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Lot Essay
Christina Buley-Uribe will include this drawing in her forthcoming Auguste Rodin Catalogue raisonné des dessins et peintures.
In July 1906 in the Pré-Catelan, Paris, Rodin attended for the first time a performance given by the Royal Khmer Ballet. The dancers were accompanying King Sisowath on his official visit to the Colonial Exhibition of Marseilles. During their stay in France they spent a few days in Paris, where Rodin followed them. He later told the art critic Louis Vauxcelles: “I contemplated and admired the dancers in their ecstasy. When they finished I was left feeling empty, in the shadow and cold. It was as if they took the beauty of the world with them ... I followed them to Marseilles; I would have followed them to Cairo!”.
In Marseilles Rodin executed around ten drawings that he retouched and reworked with watercolour upon returning to his atelier. Rodin went on to execute some 150 drawings of the subject, including portraits of the king and his retinue. The preparatory sketch for this watercolour is in the Musée Rodin, Paris (no. D 4432).
It is very rare to find a drawing by Rodin published within the artist's lifetime. For many years, this work was only known by Rodin experts from its reproduction in Otto Grautoff's book of 1908.
In July 1906 in the Pré-Catelan, Paris, Rodin attended for the first time a performance given by the Royal Khmer Ballet. The dancers were accompanying King Sisowath on his official visit to the Colonial Exhibition of Marseilles. During their stay in France they spent a few days in Paris, where Rodin followed them. He later told the art critic Louis Vauxcelles: “I contemplated and admired the dancers in their ecstasy. When they finished I was left feeling empty, in the shadow and cold. It was as if they took the beauty of the world with them ... I followed them to Marseilles; I would have followed them to Cairo!”.
In Marseilles Rodin executed around ten drawings that he retouched and reworked with watercolour upon returning to his atelier. Rodin went on to execute some 150 drawings of the subject, including portraits of the king and his retinue. The preparatory sketch for this watercolour is in the Musée Rodin, Paris (no. D 4432).
It is very rare to find a drawing by Rodin published within the artist's lifetime. For many years, this work was only known by Rodin experts from its reproduction in Otto Grautoff's book of 1908.