Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)

Balzac nu

Details

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)
Balzac nu
signed on the front 'A. Rodin', dated and inscribed with foundry mark on the left side '© by Musée Rodin. 1969 .Georges Rudier..Fondeur Paris.'
bronze with dark brown patina
Height: 29½in. (75cm.)
Original plaster version executed in 1892; this bronze version cast in 1969

Provenance

Musée Rodin, Paris
B.G. Cantor, Los Angeles (acquired from the above; acquired by the present owner)

Literature

G. Grappe, Catalogue du Musée Rodin, Paris, 1927, no. 189 (another cast illustrated, p. 73)
A.E. Elsen, Rodin, New York, 1963, p. 95 (large bronze version illustrated)
I. Jianou and C. Goldscheider, Rodin, Paris, 1967, p. 105
A.T. Spear, Rodin Sculpture, Cleveland, 1967, no. IV (large bronze version illustrated, pl. 34)
A.E. Elsen, Rodin and Balzac, Beverly Hills, 1973, no. 27 (large bronze version illustrated, p. 69)
J.L. Tancock, The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin, Philadelphia, 1976, no. 73 (plaster version illustrated, p. 427)

Lot Essay

In 1891 the Société des Gens de Lettres, then headed by Emile Zola, selected Rodin to execute a monument to Balzac. The sculptor plunged into the task by reading the writer's novels and studying available iconography. He executed studies from earlier portraits and also incorporated features drawn from people in the country around Tourraine where he was working on the project. He made over fifty studies including heads and nude and draped figures. This nude study was described by C. Chincholle, "During the year 1892....the artist conceived a strange Balzac in the attitude of a wrestler, seeming to defy the world. He had placed over very wide-spread legs an enormous belly. More concerned with a perfect resemblance than with the usual conception of Balzac, he made him shocking, deformed, his head sunk into his shoulders..." ("Balzac et Rodin," Le Figaro, Nov. 25, 1894). The plaster maquette for the commission was unveiled at the Salon de la Société Nationale in May, 1898 and caused a storm of controversy. The Société refused to accept the monument and the city did not allow it to be placed in front of the Palais Royal. It was only cast in bronze after Rodin's death and finally erected on the Boulevard Raspail in 1939.