Auguste Rodin

Musée Rodin, Paris
Acquired from the above by the present owners in 1975

Georges Grappe, Catalogue du Musée Rodin, Paris, 1927, no. 189, illustration of the cast in the Musée Rodin
Albert E. Elsen, Rodin, New York, 1963,  illustration of another cast p. 95
Robert Descharnes and Jean-François Chabrun, Auguste Rodin, New York, 1967, illustration of the smaller version p. 169
Ionel Jianou and Cécile Goldscheider, Rodin, Paris, 1967, catalogued p. 105
Athena Tacha Spear, Rodin Sculpture in the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, 1967, illustration of another cast pl. 34
Albert E. Elsen, Rodin's Naked Balzac, The Burlington Magazine, London, November 1967, pp. 606-616, illustration of another cast pl. 6
John L. Tancock, The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin, Philadelphia, 1976, catalogued p. 458
Catherine Lampert, Rodin Sculptures and Drawings, London, 1986, no. 211, illustration of another cast
Rodin in His Time: the Cantor Gifts to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (exhibition catalogue), Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1994, no. 33, illustration of another cast p. 110
1898: le Balzac de Rodin (exhibition catalogue), Musée Paris, Rodin, 1998, no. 38, illustration of another cast pp. 288-289
Antoinette le Normand-Romain, The Bronzes of Rodin, Catalogue of Works in the Musée Rodin, vol. I, Paris, 2007, illustrations of other casts pp. 166-67 

Dark brown patina. Casting line is visible on the upper torso and the legs. Minor surface dirt. Some plaster residue in deeper recesses and in the figure's hair. Some patina rubbing to his right forearm. Work is in very good condition.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

When Rodin received the commission from the Société des Gens de Lettres in 1891 to execute a monument to Balzac, he offered to complete a bronze figure three meters in height within a period of eighteen months. What followed was a seven-year period of intensive contemplation of the life of this prolific writer, and one of the most memorable testaments to creative genius. Rodin's depiction of Balzac signified a departure from the allegorical sculpture of the nineteenth century and marked a culmination of his long involvement with monumental public sculpture. According to Albert Elsen, "The artist himself regarded this as his most important and daring work, 'the sum of my whole life, result of a whole lifetime of effort, the mainspring of my esthetic theory. From the day of its conception, I was a changed man'" (quoted in Albert E. Elsen, Rodin, New York, 1963, p. 89).

Although Rodin never personally met Honoré de Balzac, and was only a child at the time of the great writer's death, he had considered the project for the monument for many years. Once officially assigned the task, the artist embarked on an extensive campaign of research, consulting texts by and about the author, as well as earlier portraits by other artists. As Athena Tacha Spear has written, "He read all of Balzac's novels and biographies; he looked at many of the portraits made during the writer's lifetime; he traveled often around Tours, Balzac's homeland, to study the physiognomy of the people and the nature of that region; he even obtained the proportions of Balzac's body from his tailor and thus was able to employ for the studies of the figure the appropriate models" (Athena Tacha Spear, Rodin Sculpture, Cleveland, Ohio, 1967, pp. 9-10). 

The present sculpture is one of the preliminary studies for the final monumental composition of Balzac. In all of them, Rodin's concept was naturalistic in inspiration. In one version the figure is dressed in contemporary costume and leans against a pile of books. Rodin soon realized, however, that these attempts to recreate the outward appearance of the writer would never succeed in conveying his intensity and the magnitude of his literary contributions. The celebrated study of Balzac in the nude, probably executed in 1892, represented a shift in Rodin's concept as he moved away from the relatively conventional early studies in the direction of a much more dynamic expression.