Rodin_2011

5. Bust of the Age of Bronze (Buste de l’age d’Airain, moyen modèle)

Conceived 1875 – 7 6; reduced version realized in 1903 – 04 , this cast c. 1917 Patinated terracotta

Height 8 ½ inches ( 21 . 2 cm) Signed on back of the neck

Accompanied by original correspondence between Rodin, Auguste Neyt, and Leonce Bénédite

provenance Promised gift of Auguste Rodin to Auguste Neyt, 1908 ; Given by Léonce Bénédite, as executor of Rodin’s estate, to M. and Mme Neyt, Ghent, December 1924 ; thence by descent; Private Collection. literature Truman H. Bartlett, “August Rodin, Sculptor,” in American Architect and Building News , New York, 1889 , reprinted in Albert Elsen, ed. Auguste Rodin: Readings on His Life and Work , Englewood Cliffs, N.J, 19 6 5 pp. 31 – 33 , 39 – 43 ; Judith Cladel, Rodin, sa vie glorieuse, sa vie inconnue , Paris, 193 6, pp. 114 – 21 ; Georges Grappe, Catalogue du Musée Rodin, Hôtel Biron, Paris, 1944 , pp. 15 – 1 6; Robert Decharnes and Jean-François Chaburn, Auguste Rodin , New York, 19 6 7 ; Leo Steinberg, “Rodin,” in Other Criteria: Confrontations with Twentieth-Century Art , New York, 1972 , pp. 349 , 358 , 3 6 1 , 379 , 385 ; John Tancock, The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin: The Collection of the Rodin Museum, Philadelphia , Philadelphia, 197 6, pp. 342 – 5 6; Jacques de Caso and Patricia B. Sanders, Rodin’s Sculpture: A Critical Study of the Spreckels Collection, California Palace of the Legion of Honor , San Francisco, 1977 , pp. 38 – 47 ; Lynne Ambrosini and Michelle Facos, Rodin: The Cantor Gift to the Brooklyn Museum , Brooklyn, 1987 , pp. 57 – 58 ; Cécile Goldscheider, Rodin, vie et oeuvre, catalogue raisonné de l’oeuvre sculpté , vol. I, 1840 – 8 6, Lausanne-Paris, 1989 , pp. 114 – 1 6; Ruth Butler, Rodin: The Shape of Genius , New Haven, 1993 , pp. 99 – 112 ; Antoinette Le Normand-Romain, ed., Vers L’age d’airain: Rodin en Belgique , excat, Musée Rodin, Paris, 1997 , pp. 24 6– 319 ; Albert Elsen, Rodin’s Art: The Rodin Collection, Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University , New York, 2003 , pp. 37 – 48 ; Antoinette Le Normand-Romain, ed., Rodin et le Bronze , Paris, 1997 , pp. 124 – 129 ; (this work) Jérôme Le Blay, Catalogue critique de l’oeuvre sculpté d’Auguste Rodin (in preparation), Paris, no. 200 6- 904 B. The present work was a gift from Rodin to Auguste Neyt, the model who posed for the original life size version in 1875 – 7 6. Two reductions of The Age of Bronze were realized by Rodin in 1903 – 04 . The larger of the two reductions measures approximately 39 inches ( 99 . 5 cm), and is the basis of the present work. The smaller reduction stands at around 25 ½ inches (6 5 cm). In 1908 , Rodin presented Neyt with a bronze cast of the smaller version, while promising a forthcoming bust that would be derived from the larger one. In fulfilling the terms of Rodin’s testament, Léonce Bénédite, curator of the Musée Luxembourg and the