Bidspirit auction | [DUPLESSIS MARIE]: (1824-1847)

[DUPLESSIS MARIE]: (1824-1847) - [DUPLESSIS MARIE]: (1824-1847) French courtesan and mistress to a number of prominent and wealthy men who also served as the inspiration for Marguerite Gautier, the main character of the 1848 novel La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas fils, one of Duplessis's lovers. An attractive partially printed document issued to Duplessis by Maison Boissier, purveyors of Bonbons, Sirops, Chocolats, Confitures, Boites à dragées, Petits-fours & Objets nouveaux , one page, oblong 8vo, Boulevard des Capucines, Paris, 21st September 1845, in French. The document confirms the delivery of Raisins Glacés to Duplessis and bears several ink annotations and a contemporary docket to the verso indicating that the fashionable nineteenth-century confection were taken to 11 Boulevard de la Madeleine. Some light age wear and a few small, minor holes, G Raisins Glacés were fresh grapes (usually large Muscat grapes) coated in a crystallised sugar glaze, producing a glossy, sparkling sweet that was considered a luxury item and was sold by the leading Parisian confectioners. They were especially popular as theatre sweets and elegant gifts. According to Alexandre Dumas fils, Raisins Glacés were a particular favourite of Duplessis. In Chapter VII of La Dame aux Camélias , Armand's friend stops at a confectioner's in the Passage de l'Opéra to buy ´une livre de raisins glacés´ (´a pound of crystallised grapes´), explaining, ´Elle ne mange jamais d'autres bonbons, c'est connu´ (´She never eats any other sweets; everyone knows that´). The detail is generally regarded as one of the many authentic characteristics of Duplessis that Dumas incorporated into his fictional heroine, Marguerite Gautier. Duplessis moved into her apartment at 11 Boulevard de la Madeleine in October 1844 and lived there for just over two years—coinciding with the absolute peak of her fame and her passionate affair with Dumas fils —before her tragic death at the young age of 23 from tuberculosis in February 1847.