Left: Jean Mermoz in the 1930s. ©Archives Familiales. Photo courtesy Artcurial. Handout via The Gourmet Gazette . Right: Jean Mermoz. ©Archives Familiales. Photo courtesy Artcurial. Handout via The Gourmet Gazette 

Paris, France —He was a pioneer of the great adventure that was and is aviation. He flew for the pioneering French aviation company Aéropostale  pioneering its air routes connecting France to the French colonies in Africa and South America and its Air Mail postal services. Jean Mermoz was born in Aubenton in northern France in 1901. He would die somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean in 1936, an aviation legend. He was among the intrepid pilots who after World War I contributed significantly to the development of Air Mail service. Among them Mermoz and his friend Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Mermoz flew for the French Air Force, assigned in 1922 to Syria, before becoming an Air Mail pilot in Toulouse. 

His life was brief but storied. During his time in Syria he and his companions  famously photographed the ancient town of Palmyra. His plane crashed in the Sahara in the 1920s and he was taken hostage by a group of Tuareg tribesmen. With Aeropostale he was among those who opened up the route between France and South America, boldly flying over the Andes. He ditched at sea during the return flight from the milestone Saint-Louis, Senegal to Natal, Brazil journey. Mermoz, two others on board and the mail were rescued, not so for the plane. In 1930 he undertook the first non-stop commercial flight of the southern Atlantic.  His last fateful flight was on December 7th 1936. The plane he was piloting from Dakar to Natal, Brazil went down in the Atlantic, Neither the airplane nor the crew were ever recovered. 

Now nearly 90 years after that flight, his personal objects are on auction in Paris, offering an opportunity to re-discover the day to day life of this legend of aviation. Kept by his family through the years they will be dispersed by the auction house of Artcurial in Paris on November 3rd at 2pm. The objects and clothing reveal his courage but also a certain style and flair visible in the portraits of the pioneering adventurer. Among the items on the block are his extra thick brown leather aviator coat which in and of itself evokes the conditions they confronted in the air, a bright red parachute with the name Mermoz written in gold, a pair of his broken aviator glasses and his famous photographs of Palmyra. Among the more touching objects on the block one finds a Tuareg bag and a Moorish bracelet and two « charms » that he took with him in his passenger compartment: a small slipper and a funky doll that was the lucky charm of the fighter squadron of the city of Nancy where he stayed during his youth and during his military career. One of the most sought after objects in the sale is a rare portrait of his friend and fellow Aéropostale pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The words dedicating the photograph read « For my old friend Mermoz, with my warmest thoughts, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. ©Trish Valicenti for The Gourmet Gazette. Artcurial 7 rond-point des Champs-Elysées Marcel-Dassault, 75008 Paris, France, https://www.artcurial.com/en