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Lot Essay
Le baiser is one of the signature pieces of Rodin's entire sculptural oeuvre. Its origins can be traced to Rodin's third terracotta maquette for La porte de l'Enfer where an embracing couple is prominently featured on the lower left side of the gates. Considered to be too large and too gentle a subject for the overall design, the group did not appear in Rodin's final version and was subsequently developed into a free-standing statue.
Love and sexuality occupied a central theme in Rodin's work and no other sculptor of the nineteenth century could communicate the passion of romance better than Rodin. Since the eighteenth century, the dramatization of love and erotic subject matter had become more pronounced in the realm of art and literature, and these themes continued to enjoy widespread public support during Rodin's time. In the nineteenth century, sculptures like Antonio Canova's Psyche revived by Cupid's Kiss (fig. 1) on display at the Louvre since 1824, were well known to the 'grande publique.'
The lovers were inspired from a tale in Dante's Inferno that recounts the illicit affair between Francesca da Rimini and her husband's brother, Paolo Malatesta, who was charged with her care while his brother was away at war. Of all the love stories in Dante, this tale, so reminiscent of courtly love had the greatest resonance for nineteenth century readers. In Canto V, lines 127-38, Dante and Virgil encounter Paolo and Francesca in the second circle of the Inferno that punishes lust. It was during a session reading the tale of Lancelot and Guinevere that the couple realized their feelings for each other and embraced for the first time:
One day we were reading for our delight
Of Launcelot, how Love did him enthral.
Alone we were and without any fear.
Full many a time our eyes together drew
That reading, and drove the colour from our faces;
But one point only was it that o'ercame us.
When as we read of the much-longed-for smile
Being by such a noble lover kissed,
This one, who ne'er from me shall be divided,
Kissed me upon the mouth all palpitating.
Galleotto was the book and he who wrote it.
That day no farther did we read therein.
(Dante, The Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto V, 127-38)
Unlike his predecessors or even contemporaries who were following the tired allegorical conventions of the day, Rodin broke away from the idealization of love in favor of its humanization. In Le baiser his figures display more human emotions that can be read from their gestures. Rodin vividly captures the tenseness and anxiety associated with a couple's first kiss. Interestingly, from the positions of the figures it is the woman, not the man who initiates the intimacy as her body stretches towards his. The man, more timid, seems almost unprepared for the embrace as his hand hovers slightly above her thigh. In his surprise, the book slips from his hand, one page bent by the weight of her body against his. He leans slightly backwards and his eyes flutter closed as their lips lock together. Only a few years later, Camille Claudel, Rodin's pupil and mistress, was to be inspired to complete La valse (see lot 122, Christie's New York, 9 May 2000) of 1893, a highly erotic work of two lovers swept up in a passionate embrace.
Rodin created two versions of this size cast. The first version, known to scholars as the "Rudier" version, was cast exclusively by members of the Rudier family; first by François as early as 1887, then by Eugène from 1902 until 1952 and later by Georges until the early 1970s. The second version, created a few months after the first, from which five copies were cast between 1887-1892, appear to all be cast from an early plaster now in the Milwaukee Museum. Of the two aforementioned versions, the present work is an important early cast and first proof (première épreuve) executed by the foundry of Griffoul et Lorge from the second 'Milwaukee' version around 1887-1888. This 'Milwaukee' version is a particularly important version because all of the casts were created during Rodin's lifetime.
The dedication of the present work to Dr. Paul Vivier makes this cast a highly personal work documenting a personal friendship between the two men. Dr. Paul Vivier (1848-1930) was a general practitioner who knew the family intimately, taking care of Rodin's long time partner Rose Beuret. According to Rodin's personal secretary and first biographer, Judith Cladel, Dr. Vivier was called upon several times to take care of Rose. When Dr. Vivier left Paris to settle in the small village of Le Châtelet-en-Brie near Fontainebleau, Rodin and Rose were frequent weekend guests at his country house. In her book Rodin, sa vie glorieuse, sa vie inconnue, Cladel recounts that Rodin urgently called upon Vivier to seek advise for Rose's heart disease after she received treatment from a doctor whom Rodin did not trust. When Rodin visited Rose, who was recovering at the Vivier's country house, he was accompanied by one of his assistants who carried in a wheelbarrow the large bronze of Le baiser, an offering no doubt in gratitude for the doctor's kindness and support. It was, according to Cladel, "in Rodin's character as a man who once knew poverty, one day to generously offer a priceless sculpture, and another day to shout at his assistants for wasting candles" (J. Cladel, Rodin, sa vie glorieuse, sa vie inconnue, Paris, 1936, p. 236). More importantly, Cladel's dating of this episode to 1886-1887 confirms the early casting of the present work and its status as a première épreuve. It is also known that Vivier owned approximately seven works by Rodin, one of which is a marble head of L'orpheline alsacienne, now housed in the Musée Rodin, Paris.
Some noteworthy characteristics distinguish this cast from the later Rudier casts and such details reinforce the high quality of the casting. In contrast to later casts where the man's hand touches the thigh of the woman, in the present work his hand hovers. This latter detail was in fact "accidental." In the original plaster of the Milwaukee version the hand was indeed resting on her leg, but due to the shrinkage that resulted from the drying of the terracotta mold, the hand became separated. Moved by the poetic effect of this detail, Rodin left it in the final version. As he explained to Vita Sackville-West, "the man's hand was not resting on the woman's leg; it was about two centimeters from it. This was more respectful" (quoted in Frederick V. Grunfeld, The Journals of Lady Sackville-West, Paris, 1988, p. 212).
