Autoportrait

A spectacular and rare drawing by Saint-Exupéry.

Saint-Exupéry was a constant, compulsive sketcher: no surface escaped him — the margins of his drafts, letters to friends, telegrams he received, invoices, receipts, tablecloths, flyers, and of course his manuscripts and the presentation copies of his books. Any surface offered his imagination a space in which to express, often through sketch and caricature, living or imaginary characters. These ephemeral works are catalogued in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Dessins, Aquarelles, pastels plumes et crayons (Gallimard, 2006); those with a particular connection to Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) are also reproduced in the wonderful catalogue of the 2022 exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, À la rencontre du petit prince.

Among the vast gallery of known drawings, executed in widely varying styles, very few show Saint-Exupéry depicting himself with such precision. This drawing differs from the known caricatural self-portraits in that its features and proportions are more naturalistic. Here color serves only to intensify the depiction of the face, giving it a particularly striking presence.