Lot n° 42
Estimation :
8000 - 12000
EUR
Result without fees
Result
: 25 000EUR
Auguste RODIN (1840-1917)
Pain of Psyche, circa 1900.
Nude woman seated on the ground, leaning forward, hair falling.
Graphite on cream wove paper pasted on cardboard. H. 19 x W. 30,5 cm.
Signed in graphite lower right: Aug. Rodin.
Various handwritten and stamped inscriptions in ink on the cardboard support, stamped in purple ink erased: Galerie
Bernheim Jeune & Cie, 15, rue Richepanse/1907.
(Small lack of paper).
Provenance :
Henri-Charles-Étienne Dujardin-Beaumetz (1852-1913). Then by descent, to the present owners.
Exhibitions :
- Galerie Bernheim Jeune 10-30 October 1907, [n°239 (out of catalog) ? according to the stamp on the back of the mounting card and the number inscribed].
- Kunstsalon Hugo Heller from January 4 to the end of January 1908, n°43, under the title "Douleur de Psyché".
- Kunstverein Leipzig, September-12 October 1908, no. 90 [from photographic archives, Paris, Musée Rodin].
A notice of inclusion of this work in the Catalogue raisonné of Auguste Rodin's drawings, established by Mrs. Christina BULEY-URIBE, will be given and charged to the buyer at 1,200 euros, in addition to the purchase slip.
Pain of Psyche is part of an important series of about fifty drawings on the theme of the "story of Psyche", inspired by the reading of Apuleius' Metamorphoses.
It is always Psyche's misfortune or melancholy that Rodin illustrates in these naked women, sometimes offered, and of which this Pain of
Psyche, with long hair is a powerful version.
The drawing can be dated to the early 1900s, like other drawings in the same vein in the museum
Rodin: D. 1669, 2550 and 2214.
Rodin presented Psyche's Sorrow at several exhibitions between 1907 and 1908: at the Bernheim Jeune gallery in Paris (1907), at the Kunsverein in Leipzig (1908), at the Hugo Heller gallery in Vienna (1908) and perhaps at the Devambez gallery in Paris (1908).
The provenance of Douleur de Psyché, which we know belonged to Étienne Dujardin-Beaumetz (1852-1913), author of Entretiens avec l'artiste, is not insignificant in the context of these exhibitions, which definitively established Rodin's reputation as a draftsman.
Under-Secretary of State for Fine Arts from January 1905 to January 1912, Dujardin-Beaumetz met with Rodin on numerous occasions during his career, in particular to negotiate the placement of his monuments (the Thinker at the Pantheon, the monument to
Victor Hugo in the gardens of the Palais-Royal, and The Walking Man at the Farnese Palace). It is known that in October 1907, he visited the exhibition of more than 300 drawings at the Bernheim Jeune gallery, where he could see this work among the other drawings of Psyche intermingled with the very recent watercolors of Cambodian dancers (1906). It was there that he discovered for the first time a side of his work and that the idea of entrusting Rodin with the decoration of the future Musée du Luxembourg with frescoes emerged.
This file is extracted from the notice of inclusion of Christina Buley-Uribe.
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