With the success of Le Baiser, Rodin finally received recognition when the French government commissioned an oversized marble version from him, exhibited at the Salon of 1898.
Love and sexuality occupied a central theme in Rodin's work and no other sculptor of the nineteenth century could communicate the passion of romance better than Rodin. Since the eighteenth century, the dramatization of love and erotic subject matter had become more pronounced in the realm of art and literature, and these themes continued to enjoy widespread public support during Rodin's time. In the nineteenth century, sculptures like Antonio Canova's Psyche revived by Cupid's Kiss (fig. 1) on display at the Louvre since 1824, were well known to the 'grande publique.'
The lovers were inspired from a tale in Dante's Inferno that recounts the illicit affair between Francesca da Rimini and her husband's brother, Paolo Malatesta, who was charged with her care while his brother was away at war. Of all the love stories in Dante, this tale, so reminiscent of courtly love had the greatest resonance for nineteenth century readers. In Canto V, lines 127-38, Dante and Virgil encounter Paolo and Francesca in the second circle of the Inferno that punishes lust. It was during a session reading the tale of Lancelot and Guinevere that the couple realized their feelings for each other and embraced for the first time:
One day we were reading for our delight
Of Launcelot, how Love did him enthral.
Alone we were and without any fear.
Full many a time our eyes together drew
That reading, and drove the colour from our faces;
But one point only was it that o'ercame us.
When as we read of the much-longed-for smile
Being by such a noble lover kissed,
This one, who ne'er from me shall be divided,
Kissed me upon the mouth all palpitating.
Galleotto was the book and he who wrote it.
That day no farther did we read therein.
(Dante, The Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto V, 127-38)
Unlike his predecessors or even contemporaries who were following the tired allegorical conventions of the day, Rodin broke away from the idealization of love in favor of its humanization. In Le baiser his figures display more human emotions that can be read from their gestures. Rodin vividly captures the tenseness and anxiety associated with a couple's first kiss. Interestingly, from the positions of the figures it is the woman, not the man who initiates the intimacy as her body stretches towards his. The man, more timid, seems almost unprepared for the embrace as his hand hovers slightly above her thigh. In his surprise, the book slips from his hand, one page bent by the weight of her body against his. He leans slightly backwards and his eyes flutter closed as their lips lock together. Only a few years later, Camille Claudel, Rodin's pupil and mistress, was to be inspired to complete La valse (see lot 122, Christie's New York, 9 May 2000) of 1893, a highly erotic work of two lovers swept up in a passionate embrace.
Rodin created two versions of this size cast. The first version, known to scholars as the "Rudier" version, was cast exclusively by members of the Rudier family; first by François as early as 1887, then by Eugène from 1902 until 1952 and later by Georges until the early 1970s. The second version, created a few months after the first, from which five copies were cast between 1887-1892, appear to all be cast from an early plaster now in the Milwaukee Museum. Of the two aforementioned versions, the present work is an important early cast and first proof (première épreuve) executed by the foundry of Griffoul et Lorge from the second 'Milwaukee' version around 1887-1888. This 'Milwaukee' version is a particularly important version because all of the casts were created during Rodin's lifetime.
The dedication of the present work to Dr. Paul Vivier makes this cast a highly personal work documenting a personal friendship between the two men. Dr. Paul Vivier (1848-1930) was a general practitioner who knew the family intimately, taking care of Rodin's long time partner Rose Beuret. According to Rodin's personal secretary and first biographer, Judith Cladel, Dr. Vivier was called upon several times to take care of Rose. When Dr. Vivier left Paris to settle in the small village of Le Châtelet-en-Brie near Fontainebleau, Rodin and Rose were frequent weekend guests at his country house. In her book Rodin, sa vie glorieuse, sa vie inconnue, Cladel recounts that Rodin urgently called upon Vivier to seek advise for Rose's heart disease after she received treatment from a doctor whom Rodin did not trust. When Rodin visited Rose, who was recovering at the Vivier's country house, he was accompanied by one of his assistants who carried in a wheelbarrow the large bronze of Le baiser, an offering no doubt in gratitude for the doctor's kindness and support. It was, according to Cladel, "in Rodin's character as a man who once knew poverty, one day to generously offer a priceless sculpture, and another day to shout at his assistants for wasting candles" (J. Cladel, Rodin, sa vie glorieuse, sa vie inconnue, Paris, 1936, p. 236). More importantly, Cladel's dating of this episode to 1886-1887 confirms the early casting of the present work and its status as a première épreuve. It is also known that Vivier owned approximately seven works by Rodin, one of which is a marble head of L'orpheline alsacienne, now housed in the Musée Rodin, Paris.
Some noteworthy characteristics distinguish this cast from the later Rudier casts and such details reinforce the high quality of the casting. In contrast to later casts where the man's hand touches the thigh of the woman, in the present work his hand hovers. This latter detail was in fact "accidental." In the original plaster of the Milwaukee version the hand was indeed resting on her leg, but due to the shrinkage that resulted from the drying of the terracotta mold, the hand became separated. Moved by the poetic effect of this detail, Rodin left it in the final version. As he explained to Vita Sackville-West, "the man's hand was not resting on the woman's leg; it was about two centimeters from it. This was more respectful" (quoted in Frederick V. Grunfeld, The Journals of Lady Sackville-West, Paris, 1988, p. 212).
With the success of Le Baiser, Rodin finally received recognition when the French government commissioned an oversized marble version from him, exhibited at the Salon of 1898.