AUGUSTE RODIN | Bacchantes enlacées, petit modèle

Gaston Stiegler, Paris (gift from the artist in 1894)
Edouard Peyrouzet, France
Thence by descent to the present owner

Antoinette Le Normand-Romain, Rodin et le bronze, Catalogue des œuvres conservées au Musée Rodin, Paris, 2007, vol. I, mentioned and bronze version illustrated p. 149 (under the title Bacchantes s'enlaçant and incorrectly dated before 1896)

Plaster. The work is sound. There are original casting lines throughout the sculpture. The right arm of the tallest bacchante was fitted independently during the casting process (as visible in the catalogue illustration). There are a few light stains on both bacchantes' faces and a few further tiny stains below one bacchante's knees on the rock. There are a few handling marks in places, some dirt ingrained and some dust in the crevices. This work is in overall very good condition and could benefit from a light clean.
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The group of Bacchantes enlacées is an example of an assemblage technique that was typical of Rodin’s creative process. This proof is one of the very first copies of this composition which Rodin initially made in plaster to give to close friends and his supporters from artistic, journalistic and political circles.
This proof is a moving testimony to the aesthetic struggles and scandals that surrounded Rodin at the time. Rodin dedicated this copy to the journalist Gaston Steigler, who in his article “Rodin et Balzac”, published in the newspaper L’Echo de Paris on 12 November 1894, defended the sculptor with regard to the famous controversy caused by his plan to create a Monument to Balzac for the French writers’ association La Société des Gens de Lettres.   
Underscoring the importance that Bacchantes enlacées held for the artist, Rodin went on to donate other plaster copies dedicated to close friends and influential figures such as Claude Monet (whose proof is now included in the Musée Marmottan collection, Paris), Paul César Helleu (whose proof is in the Musée Rodin collection, Paris), and Georges Clémenceau (whose proof is in the Musée Clémenceau, Paris).

This work will be included in the forthcoming Catalogue Critique de l'oeuvre sculpté d'Auguste Rodin being currently prepared by Galerie Brame & Lorenceau under the direction of Jérôme Le Blay under the archive number 2019-5967B.