Le Baiser, 4ème réduction ou petit modèle dit aussi "réduction no. 2"

Details

AUGUSTE RODIN (1840-1917)
Le Baiser, 4ème réduction ou petit modèle dit aussi "réduction no. 2"
signed and inscribed with foundry mark 'Rodin F. BARBEDIENNE Fondeur' (on the rock); stamped '21T' (on the inside)
bronze with brown and green patina
Height: 9 7⁄8 in. (24.9 cm.)
Conceived in 1886; this reduction in 1898 and cast in March 1913

Provenance

Private collection, Paris (circa 1955, then by descent); sale, Christie's, Paris, 29 March 2019, lot 240.
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 2019-5932B.

Literature

G. Grappe, Catalogue du Musée Rodin, Paris, 1927, p. 47, nos. 91-92 (marble version illustrated).
R.M. Rilke, Rodin, London, 1946, pp. 38 and 104, no. VI (marble version illustrated, pl. 17).
G. Grappe, Le Musée Rodin, Paris, 1947, p. 142 (marble version illustrated, pl. 71).
C. Goldscheider, Rodin, Paris, 1962, p. 49 (marble version illustrated).
A.E. Elsen, Rodin, New York, 1963, p. 62 (larger version illustrated, p. 63; dated 1880-1882).
R. Descharnes and J.-F. Chabrun, Auguste Rodin, Lausanne, 1967, p. 130 (marble version illustrated, p. 131).
I. Jianou and C. Goldscheider, Rodin, Paris, 1967, p. 100 (marble version illustrated, pls. 54-55).
C. Goldscheider, Rodin Sculptures, London, 1970, no. 49 (marble version illustrated).
J.-L. Tancock, The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin, The Collection of the Rodin Museum, Philadelphia, Philadelphia, 1976, pp. 72, 90 and 108, no. 151 (marble version illustrated, p. 77).
J. de Caso and P.B. Sanders, Rodin's Sculpture, A Critical Study of the Spreckels Collection, San Francisco, 1977, pp. 148-153, no. 22 (another cast illustrated, pp. 148 and 150).
A.E. Elsen, The Gates of Hell by Auguste Rodin, Stanford, 1985, pp. 78 and 80-81 (another cast illustrated, p. 79, fig. 70).
N. Barbier, Marbres de Rodin: Collection du Musée, Paris, 1987, pp. 184, 186 and 258, no. 79 (marble version illustrated, pp. 185 and 187).
A. Le Normand-Romain, Le Baiser de Rodin, Paris, 1995, pp. 20-21 (another cast illustrated, fig. 2).
A. Le Normand-Romain, Rodin, Paris, 1997, p. 49 (terracotta version illustrated in color, p. 48).
J. Vilain, Rodin at the Musée Rodin, London, 1997, p. 39 (marble version illustrated in color).
A. Pingeot, "Rodin au Musée du Luxembourg" in La Revue du Musée d'Orsay, Autumn 2000, pp. 67-70 and 74, no. 11 (marble version illustrated).
R. Butler and S.G. Lindsay, European Sculpture of the Nineteenth Century, The Collections of the National Gallery of Art, Systematic Catalogue, Washington, D.C., 2000, pp. 326 and 329-330 (copper version illustrated in color, pp. 327-328; plaster and marble versions illustrated, p. 329, figs. 1-2 respectively).
A.E. Elsen, Rodin's Art, The Rodin Collection of the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for the Visual Arts at Stanford University, New York, 2003, pp. 214-215, no. 49 (another cast illustrated, fig. 167).
R. Masson and V. Mattiussi, Rodin, Paris, 2004, p. 40 (marble version illustrated in color, p. 41).
A. Le Normand-Romain, The Bronzes of Rodin, Catalogue of Works in the Musée Rodin, Paris, 2007, vol. I, pp. 162-163 (other casts illustrated, pp. 158-162; marble version illustrated, p. 163, figs. 1-3).
A. Le Normand-Romain, Rodin, New York, 2014, pp. 133-134 (terracotta version illustrated in color, p. 132, fig. 121; marble version illustrated, p. 133, figs. 122-123; marble version illustrated again in color, p. 135, fig. 127).

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Lot Essay

Auguste Rodin treats the simple subject of Le Baiser with a new visual language, by conveying the scene’s eroticism in such a daring, convincing and tangible way. He originally sculpted the subject in marble, emphasizing the couple sensuality. The likeness to nature, the heightened sensuality had precisely been the source of the fierce debate over Rodin’s early work, L’âge d'airain, at the 1877 Salon, when the artist was accused of "moulage sur nature". In response, he exaggerated or reduced the size of his casts often over-emphasizing parts of the human body in the tradition of Michelangelo. Le Baiser is one of his most sensual—if not erotic—interpretations of forbidden love, inspired by Francesca and Paolo’s tragic love-story described in the Canto V of Dante's Inferno, which ultimately led to their deaths.
The subject of the kiss, sometimes alluding to Paolo and Francesca’s fatal kiss, or Romeo and Juliet’s last kiss, has been depicted in various ways throughout the centuries, yet Rodin’s naturalistic and sensual rendering through his medium’s three-dimensionality is unprecedented, and is further emphasized by the extraordinary rotating movement created by the lovers’ embracing posture.
The edition size with a height of 25 centimeters was one of the two initial sizes conceived for Le Baiser, for which Rodin had signed a contract with the Leblanc-Barbédienne foundry on 6th July 1898. The number “82948” written in ink on the inside has enabled the expert to conclude that the present sculpture was cast before 5th March 1913, when it was sold by the Barbédienne foundry.

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