[LAFAYETTE, Gilbert du Motier, marquis de] Lettre autographe signée par Samuel Prioleau Charleston, 9 juillet 1825 1 p. in-4
Estimation :
800 / 1200
Adjudication :
Invendu
Description
EXEMPLAIRE DE LAFAYETTE. LA VILLE DE CHARLESTON OFFRE À LAFAYETTE UNE MINIATURE DU COLONEL HUGER PAR CHARLES FRASER. SON PÈRE, BENJAMIN HUGER, L’AVAIT HÉBERGÉ À SON ARRIVÉE EN AMÉRIQUE ; LE FILS, FRANCIS HUGER, ORGANISA SA TENTATIVE D’ÉVASION DE LA FORTERESSE D’OLMUTZ. “YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THE MINIATURE OF COLONEL FRANCIS K. HUGER" “I have the honor to request on behalf of the City of Charleston your acceptance of the miniature of Colonel Francis K Huger herewith handed you", avec UNE APOSTILLE AUTOGRAPHE DE LAFAYETTE, au crayon : “Répondue". The portrait was by Charles Fraser of Charleston (1782-1860), who also painted a miniature of Lafayette. Huger was the son of Benjamin Huger, Lafayette’s host when he had first arrived in America nearly fifty years earlier, and had made a daring attempt to spring Lafayette from the Austrian fortress of Olmütz in 1794 : “At Charleston, the festivities of reception were rendered doubly interesting and grateful, by the presence of Colonel Francis K. Huger, the same who, thirty years before, had risked his life, and suffered a long imprisonment, in the effort to aid the escape of Lafayette from the castle of Olmutz (...) Everywhere the name of Huger was inscribed by the side of that of Lafayette. They sat side by side in the triumphal car, and at the festive board, and shared the honors and felicitations of the people. On the day of his departure, the city presented to Lafayette a beautiful and highly-finished miniature of his friend, richly set in a frame of solid gold" (William Cutter, The Life of General Lafayette, 1849, p.364). RÉFÉRENCE : for a miniature of Benjamin Huger by Charles Fraser, see the Metropolitan Museum online : http ://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/10900
