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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 Auguste Rodin at Galerie Brame et Lorenceau under the direction of Jérôme Le Blay under the archive number 2013-4146B.
La jeunesse triomphante was first exhibited at the Salon of 1896 and has been variously known as Fate and the Convalescent and The Grandmother's Kiss. According to John Tancock, La jeunesse triomphante "is a combination of two figures originally conceived separately. The seated female figure is that of The Helmet-Maker's Wife while the figure of the young girl, probably... a reject from the Gates of Hell, is used in a number of other compositions. In the work known as Aescelpius, the young girl is held in the arms of a male figure while, together with another nude and enlarged, she is used in the work known as The Earth and the Moon" (op. cit., p. 225).
The present lot was cast in a special edition of at least five lost wax casts commissioned in 1915 to the Fumière & Cie., Thiébaut Frères foundry by Loïe Fuller, an American dancer who captivated Parisian audiences in the late 19th century with her innovative use of lighting, silk drapes and dance. Fuller's pioneering work in the field of dance attracted the attention, respect and friendship of many French artists including Auguste Rodin and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Fuller is largely responsible for bringing Rodin's art to the attention of American collectors and scholars in the early 20th century. According to correspondence between Georges Grappe, curator of the Musée Rodin and Charles Fumière, former head of the Fumière foundry, Fuller intended for these casts to be given as gifts to important patrons of a project in San Francisco referred to at the time as the Musée de la Pensée et de l'Habileté.
La jeunesse triomphante was first exhibited at the Salon of 1896 and has been variously known as Fate and the Convalescent and The Grandmother's Kiss. According to John Tancock, La jeunesse triomphante "is a combination of two figures originally conceived separately. The seated female figure is that of The Helmet-Maker's Wife while the figure of the young girl, probably... a reject from the Gates of Hell, is used in a number of other compositions. In the work known as Aescelpius, the young girl is held in the arms of a male figure while, together with another nude and enlarged, she is used in the work known as The Earth and the Moon" (op. cit., p. 225).
The present lot was cast in a special edition of at least five lost wax casts commissioned in 1915 to the Fumière & Cie., Thiébaut Frères foundry by Loïe Fuller, an American dancer who captivated Parisian audiences in the late 19th century with her innovative use of lighting, silk drapes and dance. Fuller's pioneering work in the field of dance attracted the attention, respect and friendship of many French artists including Auguste Rodin and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Fuller is largely responsible for bringing Rodin's art to the attention of American collectors and scholars in the early 20th century. According to correspondence between Georges Grappe, curator of the Musée Rodin and Charles Fumière, former head of the Fumière foundry, Fuller intended for these casts to be given as gifts to important patrons of a project in San Francisco referred to at the time as the Musée de la Pensée et de l'Habileté.