Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)

This work will be included in the forthcoming Auguste Rodin catalogue critique de l'oeuvre sculpté currently being prepared by the Comité Rodin at Galerie Brame et Lorenceau under the direction of Jérôme Le Blay under the archive number 2008-1792B.

The first owner of this sculpture was Jules Mastbaum (1872-1926), a major figure in the early American film industry and one of Philadelphia's leading philanthropists. In 1922, as he approached his fiftieth year, he commissioned Albert Rosenthal to purchase works of art on his behalf in Europe. During one of his own trips to Paris, Mr. Mastbaum acquired his first small bronze sculpture by Rodin, a purchase which triggered a lasting passion for the works of this great sculptor, who had died less than six years before. Mr. Mastbaum quickly transformed his private interest into a public project, and conceived the idea of establishing a museum in Philadelphia dedicated solely to the works of Rodin, thus forming an American counterpart to the Musée Rodin in Paris.

From 1924 to 1926, Mr. Mastbaum acquired casts of all the works in the Musée Rodin collection. He was also instrumental in casting the first bronze versions of the Porte de l'Enfer, which had existed only in a plaster version when the sculptor died. The first cast went to the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia and the second went to the Musée Rodin in Paris.