Lot Essay
In late 1875, Rodin travelled to Turin, Genoa, Rome, Naples and Florence where he spent a week in the Medici Chapel studying the work of Michelangelo. Greatly inspired by the Italian master, Rodin returned to Brussels, where he had moved in 1871, and resumed work on 'L'Age d'Airain' in plaster, which he had begun the previous June. The model he chose was a young Belgian soldier, Auguste Neyt (see illustration below), who worked with Rodin for eighteen months, until the sculpture was finished in December 1876.
Rodin sent the work to be exhibited at the Cercle Artistique in Brussels in January 1877, under the title L'homme vaincu, and then to the Paris Salon in May 1877. In both exhibitions, the sculpture was well received but it was rumoured in the press that Rodin had used casts taken directly from the body of the model, because the work was so life-like. In spite of Rodin's vigorous efforts to disprove them, these accusations persisted. Neyt offered to come to Paris to pose nude beside the sculpture so that the Salon jury could make direct comparisons, but he was denied leave of absence from the army. It was only in 1880 that the committee of enquiry set up to investigate the matter came to a conclusion, having heard the evidence of some of Rodin's sculptor friends who had seen him at work on the piece. By way of compensation the French State acquired a life-size bronze cast in 1880.
L'Age d'Airain was Rodin's first life size work intended for the Salon, and he focused great care and energy on its production. "Rodin treated his model...as an object, recording each façade of the body, not only from the normal salient viewpoints but from an overhead shelf looking down and crouched below looking up. The planes of the head, shoulders and haunches were registered as a sum of minor facts, while the periphery was kept taut and succinct" (C. Lampert, Rodin, Sculpture and Drawings, London, 1986, p. 14). The naturalism and sensitivity of modelling surpassed all standards of the day. The pose of the figure has been related to Michelangelo's Dying Slave in the Louvre, as well as to Mercié's Gloria Victis, shown at the 1875 Salon. John Tancock explains "Rodin first entitled his sculpture L'Homme vainçu , but this title was soon changed to L'Age d'Airain, that is to say, one who is passing from the unconsciousness of primitive man into the age of understanding and of love" (J. Tancock, op. cit., p. 349).
Between 1901 and 1904, Rodin requested his preferred réducteur-agrandisseur assistant, Henri Lebossé, to execute two reduced versions of L'Age d'Airain, measuring 105.5cm. and 64cm. in height, of which the present work is an example of the second version.
This bronze proof was cast in late 1945 for the Musée Rodin and is recorded in its archives as no. 397.
Rodin sent the work to be exhibited at the Cercle Artistique in Brussels in January 1877, under the title L'homme vaincu, and then to the Paris Salon in May 1877. In both exhibitions, the sculpture was well received but it was rumoured in the press that Rodin had used casts taken directly from the body of the model, because the work was so life-like. In spite of Rodin's vigorous efforts to disprove them, these accusations persisted. Neyt offered to come to Paris to pose nude beside the sculpture so that the Salon jury could make direct comparisons, but he was denied leave of absence from the army. It was only in 1880 that the committee of enquiry set up to investigate the matter came to a conclusion, having heard the evidence of some of Rodin's sculptor friends who had seen him at work on the piece. By way of compensation the French State acquired a life-size bronze cast in 1880.
L'Age d'Airain was Rodin's first life size work intended for the Salon, and he focused great care and energy on its production. "Rodin treated his model...as an object, recording each façade of the body, not only from the normal salient viewpoints but from an overhead shelf looking down and crouched below looking up. The planes of the head, shoulders and haunches were registered as a sum of minor facts, while the periphery was kept taut and succinct" (C. Lampert, Rodin, Sculpture and Drawings, London, 1986, p. 14). The naturalism and sensitivity of modelling surpassed all standards of the day. The pose of the figure has been related to Michelangelo's Dying Slave in the Louvre, as well as to Mercié's Gloria Victis, shown at the 1875 Salon. John Tancock explains "Rodin first entitled his sculpture L'Homme vainçu , but this title was soon changed to L'Age d'Airain, that is to say, one who is passing from the unconsciousness of primitive man into the age of understanding and of love" (J. Tancock, op. cit., p. 349).
Between 1901 and 1904, Rodin requested his preferred réducteur-agrandisseur assistant, Henri Lebossé, to execute two reduced versions of L'Age d'Airain, measuring 105.5cm. and 64cm. in height, of which the present work is an example of the second version.
This bronze proof was cast in late 1945 for the Musée Rodin and is recorded in its archives as no. 397.