Auguste Rodin (French, 1840-1917) Cambodian Dancer

Description:

Auguste Rodin (French, 1840-1917)

Cambodian Dancer
Signed "A Rodin" l.r., inscribed "Bought from P.B.H. collection...reproduced in
Camera Work..." on the backing.
Watercolor with gouache and graphite on paper, sight size 12 x 8 3/4 in. (30.4 x 22.1 cm),framed.
Condition: Losses to some areas of gouache, not examined out of frame.

Provenance: Descended within the family of the present owner.

Literature: Illustrated as plate III in Camera Work, number 31, July 1910.

Exhibitions: Exhibition of Drawings by Auguste Rodin, The Photo-Secession Gallery, March 31-April 16, 1910, number 35.

N.B.Rodin was born in Paris in 1840 and began his career making decorative carvings for a living. It was his travels in Italy in the 1870s, and the figures of Michelangelo in particular that influenced him to shift his focus to sculpture. Rodin's work focused primarily on the human form. Although Rodin is most well known for his sculpture, he produced numerous drawings and watercolors throughout his career, and many of these depicted dancers. He encountered the Cambodian dancers at a show in Paris, and later wrote about the profound effect they had on him.
"The delightful Cambodian princesses have reawakened my old impressions and increased them a hundred times. They have brought antiquity to life again for me. They have shown me, in reality, the beautiful gestures, the beautiful movements of the human body, which the ancients knew how to capture in art. They suddenly immersed me in nature, revealed a completely new aspect and taught me that artists here below have no other task than to observe nature and find sustenance at its source. I am a man who had devoted his entire life to the study of nature and who infinitely admires the works of antiquity; so you can imagine how such a superb spectacle must have affected me, a spectacle that opened my eyes to antiquity again."1

The initials "P.B.H." on the backing of the work presented here, probably refer to Paul B. Haviland, who supported the 291 Gallery and wrote for Camera Work, including the notes for the Rodin exhibition.1 Guse, Ernst-Gerhard. Auguste Rodin: Drawings and Watercolors. New York: Rizzoli, 1984.
Estimate $8,000-12,000

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