AUGUSTE RODIN (1840-1917)

Property of the WILLIAM T. KEMPER CHARITABLE TRUST

Details

AUGUSTE RODIN (1840-1917)
Le petite martyre
signed and numbered on the top A. Rodin No1, inscribed on the back © by musée Rodin 1963. Georges Rudier.Fondeur.Paris.--stamped with raised signature inside A. Rodin--bronze with green-brown patina
Length: 24 in. (61 cm.)

Original plaster version executed in 1885; this bronze version cast in 1963, number one in an edition of 12

Provenance

Musée Rodin, Paris Maxwell Galleries, San Francisco

Literature

G. Grappe, Catalogue du Musée Rodin, Paris, 1944, p. 141 (another cast illustrated, p. 65; titled La martyre chrétienne)
A.E. Elsen, Rodin, New York, 1963, p. 151 (large version illustrated, p. 153)
I. Jianou and C. Goldscheider, Auguste Rodin, Paris, 1967, p. 91
R. Descharnes and J.-F. Chabrun, Auguste Rodin, Lausanne, 1967,
p. 78 (plaster version illustrated)
J.L. Tancock, The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin, Philadelphia, 1976, pp. 186-192, no. 18 (large version illustrated, p. 187, fig. 18; related versions illustrated, pp. 189 and 191, figs. 18-3 and 18-6)

Further details

*This lot may be exempt from sales tax, as set forth in the Important Notice at the front of this catalogue.

Lot Essay

This figure was first executed for The Gates of Hell, where it appears near the bottom of the left panel, partially obscured by drapery, with wings added and holding a wheel. The head and shoulders are repeated elsewhere in The Gates. Once removed from its original context, however, the figure gives the appearance of having fallen from a great height. Rodin's conception of martyrdom is not religious; instead, he is expressing the pain and suffering of romantic love. This positioning of the limbs and body, with the addition of wings, is seen again in the Fall of Icarus, circa 1895.