AUGUSTE RODIN

(1840-1917)

Age d'Airain, petit modèle dit aussi '2ème réduction'

Footnotes

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

Provenance
Musée Rodin, Paris.
Eugène Rudier Collection, Le Vésinet (acquired from the above in 1943).
Galerie Beyeler, Basel.
Arthur Stoll Collection, Arlesheim (acquired from the above in 1954); his sale, Kornfeld und Klipstein, Bern, 18 November 1972, lot 169.
Private collection, Switzerland (acquired at the above sale).
Acquired from the above by the present owner.

Exhibited
Basel, Galerie Beyeler, Le petit format dans l'art moderne, 1 December 1954 – 10 January 1955, no. 42/b.

Literature
G. Grappe, Catalogue du Musée Rodin, Paris, 1927 (plaster version illustrated p. 28).
M. Aubert, Rodin Sculptures, Paris, 1952 (another cast illustrated pl. 11).
M. Fischer, Sammlung Arthur Stoll, Skulpturen und Gemälde des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, Zurich, 1961, no. 7 (the present work illustrated).
C. Goldscheider, Rodin, Paris, 1962 (another cast illustrated pp. 54-55).
R. Descharnes & J-F. Chabrun, Auguste Rodin, London, 1967 (plaster version illustrated p. 54).
J.L. Tancock, The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin, The Collection of the Rodin Museum Philadelphia, Philadelphia, 1976, p. 356.
C. Goldscheider, Auguste Rodin, catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre sculpté, Vol. I, 1840-1886, Paris, 1989, no. 95d, p. 116.
I. Ross & A. Snow (eds.), Rodin, A Magnificent Obsession, London, 2001, no. 17 (another cast illustrated p. 28).
A. Le Normand-Romain, The Bronzes of Rodin, Catalogue of works in the Musée Rodin, Vol. 1, Paris, 2007 (plaster version illustrated p. 128).


'Beauty is everywhere. It is not beauty that our eyes lack, it is our eyes that are deficient in perceiving it. Beauty is character and expression. And there is nothing in Nature that has more character than the human body. Through its force it evokes the widest variety of images. At times it is like a flower: the way the torso bends is like the stem...At times it is like a supple creeper..At other times still it is an urn...The human body is first and foremost the mirror of the soul and its greatest beauty comes from that' – A. Rodin

Age d'Airain is a work of unprecedented importance within the oeuvre of Auguste Rodin. It not only transformed European sculpture but truly set the artist on his path as the father of modern sculpture. Initially causing huge controversy through its unfathomable perfection, critics soon realised the importance of both the sculpture and indeed its author. With versions of the figure in major public collections such as the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and of course the Musée Rodin in Paris, it is undeniable how key this work is to our appreciation of sculpture as a medium.

Rodin began his work on Age d'Airain in Brussels after an inspirational trip to Italy in 1876, where his exposure to the Florentine masters Donatello and Michelangelo had a profound effect on him, particularly Michelangelo's Dying Slave with which we can draw a clear comparison with Age d'airain. His chosen muse was Auguste Neyt, a Belgian soldier, and not a professional model. It was through his form that Rodin sought a raw naturality in place of an exaggerated pose. This is an early example of Rodin's desire to strip away the narrative of myth and allegory from academic sculpture and to explore the natural elements of the human form. He dismissed the gods and muses of Neo-Classical tradition and focused on the distinctly human characteristics of psychology and physicality, making his surfaces rougher and more unfinished in contrast to the polished idealised figures of his predecessors like Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux and Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belluese. As a naturalist, Rodin was more concerned with character, emotion and movement: it is this appreciation for the subtlety of movement that perhaps stems from the influence of his teacher Antoine-Louis Barye, who paid great attention to the details of animals in motion. Auguste Neyt provided a figure that offered Rodin the chance to depict both an outer physicality as well as the inner emotional conflict of the modern man.

Age d'Airain recalled an early era in the history of humankind, a suspended moment of self-awareness and human awakening. It possesses a mastery of light, form and shadow, with rugged textured surfaces, all of which add to the work's startlingly realistic presence. After its unveiling at the Salon in Paris in 1877, the perfect realism of Age d'Airain caused many critics to believe it was in fact a surmoulage, cast directly from the body of the model. Whilst fighting to deny these allegations, Rodin's notoriety was in fact boosted by the affair and it eventually led to the French government purchasing a version of the work, in addition to commissioning La porte de l'enfer in 1880 - one of Rodin's most celebrated works. We can see the true precision of the Age d'Airain from the photograph of Neyt, taken by Gaudenzio Marconi, a prolific photographer of nudes. Through studying this image, Rodin's masterful execution of the sculpture is only emphasized and his brilliance in capturing the human profile reinforced.

Auguste Rodin's combination of a boldly modern approach to form and finish, whilst maintaining a respect for sculptural tradition through his focus on the human form, is as remarkable today as it was during his lifetime. His sculptures are still revered for their beauty, emotional power and technical brilliance, with Age d'Airain considered amongst his finest work. As one of Rodin's earlier works and the catalyst for his international renown, there is no denying its pivotal importance.

This smaller reduction of Age d'Airain, as documented in the Musée Rodin Archive's notes from René Cheruy, Rodin's secretary, would have been created at Rodin's request by Henri Le Bossé, reducer/enlarger, after November 1904 with the aim of donating a bronze copy to Léon Bourgeois, the first French delegate to the Peace Conference in The Hague. The first version, cast in 1907 by the Alexis Rudier Foundry, is now in the Musée Municipal de Chalons-sur-Marne, France.

As outlined in the present work's certificate, we know from the production records of the Alexis Rudier Foundry that foundry workers Alliot and Nadiras worked on this cast for thirty-three hours and a further five hours for the mounting. This invaluable archival note is the perfect anecdotal reference that outlines the importance and craftsmanship of these casts of Rodin's work.

This particular cast of Age d'Airain has belonged to a number of important collectors and was once housed in the collections of Eugène Rudier (son of Alexis Rudier), Galerie Beyeler and Arthur Stoll. Arthur Stoll (1887-1971) was a prominent Swiss biochemist, who, alongside his interest in science, built a prestigious collection of art. Part of this collection was sold at Kornfeld und Klipstein (today Galerie Kornfeld) in 1972, the year after his death – the auction included over 250 works, including masterpieces by Jean-François Millet, Paul Cézanne and Giovanni Giacometti, to name a few, and a group of 26 paintings and drawings by Ferdinand Hodler. In addition to amassing his own large collection, Stoll discreetly donated a number of works to prominent institutions after the war such as the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, where the work Adam and Eve, by Otto Mueller, was left with 'the intention of supporting the rebuilding of your collection of modern art a little'.