Rodin_2011

16. Polyphemus (Polyphème)

Conceived 1888 , this cast between 1900 and 1910 Plaster with brown varnish Height 10 inches ( 25 . 4 cm) Inscribed on the underside: Rodin à mon cher ami Lefèvre

provenance Given by Rodin to Camille Lefèvre, Paris; given by Lefèvre to Mary Howt, Paris; given by Howt to M.Guy Mytych, Liège, her nephew; Private Collection, Belgium, acquired in 1998 ; sale, Christies New York, May 10 , 2001 (lot 304 ); Private Collection. literature Georges Grappe, Catalogue du Musée Rodin , Paris, 1927 , p. 54 ; Ionel Jianou and Cécile Goldscheider, Rodin , Paris, 19 6 7 , p. 92 ; John L. Tancock, The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin at the Philadelphia Museum of Art , Philadelphia, 197 6, p. 213 ; Albert E. Elsen, Rodin’s Art: The Rodin Collection at the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University , Stanford, 2003 , p. 275 ; Antoinette Le Normand-Romain, Rodin et le Bronze, Paris, 2007 , p. 599 (this plaster mentioned under ‘bronzes’); Jérôme Le Blay, Catalogue critique de l’oeuvre scultpé d’Auguste Rodin (in preparation), Paris, no. 2001 - 15 6B. Polyphemus the one-eyed giant or Cyclops, is mentioned in Homer, Theocritus, and Ovid. Book 13 of the latter’s Metamorphoses tells of Polyphemus’s unrequited love for the nymph Galatea, whom he tried to court with song from a rocky promontory above the sea. Polyphemus became enraged when he saw Galatea with her lover, Acis. He pushed a boulder down the cliff, destroying the pair. This work was first exhibited in bronze, in 1888 , as Small Shade Gazing into the Abyss . A similar title, Small Shade Gazing into the Pit identified a plaster example that was exhibited in Brussels in 1889 and in Paris in 1900 . As indicated by the term ‘shade’, Rodin created the figure for The Gates of Hell, where it appears about midway up the right door. The sculpture was first exhibited as Polyphemus in Prague in 1902 (no. 7 6/ 9 , bronze). Shortly before, Rodin had the idea of creating a composition by adding two small, crouching figures to the Small Shade and placing them under the rock (the added figures were slightly modified from the Eternal Spring ). From this date, the single figure version was titled Polyphemus and the three-figured version Polyphemus, Acis, and Galatea . This finely detailed plaster was made at Rodin’s request between 1900 and 1910 as a gift to the sculptor Camille Lefèvre ( 1853 – 1933 ). Along with Rodin and Puvis de Chavannes, Lefèvre was a founding member of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1890 . Lèfevre donated a large part of his art collection to the Musée des Beaux Arts, Belfort, in 1932 , at which time he had a unique bronze cast from this plaster. He gave the bronze to the museum.

Four other plasters are known to exist. These are housed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art; Maryhill Museum, Goldendale, Washington; Saarland Museum, Saarbrucken, and the Musée Rodin, Paris.