About this Exhibition

Private Proust: Letters and Drawings to Reynaldo Hahn was produced by François Proulx, Lecturer on Comparative Literature at Harvard University and guest curator at Houghton Library. This online exhibition was originally a component of the Proust and the Arts web site, which served as a resource both for students enrolled in "French 165: Marcel Proust" and for guests and attendees of the interdisciplinary conference held at Harvard University April 19-20, 2013.

2. Drawings (1902-1906)

Proust traveled to Belgium and to the Netherlands in October 1902, primarily to view paintings. In this illustrated letter to Hahn, Proust depicts the church and harbor in Dordrecht; years later, in Swann’s Way, he would describe the young narrator’s ardent wish to view a church next to the sea.

On the back of the letter, a poem accompanies the drawing:
“Dordrecht, a place so pretty
Cemetery
Of illusions I treasure
When I attempt to draw
Your canals, your roofs, your spire […]”
Marcel Proust, Letter to Reynaldo Hahn, [October 1902?]. b 94M-48 (89), Houghton Library, Harvard University. Gift, Mrs. Bradley Martin, 1994.