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Lot Essay
On 6 July 1898, Auguste Rodin entered into a landmark agreement with the Leblanc-Barbedienne Foundry granting the firm a 20-year publishing contract for Eternel printemps and Le Baiser, to be cast in multiple sizes. The foundry produced reductions from a plaster of the second état of Eternel printemps using the mechanical pantograph of Achille Collas, whose patented process was acquired by Ferdinand Barbedienne in 1838 and revolutionized the serial production of sculpture. According to Jérôme Le Blay, the present work, produced in October–November 1900, is the earliest recorded cast of Eternel printemps, second état, troisième réduction, making it an exceptionally rare example. It also bears the 'A. COLLAS RÉDUCTION MÉCANIQUE BREVETÉ' stamp, only found on the earliest casts of Eternel printemps and Le Baiser, executed prior to 1903 (F. Rionnet, Les bronzes Barbedienne: L’œuvre d’une dynastie de fondeurs, Paris, 2016, pp. 27–31).
This deeply romantic sculpture of two lovers locked in embrace ranks among Auguste Rodin’s most celebrated and enduring works. The female figure derives from a torso he modeled around 1882 of the Italian-born model Adèle Abruzzesi, her arms raised and back sensuously arched. Two years later, Rodin introduced a powerful male nude whose body responds to the ascending curve of the woman’s form, creating an unbridled and erotic evocation of physical love. As Christopher Riopelle has observed, “Rodin explores the bodily expression of extreme emotional states,” the man’s audaciously outstretched arm imbuing the composition with a sense that the lovers have been propelled into a precarious, free-floating vortex of passion, beyond the constraints of the physical world (C. Riopelle, Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections, Philadelphia, 1995, p. 199).
The euphoric embrace of Eternel printemps reflects the emotional intensity of Rodin’s relationship with Camille Claudel, which prompted him to abandon the politesse of allegorical convention in favor of a more intimate and personal vision of romantic love. Rodin himself claimed that the conception of the group came to him while listening to Ludwig van Beethoven’s Second Symphony: “God, how he must have suffered to write that,” he later recalled. “And yet, it was while listening to it for the first time that I pictured Eternal Springtime, just as I have modeled it since” (quoted in A. Le Normand-Romain, op. cit., 2007, p. 335).
The dynamic interlocking of the figures exemplifies Rodin’s radical rethinking of sculptural composition during this period. Animated by the play of light across its surface and the sweeping upward momentum of the male figure, the group seems poised to take flight. Subtle traces of wings on the man’s back identify him as Cupid, while the female figure leans against a tree-like support, her ambiguous emergence from it heightening the work’s poetic mystery. It is precisely this fusion of physical lyricism and emotional intensity that has long captivated collectors and secured the sculpture’s place among Rodin’s most iconic achievements.
Although initially conceived in relation to The Gates of Hell, Rodin’s monumental portal inspired by Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, the rapturous lovers ultimately proved discordant with the project’s tragic tenor. Rodin therefore developed the group as an independent work, first casting it in bronze in 1888 and exhibiting it publicly the following year at the Galerie Georges Petit.
This deeply romantic sculpture of two lovers locked in embrace ranks among Auguste Rodin’s most celebrated and enduring works. The female figure derives from a torso he modeled around 1882 of the Italian-born model Adèle Abruzzesi, her arms raised and back sensuously arched. Two years later, Rodin introduced a powerful male nude whose body responds to the ascending curve of the woman’s form, creating an unbridled and erotic evocation of physical love. As Christopher Riopelle has observed, “Rodin explores the bodily expression of extreme emotional states,” the man’s audaciously outstretched arm imbuing the composition with a sense that the lovers have been propelled into a precarious, free-floating vortex of passion, beyond the constraints of the physical world (C. Riopelle, Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections, Philadelphia, 1995, p. 199).
The euphoric embrace of Eternel printemps reflects the emotional intensity of Rodin’s relationship with Camille Claudel, which prompted him to abandon the politesse of allegorical convention in favor of a more intimate and personal vision of romantic love. Rodin himself claimed that the conception of the group came to him while listening to Ludwig van Beethoven’s Second Symphony: “God, how he must have suffered to write that,” he later recalled. “And yet, it was while listening to it for the first time that I pictured Eternal Springtime, just as I have modeled it since” (quoted in A. Le Normand-Romain, op. cit., 2007, p. 335).
The dynamic interlocking of the figures exemplifies Rodin’s radical rethinking of sculptural composition during this period. Animated by the play of light across its surface and the sweeping upward momentum of the male figure, the group seems poised to take flight. Subtle traces of wings on the man’s back identify him as Cupid, while the female figure leans against a tree-like support, her ambiguous emergence from it heightening the work’s poetic mystery. It is precisely this fusion of physical lyricism and emotional intensity that has long captivated collectors and secured the sculpture’s place among Rodin’s most iconic achievements.
Although initially conceived in relation to The Gates of Hell, Rodin’s monumental portal inspired by Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, the rapturous lovers ultimately proved discordant with the project’s tragic tenor. Rodin therefore developed the group as an independent work, first casting it in bronze in 1888 and exhibiting it publicly the following year at the Galerie Georges Petit.