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Lot Essay
Auguste Rodin, the premier sculptor of the modern era, was endlessly fascinated by the art of antiquity. He was particularly seduced by marble fragments, the partial remains of full-length statues from the classical period. In May 1903, for example, Rodin attended an exhibition of Ancient Greek art at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in London; there, the artist was drawn to the splintered head of an unknown goddess—which then belonged to his friend and patron, the wealthy American collector Edward Warren Perry, and is now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The present marble, a bust-length representation of Pallas Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war, is undoubtedly connected to Rodin’s lifelong study of the Greco-Roman sculptural tradition, as well as his fetishization of its ruins.
The facial features of this Athena were modeled after those of Maria Mattiocco della Torre, whose likeness Rodin first sculpted in 1888—the same year she married the Australian Impressionist painter John Peter Russell. Madame Russell’s delicate visage later inspired Rodin to sculpt a group of approximately ten marble Athenas, beginning in the late 1890s. Rodin conceived some versions of the bust of Athena wearing a marble helmet (Philadelphia Museum of Art) and others with a small model of the Parthenon temple from the Athenian Acropolis atop her head, signifying the goddess’s patronage of that Ancient Greek city (Musée Rodin, Paris). However, Rodin seems to have preferred the simpler, bareheaded iterations, which revealed partially fragmented heads. The present work, for example, was carved in Rodin’s studio around 1902; it was photographed there, without a helmet, the following year. Another bust without a helmet and sculpted in 1904 can be found in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne.
Rodin first presented this Buste de Pallas to the public at the annual Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte (now commonly known as the Venice Biennale), held from April to October 1903. It was there that the marble caught the attention of the San Francisco art dealer Henry P. Atkins—who was working on behalf of Dr. Harry Tevis, scion of the American financier and president of Wells Fargo & Company, Lloyd Tevis. In July 1903, Rodin noted the sale of the work to Atkins for 4,500 francs, as well as his intention to deliver the work within six weeks. However, it was not until early 1904, after the conclusion of the Venice Esposizione, that the Buste de Pallas arrived in San Francisco, most likely becoming the first Rodin to be acquired by a West Coast American collector. In 1903, there were only a handful of works by Rodin in the United States, and these were almost exclusively to be found on the East Coast.
Despite the original intention and preference of the artist, the younger Tevis was apparently dissatisfied with the bareheaded, fragmented Athena and requested that Rodin send a helmet to "complete" the sculpture. The artist begrudgingly agreed and in June 1904 had the silver helmet cast which now accompanies the work, for an additional 1,000 francs. Just two years later, the catastrophic San Francisco earthquake and great fire of 1906 destroyed Tevis’s Nob Hill mansion; yet the present work miraculously survived the conflagration thanks to being buried in Atkins' garden. The San Francisco newspapers had reported that the work, along with Atkins' house, had been destroyed. Joyously, it survived, and the work has remained in the collection of Tevis’s descendants ever since.
The facial features of this Athena were modeled after those of Maria Mattiocco della Torre, whose likeness Rodin first sculpted in 1888—the same year she married the Australian Impressionist painter John Peter Russell. Madame Russell’s delicate visage later inspired Rodin to sculpt a group of approximately ten marble Athenas, beginning in the late 1890s. Rodin conceived some versions of the bust of Athena wearing a marble helmet (Philadelphia Museum of Art) and others with a small model of the Parthenon temple from the Athenian Acropolis atop her head, signifying the goddess’s patronage of that Ancient Greek city (Musée Rodin, Paris). However, Rodin seems to have preferred the simpler, bareheaded iterations, which revealed partially fragmented heads. The present work, for example, was carved in Rodin’s studio around 1902; it was photographed there, without a helmet, the following year. Another bust without a helmet and sculpted in 1904 can be found in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne.
Rodin first presented this Buste de Pallas to the public at the annual Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte (now commonly known as the Venice Biennale), held from April to October 1903. It was there that the marble caught the attention of the San Francisco art dealer Henry P. Atkins—who was working on behalf of Dr. Harry Tevis, scion of the American financier and president of Wells Fargo & Company, Lloyd Tevis. In July 1903, Rodin noted the sale of the work to Atkins for 4,500 francs, as well as his intention to deliver the work within six weeks. However, it was not until early 1904, after the conclusion of the Venice Esposizione, that the Buste de Pallas arrived in San Francisco, most likely becoming the first Rodin to be acquired by a West Coast American collector. In 1903, there were only a handful of works by Rodin in the United States, and these were almost exclusively to be found on the East Coast.
Despite the original intention and preference of the artist, the younger Tevis was apparently dissatisfied with the bareheaded, fragmented Athena and requested that Rodin send a helmet to "complete" the sculpture. The artist begrudgingly agreed and in June 1904 had the silver helmet cast which now accompanies the work, for an additional 1,000 francs. Just two years later, the catastrophic San Francisco earthquake and great fire of 1906 destroyed Tevis’s Nob Hill mansion; yet the present work miraculously survived the conflagration thanks to being buried in Atkins' garden. The San Francisco newspapers had reported that the work, along with Atkins' house, had been destroyed. Joyously, it survived, and the work has remained in the collection of Tevis’s descendants ever since.