with collectors of Japanese art who focused on the art of engraving and ukiyo-e; Lesouëf’s approach to Far-Eastern documents was based on criteria of unicity and, in his mind at least, antiquity. This preponderance for illuminated manuscripts or volumes of paintings, the only genre to which Lesouëf devoted an article, matched the criteria of bibliophilia of his time, which is evident in his Western collection. It was with the arrival of the Smith-Lesouëf Collection in 1913 that the first manuscripts with Japanese paintings entered the BNF. They were highlighted by Keiko Kosugi (1939–2020), the head of the Japanese collection at the BNF’s Département des Manuscrits, and the specialist Jacqueline Pigeot. The collection of scrolls (Kakemonos, 1897) also contains several Korean scrolls.
Lastly, the collection comprises 160 Chinese, Japanese, and Indian objects held in the Département des Manuscrits (scanned).
Several manuscripts were exhibited during the 1878 and 1889 Expositions Universelles (Exposition Rétrospective de l’Histoire du Travail), in an ethnographic overview of the techniques and materials used.
The collection assembled by Auguste Lesouëf, which included many works on bibliophilia, attests to his desire to create a collection of books based on the criteria of rarity or beauty. However, the constitution of his library was marked by another concern; contemporary scholarship. These two orientations are indispensable to understanding the apparently disconcerting heterogeneity of this collection. Hence, alongside a quest to find rare objects, Lesouëf set out to compile an exhaustive collection of texts and illustrations on themes such as Orientalism, attempting to reconstitute the history of the discipline via publications of its most illustrious representatives. The accumulation and use of heterogenous criteria seem to have been the main method of acquisition that resulted in a library with a wealth of finely bound books, famous manuscripts, autographs, and works with illustrious provenances, complemented by works that reflected contemporary bibliophilic interests in the 1870s, illustrated nineteenth-century books, and publications of the lesser bibliophilic interest, such as those published by scholarly societies.His acquisitions resulted from an extensive collection of documents on various theme, and also reflects the links with sociability associated with the collector’s curiosity for extra-European civilisations.
The 1913 bequest and fate of the Smith-Lesouëf Collection
After Auguste Lesouëf’s sudden death in August 1906, the collection was stored at 109 Boulevard Beaumarchais, the collector’s residence. The Honoré Champion bookshop had close links with Auguste Lesouëf: his son, Pierre Champion, drew up the inventory of his library; it was at this point that he met Madeleine Smith (1864–1940), whom he married in 1907. Auguste Lesouëf’s sister, Léontine Smith, the heir to the collection, offered to make a bequest to the French state in 1908. This decision was no doubt accelerated by the desire to block a project to construct a road through the grounds of the Smith property: Léontine Smith wanted the site to be listed in exchange for the donation of her brother’s collections to the State. Only the property’s garden was classified as ‘natural sites and monuments of artistic character’, according to a decree issued by the French Ministry of Public Instruction and the Fine Arts on 19 February 1909. The bequest to the Bibliothèque Nationale, issued on 2 June 1913, was accepted by the Bibliothèque Nationale’s consultative committee.
The Fondation’s work began in 1913 and was probably finished before the outbreak of the war. Madeleine and Pierre Champion placed Auguste Lesouëf’s books on the library shelves during the winter of 1919; the objets d’art were displayed in showcases. The Fondation opened to the public in 1920.
The current classification of the collection of prints corresponds with the Fondation’s topographic organisation: the series classified as Smith-Lesouëf (Room 1 to 8271), installed in the reading room, comprises, above all, the historical collections and the sale catalogues of books, objets d’art, libraries, and museums. The Smith-Lesouëf series (Réserve (storeroom) 1 to 10849) includes ancient books, works about Paris, customs, and the theatre, French literature, and the collections classified according to country. The collection of Japanese books is held on the first floor of the Fondation, with the ‘japonaiseries’, displayed in showcases.
During the Second World War, certain manuscripts, medals, and several hundred of the most precious works were transferred to Paris. In 1950, the Oriental manuscripts (Arab, Persian, and Turkish) were transferred to the Département des Manuscrits. In 1980, all of the Smith-Lesouëf Collection (printed works and manuscripts) was transferred to the Bibliothèque Nationale, where it was dispersed between the various departments (including Sablé-sur-Sarthe site). In 1996, the collection of printed works, which was at Sablé, was transferred to the BNF’s Département Histoire, Philosophie, Sciences de l’Homme.
In 1976, the State brought together the Smith bequest and that of Adèle de Rothschild (the Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild) and established the Fondation Nationale des Arts Graphiques et Plastiques (FNAGP)—which became the Fondation des Artists in 2019—, which managed the Smith estate, including the Maison Nationale des Artistes, Madeleine Smith’s former residence. The building housing the Smith-Lesouëf library was restored in 2018 and opened to the public in 2019. The library is in its original state; the furniture and certain decorative objects, which had been held in Sablé-sur-Sarthe and on the various sites of the BNF, or on permanent loan to the Fondation des Artistes, can be seen there, including the Smith and Lesouëf family portraits (scanned on gallica.bnf.fr).
