La grande ombre

Details

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)
La grande ombre
signed 'A. Rodin' (on the right side of the base); inscribed with foundry mark 'Alexis Rudier Fondeur Paris' (on the back of the base)
bronze with green patina
Height: 76 in. (193 cm.)
Length: 39 3/8 in. (100 cm.)
Conceived circa 1880; this bronze version cast circa 1925-1927

Provenance

Musée Rodin, Paris.
Eugène Rudier, Paris (acquired from the above as payment in kind from the above, circa 1927).
Mme. Eugène Rudier, Paris (by descent from the above, 1952).
Raymond Subes, France (acquired from the above estate, 1957).
The Subes Collection, France (by descent from the above); sale, Christie's, New York, 12 May 1999, lot 18.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.

Literature

Musée Rodin, ed., Catalogue sommaire des oeuvres d'Auguste Rodin, Paris, 1926, no. 171 (another cast illustrated, p. 31).
G. Grappe, Catalogue du Musée Rodin, Paris, 1944, nos. 57-59.
J. Charbonneaux, Les sculptures de Rodin, Paris, 1949, pl. 12 (another cast illustrated).
"Maillol, Renoir et Rodin étaient au dernier rendez-vous", Paris-Match, Paris, 5 July 1952 (illustrated).
"Au Vésinet dans un cadre naturel: 20 Statues de Maîtres", Le Figaro, Paris, 4 February 1954 (illustrated).
A.E. Elsen, Rodin, New York, 1963, p. 49.
R. Descharnes and J.-F. Chabrun, Auguste Rodin, Lausanne, 1967, p. 67.
I. Jianou and C. Goldscheider, Rodin, Paris, 1967, p. 88 (another cast illustrated, p. 19).
L. Goldscheider, Rodin Sculptures, London, 1970, p. 117, no. 12 (another cast illustrated, pl. 12).
J.L. Tancock, The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin, Philadelphia, 1976, pp. 129-130, and 135 (another cast illustrated, pp. 131-132).
M.L. Levkoff, Rodin in His Time, Los Angeles, 1994, pp. 58-59.

Exhibited

Paris, Musée du Petit Palais, Maîtres de l'art indépendant, June-October 1937, no. 13.

Special notice

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Lot Essay

No work more directly expresses Rodin's intense admiration for Michelangelo than La grande ombre. The heroic figure canon, the contorted, almost violent pose and the idealized facial type all are due to close study of the Italian sculptor's works. Writing from Italy in 1875, five years before modeling the present sculpture, Rodin said, "I have been studying Michelangelo since my first hour in Florence and I think that the great magician is revealing some of his secrets to me...I have made sketches at home in the evening, not after his works, but after all the scaffoldings, the methods I have invented to understand him; I think I have succeeded in giving to them some of that nameless quality that only he knows how to give" (quoted in J.L. Tancock, op. cit., p. 122). In modeling the present work, Rodin was especially inspired by Michelangelo's unfinished marble sculptures of the Apostles (Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence) and by his Victory (Palazzo della Signoria, Florence).

Between 1881 and 1886, Rodin placed three casts of La grande ombre, each lacking the right hand, at the top of La porte de l'enfer. The figures represent the souls of Dante's deceased countrymen. When first exhibited, they were shown pointing to a plaque with the inscription "Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'intrate". This inscription appears over the entrance to Hell in Dante's Inferno.

Eugène Rudier received two casts of La grande ombre from the Musée Rodin between 1927 and 1930 as payments for debts. One of the casts, the present work, remained with the Rudier family, the other cast was erected on Eugène Rudier's tomb in Le Vésinet upon his death in 1952.

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