AUGUSTE RODIN (1840-1917)

Details

AUGUSTE RODIN (1840-1917)

Tête du génie de la guerre

signed, dated and inscribed on the left side A. Rodin © by musée Rodin. 1965., inscribed on the right side .Georges Rudier. Fondeur. Paris.--stamped with raised signature inside A. Rodin--bronze with brown and green patina
Height: 6¼ in. (15.9 cm.)

Original plaster version cast circa 1883; this bronze version cast in 1965 in an edition of 12

Provenance

Musée Rodin, Paris

Literature

C. Goldscheider, Auguste Rodin, Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre sculpté, Paris, 1989, vol. I, no. 106b (another cast illustrated, p. 134)

Lot Essay

This head is related to Le Genie de la guerre, which appears in L'Appel aux armes, also known as La Patrie vaincue, which Rodin executed in an 1879 competition for a monument to the defense of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War. Louis-Ernst Barrias' design won the competition. Rodin returned to this project during the defense of Paris early in World War I, and in 1916 the Dutch Committee for Verdun commissioned the sculptor to enlarge the subject to 92 3/4 in. It was inaugurated in front of Porte St.-Paul, Verdun in 1920.