Beschreibung:

AUGUSTE RODIN (1840-1917) Faunesse Zoubaloff inscribed 'Rodin' (on the base) bronze 6 3/4 in (17.1 cm) (height) Conceived in 1885 and cast before 1914 Fußnoten This work will be included in the forthcoming Catalogue Critique de l'Oeuvre Sculpté d'Auguste Rodin currently being prepared by Galerie Brame & Lorenceau under the direction of Jérôme Le Blay under the archive number 2008-1975B. Provenance Antoni Roux, Marseille. Private collection, France (acquired as a gift from the above in 1914). Samuel Joséfowitz, Lausanne (acquired circa 1965, and sold: Christie's, New York, September 10, 2008, lot 145). Univers du Bronze, Paris (acquired at the above sale). Robert Bowman Gallery, London (acquired from the above). Private collection, Pennsylvania (acquired from the above in 2013). Literature J.L. Tancock, The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin Philadelphia, 1976, no. 34 (illustration of another cast p. 251). A. Le Normand-Romain, The Bronzes of Rodin, Catalogue of Works in the Musée Rodin, vol. I, Paris, 2007, no. S.3333 (illustration of another cast p. 157). Rodin's Faunesse Zoubaloff is one of the most intriguing figures in Rodin's mythical oeuvre. Rocking back on her haunches as she chews her hair, the figure crosses her human arms and her hooved lower limbs. This figure of a half female human, half female faun traces back to ancient Greece, where faunnesses were known for their love of music and wine, as well as a lustful nature. The veiled eroticism of this female bathing figure would not have been lost on Rodin's contemporary audience. As Antoinette le Normand-Romain notes, "this joyous, sensual, small figure can be related to one specific aspect of Rodin's work, inspired by his love of the eighteenth century. In order for this interest to be well-represented at the exhibition of 1900, Rodin asked such collectors as Antoni Roux and Maurice Fenaille to lend works in which the reference to the eighteenth century was obvious," (A. le Normand-Romain, The Bronzes of Rodin, Catalogue of Works in the Musée Rodin, vol. I, Paris, 2007, p. 156). Her furred legs and hooves make this figure more animalistic than Rodin's other faunnesses, including Standing Faunesse and Kneeling Faunesse. This faunesse is further distinguished among the others in Rodin's oeuvre with the descriptor Faunesse Zoubaloff. Jacques Zoubaloff, famed industrialist and important patron of the Musée de Louvre, purchased the original plaster and the bronze of the sculpture at Galerie Georges Petit's sale of Antony Roux's collection in 1914. Theophile Amédée Antonin Roux, known as Antony Roux, was a collector and patron of the arts and was one of Rodin's first loyal collectors. Rodin had gifted many plasters to Roux in 1888 with the authorization to have them cast. The plaster was then acquired in 1927 by the Musée Rodin at the Galerie Georges Petit's sale of Zoubaloff's collection, after which they made casts between 1928 and 1944. The present work is a lifetime cast made prior to 1914. Other casts of the sculpture reside in major institutions, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt; and the Gezira Center for Modern Art, Cairo.