Rodin_2011

25. Drawings inspired by The Tombs of the Medicis by Michelangelo in Florence Verso: Drawings inspired by the Descent from the Cross by Michelangelo ( Croquis d’après les tombeaux des Médicis par Michel-Ange à Florence ) (Verso: Croquis d’après la Descente de Croix de Michel-Ange )

1902 Pen and brown ink on wove paper; Verso: pencil on paper 14 ¾ x 9 5 ⁄ 8 inches ( 37 . 3 x 24 . 4 cm)

provenance Collection Hélène de Nostitz; thence by descent; sale, Christie’s Paris, May 2 6, 2004 .

literature Ernst-Gerhard Guse, ed, Auguste Rodin: Zeichnungen und Aquarelle, Stuttgart: Verlag Gerd Hatje, c. 1984 , figs. 5 , 6, 7 , pp. 332 – 333 , illus; A. Le Normand-Romain, “Rodin and Michelangelo: The Fragmentary, the Hybrid and the Incomplete,” in excat, dir. A. Le Normand-Romain, Rodin and Italy , French Academy in Rome, 2001 , p. 40 , illus. This sheet, which was possibly drawn from memory, was part of an ensemble of works given by Rodin to a German aristocrat, Hélène de Nostitz, of whom he also sculpted a bust. Rodin had a real affection for both Hélène, and her mother, Sonia Von Hindenburg, to whom he was also close. Rodin had frequently stayed in their residence in Ardenza, near Livourne, in Italy, where he had made intimate drawings of Hélène at her piano (she was a great musician). In these moving portraits done in pen and ink, we see the freedom of drawing reminiscent of Rodin’s studies after Michelangelo. I will always remember him (Rodin) in Florence, at the end of the day we spent together, slowly disappearing in the shadow of the Pitti Palace to visit his big brother Michelangelo, at the Bargello and at the cathedral. One could feel the union between these 2 great artists whose hands were united through the centuries.” 1 This is not the first example of Rodin drawing from The Tombs of the Medicis in Florence. About 2 6 years earlier, in 187 6, during a first trip to Italy, Rodin studied the work of Michelangelo de vivo for the first time and brought back sketches that were unconstrained (see cat. no. 4 ). By 1902 , it was no longer a student’s admiration of a master’s drawings that motivated Rodin, but rather a brotherly exchange, as Hélène de Nostitz noticed; it is no longer the fascination of an artist still imbued with the spirit of antique art but the testimony of an accomplished artist, confident in his creation, who interacts with a work of art well known to him.