Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)

Tte de Balzac, version dfinitive

細節

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)
Tte de Balzac, version dfinitive
signed 'A. Rodin' and inscribed with foundry mark 'Alexis Rudier Fondeur Paris' (at the left); stamped with raised signature 'A. Rodin' (inside the sculpture)
bronze with brown and green patina
Height: 7 in. (17.8 cm.)
Conceived circa 1897; this bronze version cast between 1902 and 1915

出版

A. E. Elsen, Rodin, New York, 1963, p. 93 (terracotta and plaster versions illustrated, p. 90).
I. Jianou and C. Goldscheider, Rodin, Paris, 1967, pp. 104-105.
J. L. Tancock, The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin, Philadelphia, 1976, no. 76, p. 454 (another cast illustrated, p. 431).
J. de Caso and P. B. Sanders, Rodin's Sculpture, A Critical Study of the Spreckels Collection, San Francisco, 1977, no. 46 (another cast illustrated, pp. 238-239).

拍品專文

In July 1891 Rodin was selected by the Socit des Gens de Lettres, of which Emile Zola was president, to execute a monument to Balzac. In the finished work, the head, symbolic of Balzac's intellectual might, provides the focal point, and Rodin executed many studies for it. The present work was one of the final heads completed before Rodin started on the definitive piece and in it one can see the same tendency towards expressive rather than purely descriptive modelling. The deep eye sockets, the wild hair, the sneering lips and the jaunty angle of the head are all testament to the artist's perception of Balzac's intense and powerful depth of vision.