Bronze sculpture. Height 12.8 cm. Mounted on green-grained marble base (7.7 x 7.6 x7.7 cm). Signed A. Rodin. at lower right side as well as with foundry mark on the neck-piece at left "Alexis Rudier Fondeur Paris". - With dark brown, partly greenish patina. - The marble base slightly chipped in places along edges and on corners.
Later small version (with longer neck-piece) of the famous early work "L'Homme au nez cassé" dated 1863/1864, probably cast posthumously in bronze after 1917 by Alexis Rudier.
"The Small Head of the Man with the Broken Nose is later than the large version. It appears twice on the tympanum of The Gates of Hell, to the right of The Thinker and in the frieze of small heads. It can also be found in other compositions [...]. It's dramatic modeling, stripped of details, has the spontaneity of a rough sketch, and forms a strong contrast with the meticulous realism of the large version." (Cat. of Works in the Musée Rodin, op. cit., p. 419)
Provenance
Formerly private possession, Baden-Württemberg; Southern German art trade
Literature
John L. Tancock, The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin, The Collection of the Rodin Museum Philadelphia, Philadelphia 1976, nr. 79 with ill. 79-4 ("Small Head of the Man with the Broken Nose", 1882, Národní Galerie, Prag) and p. 479; Antoinette Le Normand-Romain (ed.), The Bronzes of Rodin, Catalogue of Works in the Musée Rodin, vol. 2, Paris 2007, p. 416 with ill. fig. 1 ("Small Head of Man with the Broken Nose", before 1889, variant, coll. Spreckels, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco) and p. 418 with ill. fig. 10 (Bronze, Musée Sainte-Corix, Poitiers).