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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 Rodin at Galerie Brame et Lorenceau under the direction of Jérôme Le Blay under the archive number 2005V585B.
One of Rodin's most daring works, Iris, messagère des Dieux evolved out of studies for the sculptor's second project for the Victor Hugo monument. Intended as a personification of Glory, the figure initially descended from above and hovered over Victor Hugo. The earliest and smallest study has a head which Rodin eliminated when the figure was enlarged by Lebossé and exhibited independently. J.M. Roos has written: "The winged Iris crowns the monument in a highly unconventional way... Iris grasps her right foot in her right hand and opens her thighs in a pose of candid, aggressive sexuality. The eroticism implicit in the earlier Muses explodes here in a blunt gesture that has little precedent in the history of Western art" (in op. cit., pp. 654-655).
Through his friendship with Isadora Duncan, Rodin had become preoccupied with movement; this is one of his many works from the early 1890s that suggests free-form and the abandoned gestures of modern dance. Although it is likely that a professional studio model posed for this sculpture, it has been rumored that a can-can dancer served as Rodin's model. During the 1890s Iris was among the most controversial sculptures that could be seen in Rodin's studio. Nevertheless, two decades later, it was sufficiently acceptable to public taste, that Rodin included a modified version of it in a large group of works that he donated in 1914 to the Victoria and Albert Museum.
One of Rodin's most daring works, Iris, messagère des Dieux evolved out of studies for the sculptor's second project for the Victor Hugo monument. Intended as a personification of Glory, the figure initially descended from above and hovered over Victor Hugo. The earliest and smallest study has a head which Rodin eliminated when the figure was enlarged by Lebossé and exhibited independently. J.M. Roos has written: "The winged Iris crowns the monument in a highly unconventional way... Iris grasps her right foot in her right hand and opens her thighs in a pose of candid, aggressive sexuality. The eroticism implicit in the earlier Muses explodes here in a blunt gesture that has little precedent in the history of Western art" (in op. cit., pp. 654-655).
Through his friendship with Isadora Duncan, Rodin had become preoccupied with movement; this is one of his many works from the early 1890s that suggests free-form and the abandoned gestures of modern dance. Although it is likely that a professional studio model posed for this sculpture, it has been rumored that a can-can dancer served as Rodin's model. During the 1890s Iris was among the most controversial sculptures that could be seen in Rodin's studio. Nevertheless, two decades later, it was sufficiently acceptable to public taste, that Rodin included a modified version of it in a large group of works that he donated in 1914 to the Victoria and Albert Museum.