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Lot Essay
During the 1880s Rodin completed several major commissions, including the Gates of Hell (1880), The Burghers of Calais (1884), and the Monument to Victor Hugo (1886). During this period he also produced many works on paper which J. Kirk Varnedoe has called his "black" gouached drawings. In contrast to his sculpture, his approach to which was becoming increasingly direct, expressively lifelike and nonallegorical, these drawings were usually based on literary, mythological or other imaginary themes.
The artist has inscribed the present work Charybe, his spelling of Charybde or Charybdis, the maiden in Greek mythology whose lower body was that of a fish encircled with dogs, and who generated a destructive whirlpool in the straits of Messina, as related in Homer's Odyssey. The drawings of this type are characterized by the painterly use of black and other dark colored gouache pigments which the artist heightens with white to create powerfully expressive chiaroscuro effects. The figure is drawn in bold lines of black ink and pencil.
The pose is closely related to that of Rodin's sculpture Eve, a life-size figure he intended to accompany Adam, which were to be placed on either side of his newly completed Gates of Hell. Rodin only partially completed the figure of Eve in 1881 -- his model became pregnant and eventually stopped coming to his studio. In the sculpture Eve looks downward, with her arms wrapped defensively about her, as she is expelled from the Garden of Eden. In the present gouache the figure looks to one side. Rodin used a similar pose in one of his illustrations to Emile Bergerat's poem Enguerrande, published in 1884 (see A.E. Elsen and J.K. Varnedoe, The Drawings of Rodin, New York, 1971, fig. 55).
The artist has inscribed the present work Charybe, his spelling of Charybde or Charybdis, the maiden in Greek mythology whose lower body was that of a fish encircled with dogs, and who generated a destructive whirlpool in the straits of Messina, as related in Homer's Odyssey. The drawings of this type are characterized by the painterly use of black and other dark colored gouache pigments which the artist heightens with white to create powerfully expressive chiaroscuro effects. The figure is drawn in bold lines of black ink and pencil.
The pose is closely related to that of Rodin's sculpture Eve, a life-size figure he intended to accompany Adam, which were to be placed on either side of his newly completed Gates of Hell. Rodin only partially completed the figure of Eve in 1881 -- his model became pregnant and eventually stopped coming to his studio. In the sculpture Eve looks downward, with her arms wrapped defensively about her, as she is expelled from the Garden of Eden. In the present gouache the figure looks to one side. Rodin used a similar pose in one of his illustrations to Emile Bergerat's poem Enguerrande, published in 1884 (see A.E. Elsen and J.K. Varnedoe, The Drawings of Rodin, New York, 1971, fig. 55).