Rodin_2011

9. Study of Seven Figures for La Ronde (Etude de sept figures pour “La Ronde”) c. 1880 – 83 Pencil with touches of brown wash on buff paper; Touches of pen and brown ink on one figure 3 x 3 ½ inches ( 7 .6 x 8 . 9 cm)

provenance Estate of Jane Wade and Lee Lombard; sale, Christie’s New York, February 27 , 2003 ; New York Art Market; Private Collection. exhibitions Kansas City, Nelson Atkins Museum, The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Rosenberg, 1957 ; New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Rodin , May–September 19 6 3 , no. 6 3450 literature A. Elsen , Rodin , New York, 19 6 2 , p. 157 , illus; A.Elsen, Rodin’s La Ronde , Burlington Magazine, CVII, June 19 6 5 , p. 295 , illus. This drawing is a preparatory study for the dry-point of 1883 – 4 . Other preparatory studies published by Albert Elsen are known, although the number of principal figures varies. For example, d427 only consists of three figures; d5 6 21 three as well, but accompanied by a violinist; in d1944 , there are only four; in d1937 five; in d1951 there are six. In our drawing , there are seven figures, as in a drawing in the collection of Roger Marx, which is the closest to the final print. We can conjecture that Rodin has added figures progressively in his successive studies for La Ronde . We know that the dry-point dates from 1883 (according to Roger-Marx and Delteil) or from 1884 (in a note from Rodin to Bourcard). 1 However, Rodin’s typical method of drawing includes reworking and reimagining of the subject and it is difficult to establish an exact order of execution. These drawings illustrate a passage of Canto XVI of Dante’s Inferno, where in the Seventh Circle, the “ violents contre nature ” are condemned to walk endlessly on the sand under a rain of fire. The circle is formed by Florentine athletes and leaders in battle, who are advancing in one line while turning their head in another in order to be able to address Dante. Matisse undoubtedly knew the drypoint La Ronde and used it in his own research on the subject of the dance , which culminated in the famous monumental paintings now in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York (Danse I , 1909 ) and at the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg ( Danse 1910 ). Several years beforehand, in his painting La joie de vivre ( 1905 –6, Collection Barnes Foundation) Matisse clearly cites La Ronde , as well as numerous other works by Rodin.

1 . Letter from Bourcard to Rodin, March 25 , 1903 , Archives Staatliche Museum of Berlin. See J. Vilain, “ Rodin graveur à la pointe séche, ” La sculpture au XIXe siecle, mélange pour Anne Pingeot, Paris, Nicolas Chaudun, 2008