Rodin_2011

working in sections, prompted Rodin to devise a highly experimental practice for conceiving both individual figures and figural groups that would continue to impact his approach to the figure for the rest of his career. As he completed each group, he would cut it off and cast it in plaster. Thus Rodin was able to constantly create new compositions, or alter the expressive and formal content and meaning of an existing composition, by juxtaposing existing figures in different ways, by making slight variations in existing figures and groupings, or both. “An experimental or chance juxtaposition with another group, the exchange of elements from one group to another, a different orientation, were just some of the ways in which Rodin attempted to realize the diverse possibilities embodied in his sculptures. 2 Rodin placed this small, yet powerfully Michelangelesque figure in the upper left section of The Gates of Hell . At least 23 examples of the Small Shade are known to exist. The present work is one of thirteen examples that were made during Rodin’s lifetime at the Alexis Rudier foundry between 190 6 and 1911 . Between 1931 and 1949 , the Musée Rodin supervised an edition of three examples at the Alexis Rudier foundry and, between 1958 and 19 66, examples at the Georges Rudier foundry. A terracotta example is at the Musée Rodin. Other bronzes are housed in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge University, and the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon.

This example was previously owned by Georges Renand, a businessman who assembled an outstanding collection of modern paintings and sculpture between the first two world wars.

1. John Tancock , The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin: The Collection of the Rodin Museum , Philadelphia , 197 6, p. 92 2. Tancock, op.cit., p. 94