Le baiser, 4ème réduction dit aussi petit modèle

Details

AUGUSTE RODIN (1840-1917)
Le baiser, 4ème réduction dit aussi petit modèle
signed 'Rodin' (on the back of the rock) and stamped with the foundry mark 'F. BARBEDIENNE Fondeur' (on the left side of the rock); numbered 'F 13' (on the inside)
bronze with dark brown patina
height: 9 7⁄8 in. (25.2 cm.)
Conceived in 1886; this reduction in 1898; this bronze version cast by LeBlanc-Barbedienne between 1914 and 1918

Provenance

Établissements LeBlanc-Barbedienne, Paris.
Private collection, France, by whom acquired in the 1960s-1970s, and thence by descent.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.

This work will be included in the forthcoming Auguste Rodin catalogue critique de l'œuvre 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 2022-6736B.

Literature

G. Grappe, Catalogue du musée Rodin, Paris, 1927, nos. 91-92, p. 47 (marble version illustrated).
G. Grappe, Le musée Rodin, Paris, 1944, no. 71, p. 142.
G. Grappe, Le musée Rodin, Paris, 1947, no. 71, p. 142 (marble version illustrated fig. 71).
C. Goldscheider, Rodin, Paris, 1962, p. 49 (marble version illustrated).
A.E. Elsen, Rodin, New York, 1963, no. 63, p. 218 (another version illustrated p. 63; dated '1880-1882').
R. Descharnes & J.-F. Chabrun, Auguste Rodin, London, 1967 p. 130 (marble version illustrated p. 131).
I. Jianou & C. Goldscheider, Rodin, Paris, 1967, p. 100 (marble version illustrated pls. 54-55).
C. Goldscheider, Rodin Sculptures, London, 1970, no. 49, p. 121 (marble version illustrated).
J. L. Tancock, The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin, The Collection of the Rodin Museum, Philadelphia, Philadelphia, 1976, pp. 90 & 108 (marble version illustrated p. 77).
J. de Caso & P. Sanders, Rodin's Sculpture, A Critical Study of the Spreckels Collection, San Francisco, 1977, no. 22, pp. 149-152 (another cast illustrated pp. 148 & 150).
R.M. Rilke, Rodin, Salt Lake City, 1982, pp. 38 & 104 (another cast illustrated p. 39).
A.E. Elsen, The Gates of Hell by Auguste Rodin, Stanford, 1985, pp. x & 78-81 (another cast illustrated fig. 70, p. 79; dated '1881').
N. Barbier, Marbres de Rodin, Collection du Musée, Paris, 1987, no. 79, pp. 184 & 258 (marble version illustrated pp. 185 & 187).
M. Busco, Rodin and His Contemporaries, The Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Collection, New York, 1991, p. 229 (another cast illustrated pp. 60 -63; dated 'circa 1880-1884').
A. Le Normand-Romain, Le Baiser de Rodin, Paris, 1995, nos. 21 & 34, p. 78 & 90 (other versions and casts illustrated figs. 2 & 7, pp. 20-21; dated '1887').
A. Le Normand-Romain, Rodin, Paris, 1997, p. 49 (terracotta version illustrated p. 48).
J. Vilain, Rodin at the Musée Rodin, London, 1997, p. 39 (marble version illustrated).
"Within the Burning Marble" in Rodin and His Work, Paris, 1998, p. 42 (marble version illustrated p. 43).
J.A. Schmoll genannt Eisenwerth, Rodin and Camille Claudel, Munich, London & New York, 1999, p. 126 (marble version illustrated p. 49; dated '1888-1889').
A. Pingeot, 'Rodin au Musée du Luxembourg,' La Revue du Musée d'Orsay, Autumn 2000, no. 11, pp. 67-70, 74.
R. Butler & S.G. Lindsay, European Sculpture of the Nineteenth Century, The Collections of the National Gallery of Art, Systematic Catalogue, Washington, D.C., 2000, no. 1942.5.15, pp. 326 & 329-330 (another version illustrated pp. 327-328; plaster and marble versions illustrated figs. 1 & 2 respectively, p. 329).
Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Foundation (ed.), Rodin, A Magnificent Obsession, Los Angeles, 2001, no. 83, p. 104 (another cast illustrated p. 105; dated 'circa 1881-1882').
A.E. Elsen & R.F. Jamison, Rodin's Art, The Rodin Collection of the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, New York, 2003, no. 49, pp. 214-215 (another cast illustrated p. 214 & fig. 167, p. 215).
R. Masson & V. Mattiussi, Rodin, Paris, 2004, p. 40, (different versions illustrated p. 41 & p. 42; dated 'circa 1887').
A. Le Normand-Romain, The Bronzes of Rodin, Catalogue of Works in the Musée Rodin, vol. I, Paris, 2007, no. S.2393, p. 162 (other versions illustrated pp. 158-162; marble version illustrated figs. 1-3, p. 163).
A. Le Normand-Romain, Rodin, New York, 2014, pp. 133-134 (different versions illustrated figs. 121-123, pp. 132-133 & fig. 127, p. 135).

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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.

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