PROPERTY FROM THE WIDZER FAMILY COLLECTION, LOS ANGELES
Lot 10
AUGUSTE RODIN(1840-1917)Main droite crispée, petit modèle
6 December 2022, 14:00 EST
New YorkSold for US$57,075 inc. premium
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AUGUSTE RODIN (1840-1917)
Main droite crispée, petit modèle
signed and numbered 'A. Rodin 12' (on the right side of the wrist) and inscribed with the foundry mark 'G. Rudier.. Fondeur. Paris.' (on the back of the wrist)
bronze with dark brown and green patina
5 1/4 in (13.3 cm) (height)
Conceived circa 1885. This bronze version cast by the Georges Rudier Foundry in July 1961
signed and numbered 'A. Rodin 12' (on the right side of the wrist) and inscribed with the foundry mark 'G. Rudier.. Fondeur. Paris.' (on the back of the wrist)
bronze with dark brown and green patina
5 1/4 in (13.3 cm) (height)
Conceived circa 1885. This bronze version cast by the Georges Rudier Foundry in July 1961
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.
Edgardo Acosta Gallery, Beverly Hills (acquired from the above in December 1961).
Lucille Ostrow and Fausto Riganti Collection, Rome and Los Angeles (by 1994).
Thence by descent to the present owner.
Literature
O. Mirbeau et al., Auguste Rodin et son oeuvre, Paris, 1900 (other casts illustrated pp. 28–32).
L. Roger-Milés, 'Rodin,' in Figaro Illustré, vol. XXV, September 1906, Paris (other casts illustrated pp. 68-69).
A. E. Elsen, The Partial Figure in Modern Sculpture. From Rodin to 1969, Baltimore, 1969 (another cast illustrated p. 20).
J. L. Tancock, The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin, The Collection of the Rodin Museum Philadelphia, Philadelphia, 1976, no. 119 (the larger version illustrated p. 618).
J. Caso & P. B. Sanders, Rodin's Sculpture, A Critical Study of the Spreckels Collection, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 1977 no. 69 (the larger plaster version illustrated p. 324).
A. E. Elsen, In Rodin's Studio, A Photographic Record of Sculpture in the Making, Oxford, 1980 (other casts illustrated pls. 65-70).
Musée Rodin (ed.), Rodin, les mains, les chirurgiens, exh. cat., Paris, 1983 (other casts illustrated pp. 86-87).
A. Pingeot, Le Corps en morceaux, exh. cat, Paris, 1990 (other casts illustrated pp. 191-192).
P. Nitti & M. Restellini, Rodin en 1900. L'exposition de l'Alma, exh. cat., Paris, 2001, no. 32 (plaster version illustrated p. 119).
A. E. Elsen, Rodin's Art: The Rodin Collection of the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Standford University, New York, 2003, no. 188 (another cast illustrated p. 582).
B. Maaz (ed.), Druet sieht Rodin, Photographie & Skulptur, exh. cat., Berlin, 2005 (another cast illustrated pp. 15, 61 & 124).
H. Pinet, Rodin et la photographie, exh. cat., Paris, 2007 (the larger version illustrated pp. 79, 82-83).
A. Le Normand-Romain, Rodin et le bronze, catalogue des oeuvres conservées au Musée Rodin, vol. II, Paris, 2007 (another cast illustrated p. 500).
Auguste Rodin's Main droite crispée, petit modèle is one the artist's most iconic studies of the human hand. Emphasizing his keen observation of the human body, Rodin began to depict the hand in a series of meticulously rendered and anatomically precise sculptures during the 1880s and 1890s. Fascinated by the expressive power of the human hand, Rodin created many works where the hand, as an independent form, becomes a sculptural statement. The sculptor gave a very special status to this small model of a clenched right hand, and had its image reproduced many times, most notably in a series of photographs by Eugène Druet in 1899 where the bronze hand emerges from the folds of a white blanket.