Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)

Masque de l'homme au nez cass

Details

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)
Masque de l'homme au nez cass
signed and numbered 'Rodin 2' (on the interior)
terracotta
Height: 9.1/8 in. (23.2 cm.)
Conceived in 1863-1864; this version executed in 1922, number 2 in an edition of 4

Provenance

Maurice Viaud-Bruant, Paris.

Literature

A. E. Elsen, Rodin, New York, 1963, p. 106 (bronze cast illustrated).
I. Jianou and C. Goldscheider, Rodin, Paris, 1967, pl. 5, p. 83 (bronze cast illustrated).
R. Descharnes and J. F. Chabrun, Auguste Rodin, Paris, 1967, pp. 28-29 (bronze in the Muse Rodin illustrated).
J. L. Tancock, The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin, Philadelphia, 1976, no. 79-2, p. 477 (bronze in the Fogg Art Museum illustrated).

Lot Essay

The present work portrays Bibi, a cleaner in the studio at the Atelier Carrier-Belleuse in the Faubourg St. Marcel who occasionally modelled for the students. Shortly after Rodin finished the piece the plaster cracked leaving only the face intact. He named the work L'homme au nez cass and submitted it to the Salon of 1864 from where it was rejected. Rodin continued to consider it a major work, however, and later restored the original version, exhibiting it in plaster at the Brussels Salon of 1872 and in marble at the Paris Salon of 1875.

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