Auguste Rodin - Masque de femme au nez retroussé, petit modèle - Variante sur pied de colonne circulaire - image-1

Lot 476 Dα

Auguste Rodin - Masque de femme au nez retroussé, petit modèle - Variante sur pied de colonne circulaire

Auction 1134 - overview Cologne
31.05.2019, 17:00 - Modern Art
Estimate: 12.000 € - 15.000 €

Auguste Rodin

Masque de femme au nez retroussé, petit modèle - Variante sur pied de colonne circulaire
Circa 1880-1890

Bronze 22.9 x 11.5 x 8 cm. Mounted on a green polished stone base, circular base with classic edge profile (height 2.3 cm, diameter 10 cm) On the right side of the neck with the signum 'A. Rodin' and on the verso stamped cast number and at the foot of the column shaft below with the foundry mark "Susse F.P. 2008". Cast 7/8. Posthumous cast from 2008 from an edition of 8 Arabic and IV Roman numbered casts legitimised by the Musée Rodin according to the plaster model in the collection of Eduardo Hay, Mexico. - With slightly shiny dark brown patina.

On the one hand, this little mask may have been created in the early 1880s in the vicinity of works related to the “Gates of Hell”; on the other hand, with its calm and portrait-like air, it appears as though it could possibly be a likeness of Minna Schrader de Nyzot, a model who is documented in connection with this work. Rodin only extremely rarely exhibited this head in public; however, in 1900 it appeared for the first time in the Pavillion de l'Alma and was photographed by Eugène Druet in a version on a little cylindrical marble base - significantly, positioned with the head raised, the forehead and the “button nose” opened and turned upwards, bathed in light. That same year, Max Klinger arranged an early commission from the Cologne banker Felix Koenig for a cast of this variant, which would be followed in 1905 by a commission from his sister-in-law (see The Bronzes of Rodin, op. cit. 2007, p. 672). It was typical for Rodin to use different mountings of a given sculptural form to experiment formally in a free and associative manner.

Certificate

With an expertise by Jérôme Le Blay and Francois Lorenceau, Comité Auguste Rodin, Paris, dated 9 April 2009; the cast is included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné Critique de l'oeuvre Sculpté d'Auguste Rodin by Galerie Brame & Lorenceau under the directorate of Jérôme Le Blay under the number 2009-2532B .

Provenance

Formerly Spanish art trade, Barcelona (2009); Private collection

Literature

Antoinette Le Normand-Romain (ed.), The Bronzes of Rodin. Catalogue of Works in the Musée Rodin, Paris 2007, cf. vol. II, "Petite Tête au nez retroussé", pp. 670-672 with illus.