Lot n° 70
Estimation :
35000 - 45000
EUR
Result without fees
Result
: 92 000EUR
Auguste RODIN (1840-1917) - Lot 70
Auguste RODIN (1840-1917)
Saint John the Baptist, after the plaster statue seen in profile, circa 1880-1881.
Pen and wash in brown and black inks, gouache highlights on fine paper.
Inserted in Léon Maillard's Auguste Rodin statuaire, Paris, H. Floury, 1899, one of the copies printed on Japon paper, dedicated by Rodin: "Affectueusement au fin/Connaisseur d'art Madame/la comtesse de Basily Callimaki/Aug. Rodin".
26 x 18, 5 cm.
Signed in pen and brown ink in the middle, between the legs "Rodin".
Signed and dedicated in pen and brown ink lower right: "a madame de Basily / Callimaki affectueusement / A. Rodin".
Provenance:
Given by Rodin to Eva de Basily-Callimaki (1855-1913) in January 1899.
Former Maurice Fenaille collection ? Private collection, France.
Bibliography:
Catalog illustré du Salon, 2nd edition, 1881, p. 538, repr.
Camille Mauclair, L'Art de M. Auguste Rodin, La Revue des Revues, June 15, 1898, p. 603, repr. CR no. 240202.
Countess Callimaki's Saint John the Baptist.
In the late 1870s, with his first successes at the Salon, Rodin developed the habit of drawing his exhibited sculptures, often in response to commissions for publications in art magazines. Saint Jean-Baptiste is the second work he drew, after L'Age d'Airain. These fine pen and ink drawings, with their tight cross-hatching, are probably based on photographs that Rodin had taken by professional photographers at a very early stage.
This is the only drawing Rodin made of his statue of Saint John the Baptist, seen in profile. I quote this drawing in my article "Du vrai et du faux. Les dessins de Rodin du fonds du musée d'Orsay", Revue du Louvre et des musées de France, 2014-1, p. 79 (PJ).
Two versions of the sculpture seen from the front are known: that of the Fogg in the USA (Saint Jean-Baptiste, avec phylactère, 1880, Collection baron Joseph Vitta; Acquired by Grenville L. Winthrop; bequeathed by him to the Fogg Art Museum, 1943. Bibl. Revue de l'Art, 1880) and that of the Musée d'Orsay (Saint Jean-Baptiste, 1886 ?, Dedicated to Étienne Arago, Paris. Musée d'Orsay. Inv. RF 16079).
In this respect, the drawing of Saint Jean-Baptiste in profile is an exceptional find, all the more so as it is also the only version entirely reworked in ink wash and gouache.
No wonder Rodin dedicated his biography of Maillard to Eva de Basily-Callimaki (1855-1913), specifying that she was a "fine connoisseur of art". The Countess, a Romanian aristocrat married to a Russian prince, whom the artist probably met before 1898, was a painter herself and a pupil of Henri Fantin-Latour. Soon after their meeting, Rodin entrusted her with numerous missions abroad, mainly in Austria and Germany, to organize exhibitions of his work. She built up a large and varied collection of drawings and several sculptures by the artist (Bellone, Frère et Soeur, etc.). We know from her abundant correspondence with the master that she had a taste for rare works. Rodin gave her, for example, two ceramic plates he had made while working at the Manufacture de Sèvres and an astonishing drawing of a putti on a globe (now at Stanford University). (This sheet is an excerpt from Christina Buley-Uribe's notice of inclusion, for which we are very grateful).
A notice of inclusion of this work in the Catalogue raisonné des dessins d'Auguste Rodin, drawn up by Mme Christina BULEY-URIBE, will be given and invoiced 1200 to the purchaser, in addition to the purchase slip.
My orders
Sale information
Sales conditions
Return to catalogue