Carte postale autographe signée envoyée depuis Chicago et adressée à Emile Mignard

Autograph signed postcard sent from Chicago and addressed to Émile Mignard
Handwritten signed postcard from Victor Segalen, sent from Chicago and addressed to Emile Mignard. A few lines written in pencil in the corner of the black and white photographic reproduction of a view of South Water Street in Chicago, handwritten address on the verso. Some minor stains and folding.

Emile Mignard (1878-1966), also a doctor and Brest-born, was one of Segalen's closest friends of youth whom he met at the Jesuit Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours School in Brest. The writer interacted with this comrade in an abundant and closely followed correspondence in which he described, with humour and intimacy, his daily life in all corners of the world. It was at Mignard's wedding, on 15 February 1905, that Segalen met his wife, Yvonne Hébert.

This postcard had been addressed by Segalen to his friend from Chicago as he travelled to Tahiti via San Francisco. It is the first time that the Breton has been to the United States and his impressions are rather pessimistic: “Chicago. The deplorable pinnacle of acute budding Americanism. Imagine a mass of sandstone that has crystallised following the Cubic system. A childlike museum: close to the Apollo Belvedere a reproduction of the Hôtel des Postes. I leave tonight for a straight through journey to San Francisco where I will be on Tuesday at 4am.”