Auguste Rodin

Private Collection, Switzerland (acquired circa 1970)
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Ionel Jianou & Cécile Goldscheider, Rodin, Paris, 1967, illustration of another cast pl. 56-57
John L. Tancock, The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin, Philadelphia, 1976, no. 32b, illustration of another cast p. 243
Antoinette Le Normand-Romain, The Bronzes of Rodin, Catalogue of Works in the Musée Rodin, Paris, 2007, illustration of another cast p. 334

Attractive dark brown patina. There is some patina rubbing to the inside of the man's left knee and some minor nicks and scratches, mainly to the figures. This work is in very good condition.
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L'Eternel Printemps is a wonderful celebration of Love and Spring and exudes flamboyant lyricism and sensuality. Conceived in 1884, the present work was most probably inspired by Rodin's growing passion for Camille Claudel at the time. From its first exhibition at the 1898 Salon, L'Eternel Printemps met with great success as attested by the several bronze editions as well as six known marble examples of the same subject.

It is widely believed that in constructing the figures for his work Rodin modelled them upon the myth of Cupid and Psyche, and it was under this title that the work was originally exhibited at the Salon of 1898. The artist then changed the title to L'Éternel Printemps in order to promote his characters as a universal symbol for the ardour and passion which permeates first love. The figure of the woman likewise was taken from the highly sensual Torse d'Adèle from 1882, which was named after the model who posed for the sculptor. The figure of this woman was actually first used on the left of the tympanum of The Gates of Hell but enjoyed its greatest success when united with the youthful male of the present work.

Ginger Danto explains how Rodin masteries the theme of Eros 'For Rodin, the issue of sexuality was simple in art, even if in his life it was manifested throughout in endless complex and inconclusive liaisons. He understood sexuality and its more spiritual expression, eroticism, in the broader sense: that is, life and that which life springs from, a kind of motor for the perennial cycles of desire that spin across, and therefore propagate, the natural universe' (Rainer Crone and Siegfried Salzmann, Rodin: Eros and Creativity, Munich, 1992, p. 198).