Enfants au lézard

Details

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)
Enfants au lézard
signed and inscribed with foundry mark 'A. Rodin ALEXIS. RUDIER. FONDEUR. PARIS.' (on the back); with raised signature 'A. Rodin' (on the underside)
bronze with brown and green patina
Height: 15½ in. (39.2 cm.)
Conceived circa 1886; this bronze version cast in 1913

Provenance

Thomas Fortune Ryan, Oak Ridge, Virginia (acquired from the artist, circa 1913).
By descent from the above to the present owner.

Literature

G. Grappe, Catalogue du Musée Rodin, Paris, 1944, p. 58.
C. Goldscheider, August Rodin, Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre sculpté, 1840-1886, Paris, 1989, vol. I, p. 160, no. 123a (another cast illustrated, p. 161).
A.E. Elsen, Rodin's Art, The Rodin Collection of the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, New York, 2003, p. 509, no. 156 (another cast illustrated).
A. Le Normand-Romain, The Bronzes of Rodin, Catalogue of Works in the Musée Rodin, Paris, 2007, vol. I, pp. 323-324, no. S. 976 (another cast illustrated).

Brought to you by

David Kleiweg de Zwaan

dkleiweg@christies.com Tel: + 1 212 636 2093

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 archive number 2010-3246B.

Thomas Fortune Ryan (1851-1928) was an American tobacco and public transportation magnate, who built his fortune as an entrepreneurial young businessman at the turn of the 20th century. Long an admirer of Rodin, Ryan commissioned his first portrait bust in 1909, and in 1910 donated $25,000 to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to purchase several of the artist's bronzes. This generous donation formed the core of the Museum's Rodin collection; introducing the sculptor to the American public, its gallery dedicated to the artist opened on 2 May 1912. Rodin himself also gave to the museum a group of small plasters and a bronze bust of Ryan as a gesture of his gratitude.

(fig. 1) Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida, Portrait of Thomas Fortune Ryan, 1913. Virginia Historical Society (1992.29); Gift of Mrs. Anne Worrall Ryan. 27715758FIG-TFR

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