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Lot Essay
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 archives number 2010-3190B.
L'âge d'airain was originally conceived in 1877 and is widely considered Auguste Rodin's first great work, ranking alongside his later masterpieces such as the Porte de l'Enfer, the Penseur and Le baiser. It is a reflection of the importance of this motif in Rodin's work that casts of it are held by museums throughout the world; Alexis Rudier casts such as the present lot feature in the collections of the Musée Rodin, Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyons, the Albright-Knowx Gallery, Buffalo and the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm and Philadelphia's Rodin Museum, amongst others.
When Rodin first exhibited a bronze and a plaster version of L'âge d'airain in 1877, he caused a scandal: the new scrutiny of reality that he brought to the field of sculpture was so extreme, the sense of modelling so observed, that he was accused of casting a live person. His anticipated breakthrough was to some extent delayed by these accusations, despite his submitting photographs of his model, the young soldier Auguste Neyt, as proof of his own work. Neyt was an apt model for L'âge d'airain, which took its name from the Age of Bronze mentioned by Hesiod as peopled with war-like men. This was a theme that was particularly keenly felt in France in the wake of its invasion by Prussia seven years earlier.
Amongst those who saw the sculpture, Rodin found many defenders among the avant garde, later recalling that L'âge d'airain was 'condemned by the professors, while the students, connoisseurs and independent spirits loved it. From that time on the artist was surrounded by friends' (Rodin, quoted in F.V. Grunfeld, Rodin: A Biography, New York, 1998, pp. 103-04). The novel vitality of this figure of an all-too-believably human model rather than the idealised figures favoured by many academic sculptors was combined with Rodin's formidable talents to astounding effect, and paved the way for his reputation, established only a few years later, as the only rival to Michelangelo. In fact, while Michelangelo was an influence on him, as is clear even in the contrapposto evident in this work, during a trip to Italy the previous year, Rodin had also been struck by the Renaissance masters of bronze, and in particular Donatello.
Rodin had originally hoped that exhibiting L'âge d'airain might lead to a commission from the French state. He was first disappointed, yet three years later, encouraged by a letter of support from a group of fellow sculptors who appreciated the importance of Rodin's work, Edmond Turquet acquired the plaster and requested a bronze cast. It was Turquet, in his authority as Undersecretary of State for Fine Arts, who then commissioned the Porte de l'Enfer, marking a new chapter in the sculptor's career and forging his reputation as the most prominent sculptor of his generation.
L'âge d'airain was originally conceived in 1877 and is widely considered Auguste Rodin's first great work, ranking alongside his later masterpieces such as the Porte de l'Enfer, the Penseur and Le baiser. It is a reflection of the importance of this motif in Rodin's work that casts of it are held by museums throughout the world; Alexis Rudier casts such as the present lot feature in the collections of the Musée Rodin, Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyons, the Albright-Knowx Gallery, Buffalo and the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm and Philadelphia's Rodin Museum, amongst others.
When Rodin first exhibited a bronze and a plaster version of L'âge d'airain in 1877, he caused a scandal: the new scrutiny of reality that he brought to the field of sculpture was so extreme, the sense of modelling so observed, that he was accused of casting a live person. His anticipated breakthrough was to some extent delayed by these accusations, despite his submitting photographs of his model, the young soldier Auguste Neyt, as proof of his own work. Neyt was an apt model for L'âge d'airain, which took its name from the Age of Bronze mentioned by Hesiod as peopled with war-like men. This was a theme that was particularly keenly felt in France in the wake of its invasion by Prussia seven years earlier.
Amongst those who saw the sculpture, Rodin found many defenders among the avant garde, later recalling that L'âge d'airain was 'condemned by the professors, while the students, connoisseurs and independent spirits loved it. From that time on the artist was surrounded by friends' (Rodin, quoted in F.V. Grunfeld, Rodin: A Biography, New York, 1998, pp. 103-04). The novel vitality of this figure of an all-too-believably human model rather than the idealised figures favoured by many academic sculptors was combined with Rodin's formidable talents to astounding effect, and paved the way for his reputation, established only a few years later, as the only rival to Michelangelo. In fact, while Michelangelo was an influence on him, as is clear even in the contrapposto evident in this work, during a trip to Italy the previous year, Rodin had also been struck by the Renaissance masters of bronze, and in particular Donatello.
Rodin had originally hoped that exhibiting L'âge d'airain might lead to a commission from the French state. He was first disappointed, yet three years later, encouraged by a letter of support from a group of fellow sculptors who appreciated the importance of Rodin's work, Edmond Turquet acquired the plaster and requested a bronze cast. It was Turquet, in his authority as Undersecretary of State for Fine Arts, who then commissioned the Porte de l'Enfer, marking a new chapter in the sculptor's career and forging his reputation as the most prominent sculptor of his generation.