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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 at the Galerie Brame and Lorenceau under the direction of Jérôme Le Blay under the archive number 2006V918B.
In Greek legend, Andromeda was the daughter of the Ethiopian king Cepheus and his queen Cassiopeia, who declared that the girl's beauty surpassed even that of the Nereids, the nymphs of the sea-god Poseidon. The Nereids complained to their master, who sent a flood and a sea monster to ravage Cepheus's kingdom, located in present-day Gaza. Cepheus learned from an oracle that to appease Poseidon he must sacrifice Andromeda to the monster, so he chained his daughter to a rock by the sea. There she languished until the hero Perseus discovered her, killed the lurking monster and set her free.
The figure of Andromeda chained to the rock was a frequent subject of late Renaissance and Baroque artists, and the French painters Paul Gustave Doré and Gustave Moreau painted versions of this scene in the late 1860s. Rodin, however, did not have these precedents in mind, or even set out to depict this fabled subject, when in 1885 he modeled a female figure bent in half, emphasizing her back. Instead, the late Albert E. Elsen has suggested, "Rodin derived his subject from a tired model who had slumped on to a piece of studio furniture to rest. Inspiration from such a sight, rather than asking the model to pose as Andromeda, would have been consistent with this sculptor's practice: he claimed he never deliberately posed his model, especially not with a literary dramatization in mind" (in Rodin's Art, New York, 2003, p. 507).
Rodin first exhibited this figure at Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, in 1886, but he did not relate the figure to the Andromeda story until afterwards--it first appeared under the title Andromède in a show at Galerie Durand-Ruel in 1890. By this time the sculptor had begun the first of five versions of the subject in marble. Indeed, the subject especially comes to life in stone, and one may note in the Perseus legend that when the hero first gazed upon the shackled Andromeda, he was so awed by her beauty that he thought she must be a marble statue. The gently undulating curves of the figure in marble contrast with the rugged solidity of the base. She seems to emerge wearily and in a state of resignation from the unyielding, imprisoning stone. The result is sensual and seductive--the figure of Andromeda becomes the very metaphor for the all-consuming labor involved in stone-carving and the difficult transformation of raw matter into sublime form. Elsen has noted, "Seen from the sides, it is as if her right foot is submerged in water. There is intense bodily torsion in such a passive pose. The woman seems to rest her right cheek on the stone; her torso is twisted to the left. It is this movement that provides the big, graceful curve of the spine and the beautiful back of the sculptural subject. Andromède is a stunning example of how Rodin was able to seek and achieve a largeness of effect using the architecture of the body" (op. cit.).
Andromède is related to the sculpture La danaïde, which Rodin also executed in 1885. In both works, as Elsen has pointed out, "Rodin was claiming that he could make a woman's back as expressive as her face" (op. cit., p. 505). The critic Gustave Geoffroy, a perceptive writer on Rodin's work, noted that "le dos où se marquent les rébellions et les fatigues de la chair [the back is where one detects the rebellions and fatigues of the flesh]" (in "Auguste Rodin," Claude Monet--Auguste Rodin, exh. cat., Paris, 1889, p. 66).
Four other marble versions of Andromède are known. The first was made in 1886 for Roger Marx and is today in the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia; the second was carved in 1887 for Mme Morla Vicunà; the third was commissioned by Maurice Fenaille in 1889 and is in the Musée Rodin in Paris today; the fourth was executed around 1890 for Jacques Zoubaloff and is today in the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires.
Another view of the present lot. BARCODE 24944656
In Greek legend, Andromeda was the daughter of the Ethiopian king Cepheus and his queen Cassiopeia, who declared that the girl's beauty surpassed even that of the Nereids, the nymphs of the sea-god Poseidon. The Nereids complained to their master, who sent a flood and a sea monster to ravage Cepheus's kingdom, located in present-day Gaza. Cepheus learned from an oracle that to appease Poseidon he must sacrifice Andromeda to the monster, so he chained his daughter to a rock by the sea. There she languished until the hero Perseus discovered her, killed the lurking monster and set her free.
The figure of Andromeda chained to the rock was a frequent subject of late Renaissance and Baroque artists, and the French painters Paul Gustave Doré and Gustave Moreau painted versions of this scene in the late 1860s. Rodin, however, did not have these precedents in mind, or even set out to depict this fabled subject, when in 1885 he modeled a female figure bent in half, emphasizing her back. Instead, the late Albert E. Elsen has suggested, "Rodin derived his subject from a tired model who had slumped on to a piece of studio furniture to rest. Inspiration from such a sight, rather than asking the model to pose as Andromeda, would have been consistent with this sculptor's practice: he claimed he never deliberately posed his model, especially not with a literary dramatization in mind" (in Rodin's Art, New York, 2003, p. 507).
Rodin first exhibited this figure at Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, in 1886, but he did not relate the figure to the Andromeda story until afterwards--it first appeared under the title Andromède in a show at Galerie Durand-Ruel in 1890. By this time the sculptor had begun the first of five versions of the subject in marble. Indeed, the subject especially comes to life in stone, and one may note in the Perseus legend that when the hero first gazed upon the shackled Andromeda, he was so awed by her beauty that he thought she must be a marble statue. The gently undulating curves of the figure in marble contrast with the rugged solidity of the base. She seems to emerge wearily and in a state of resignation from the unyielding, imprisoning stone. The result is sensual and seductive--the figure of Andromeda becomes the very metaphor for the all-consuming labor involved in stone-carving and the difficult transformation of raw matter into sublime form. Elsen has noted, "Seen from the sides, it is as if her right foot is submerged in water. There is intense bodily torsion in such a passive pose. The woman seems to rest her right cheek on the stone; her torso is twisted to the left. It is this movement that provides the big, graceful curve of the spine and the beautiful back of the sculptural subject. Andromède is a stunning example of how Rodin was able to seek and achieve a largeness of effect using the architecture of the body" (op. cit.).
Andromède is related to the sculpture La danaïde, which Rodin also executed in 1885. In both works, as Elsen has pointed out, "Rodin was claiming that he could make a woman's back as expressive as her face" (op. cit., p. 505). The critic Gustave Geoffroy, a perceptive writer on Rodin's work, noted that "le dos où se marquent les rébellions et les fatigues de la chair [the back is where one detects the rebellions and fatigues of the flesh]" (in "Auguste Rodin," Claude Monet--Auguste Rodin, exh. cat., Paris, 1889, p. 66).
Four other marble versions of Andromède are known. The first was made in 1886 for Roger Marx and is today in the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia; the second was carved in 1887 for Mme Morla Vicunà; the third was commissioned by Maurice Fenaille in 1889 and is in the Musée Rodin in Paris today; the fourth was executed around 1890 for Jacques Zoubaloff and is today in the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires.
Another view of the present lot. BARCODE 24944656