Eve, petit modèle, Version à la base carrée dite aussi aux pieds plats

Details

AUGUSTE RODIN (1840-1917)
Eve, petit modèle, Version à la base carrée dite aussi aux pieds plats
signed 'A. Rodin' (on the top of the base); stamped with the foundry mark 'Alexis Rudier Fondeur Paris' (on the back of the base); with the raised signature 'A. Rodin' (on the inside of the base)
bronze with dark brown patina
height: 29 5/8 in. (75.2 cm.)
First conceived in 1881; this version conceived in 1883; this example cast by Alexis Rudier between 1920-1930

Provenance

Musée Rodin, Paris.
Galerie Haussmann [Gustave Danthon], Paris.
Jacques & Simone Lemaigre du Breuil, Paris, by whom acquired from the above on 25 April 1934, and thence by descent; sale, Christie's, Paris, 31 March 2016, lot 218.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.

This work will be included in the forthcoming Auguste Rodin catalogue critique de l'oeuvre sculpté currently being prepared by the Comité Auguste Rodin at Galerie Brame et Lorenceau under the direction of Jérôme Le Blay under the archive number 2001-109B.

Literature

C. Mauclair, Auguste Rodin: The Man, His Ideas, His Works, London, 1905, p. 12 (marble version illustrated).
J. Cladel, Auguste Rodin, L'œuvre et l'homme, Brussels, 1908, p. 159 (another version referenced; other versions illustrated pls. 6 & 32).
L. Bénédite, Rodin, London, 1924, pp. 26-27 (another version illustrated pl. XVI).
L. Bénédite, Rodin, London, 1926, pl. 9 (marble version illustrated).
G. Grappe, Catalogue du Musée Rodin, vol. I, Paris, 1927, no. 39, pp. 35-36 (marble version illustrated p. 35).
J. Cladel, Rodin, sa vie glorieuse, sa vie inconnue, Paris, 1936, pp. 142-143.
G. Grappe, Le Musée Rodin, Paris, 1944, no. 44, p. 141 (another cast illustrated pl. 44).
I. Jianou & C. Goldscheider, Rodin, Paris, 1967, pp. 88-89 (plaster version illustrated pl. 17).
R. Descharnes & J.-F. Chabrun, Auguste Rodin, Lausanne, 1967, p. 98 (another cast illustrated p. 99).
J.L. Tancock, The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin: The Collection of the Rodin Museum, Philadelphia, Philadelphia, 1976, no. 8-5, p. 155 (another cast illustrated p. 154).
J. de Caso & P.B. Sanders, Rodin's Sculpture: A Critical Study of the Spreckels Collection, Rutland, 1977, no. 21, pp. 143-147 (plaster version illustrated pp. 142 &145).
M. Hanotelle, Paris/Bruxelles: Rodin et Meunier, Relations des sculpteurs français et belges à la fin du XIXe siècle, Paris, 1982, p. 59 (another version illustrated p. 57).
A. Beausire, Quand Rodin exposait, Paris, 1988, pp. 82-85 (terracotta version illustrated p. 84).
D. Finn & M. Busco, Rodin and His Contemporaries: The Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Collection, New York, 1991, p. 42 (other versions illustrated pp. 43-47).
R. Butler, Rodin: The Shape of Genius, New Haven & London, 1993, fig. 66, p. 161 (plaster version illustrated).
A. Le Normand-Romain, The Bronzes of Rodin: Catalogue of Works in the Musée Rodin, vol. I, Paris, 2007, no. S.756, p. 341 (another cast illustrated fig. 7, p. 346).

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

Conceived to flank La porte de l’enfer (The Gates of Hell), Eve is one of Auguste Rodin’s most celebrated sculptures. Inspired by the events of Dante’s The Divine Comedy, the monumental doorway reflects scenes from Inferno, the first book of the epic poem. The project was never completed and Rodin worked on it for 37 years until his death in 1917.

Rodin’s interpretation of Eve was intimately connected with his musings on sin while creating the commission, which he received from the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1880. Condensed into one striking gesture of shame and recognition of her fall, Rodin’s sensual portrait captures the precise moment of Eve’s banishment from the Garden of Eden. The Fall is a significant theme in the history of Western art and literature, with the story being revisited by Milton in his epic Paradise Lost and by Baudelaire, whose collection of poetry Les Fleurs du mal was also a source of inspiration in the creation of The Gates of Hell. – Olivia Lund

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