Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)

L'éternel Printemps

Details

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)
L'éternel Printemps
signed 'Rodin' (on the left side), and inscribed with foundry mark 'F. BARBIDIENNE.fondeur' (on the back of the base)
bronze with black patina
Height: 15 5/8 in. (39.7 cm.)
Conceived in 1884; this bronze version cast between 1898-1918

Provenance

Anon. sale, Sotheby's, New York, 13 November 1996, lot 143.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.

Literature

G. Grappe, Catalogue du Musée Rodin, Paris, 1927, p. 42, nos. 69-70 (other versions illustrated).
G. Grappe, Catalogue du Musée Rodin, Paris, 1944, p. 141, no. 56 (large marble version illustrated, p. 56).
B. Champigneulle, Rodin, London, 1967, p. 280, nos. 34-35 (large versions illustrated, pp. 92-93).
R. Descharnes and J.-F. Chabrun, Auguste Rodin, Lausanne, 1967, p. 135 (large bronze version illustrated, pls. 56-57).
I. Jianou and C. Goldscheider, Rodin, Paris, 1967, p. 96 (another cast illustrated, pls. 56-57).
J.L. Tancock, The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin, Philadelphia, 1976, pp. 241-245, no. 32b (another cast illustrated, p. 243).

Lot Essay

The commission for La Porte de l'Enfer gave Rodin the opportunity to experiment extensively with figure compositions, singly and in groups, which he could model on a smaller scale than his earlier sculptures, and further refine his intensity of expression. A common theme among these sculptures is human love, expressed not in the tired allegorical conventions of the period, but in more novel, passionate and intimately human terms.

Rodin developed the figures in L'éternel Printemps from earlier material. The figure of the woman is derived from Torse d'Adèle, which appears on the left corner of the tympanum of La Porte de l'Enfer. The lovers were originally known as Zéphyr et la Terre and were exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1898 as Cupidon et Psyché (there are vestiges of small Cupid's wings on the back of the man).

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