Beschreibung:

THE COLLECTION OF SIR WARWICK & LADY FAIRFAX AUGUSTE RODIN (1840-1917) L'un des Bourgeois de Calais: Étude de nu monumentale pour Pierre de Wissant signed 'A. Rodin' (on the base), inscribed and dated '© by musée Rodin 1972' (to the right of the base), inscribed with the foundry mark 'Georges Rudier Fondeur Paris' (to the verso) and stamped with the raised signature 'A. Rodin' (on the inside of the base) bronze with grey-black patina with green accents 196.5cm (77 3/8in). high Conceived in 1886, this bronze version cast in April 1972 by the Georges Rudier Foundry in an edition of 11. Fußnoten This work will be included in the forthcoming Auguste Rodin catalogue critique de l'oeuvre sculpté currently being prepared by the Comité Auguste Rodin at Galerie Brame & Lorenceau under the direction of Jérôme Le Blay. Provenance Musée Rodin, Paris. David Jones' Art Gallery, Sydney (acquired from the above in May - July 1974). Sir Warwick & Lady Fairfax Collection, Sydney (acquired from the above in July 1974). Thence by descent to the present owners. Exhibited Sydney, David Jones' Art Gallery, Auguste Rodin 1840 - 1917, The Burghers of Calais, 5 - 30 March 1974, no. 11. Literature B. Champigneulle, Rodin, London, 1967 (smaller version illustrated pl. 28). A. Bowness, Rodin: Sculpture and Drawings, exh. cat., London, 1970 (another cast illustrated p. 54). M. J. NcNamara & A. E. Elsen, Rodin's Burghers of Calais, Rodin's Sculptural Studies for the Monument to the Burghers of Calais from the Collection of the Cantor, Fitzgerald Group, 1977 (plaster version illustrated p. 37 and a detail of another cast illustrated p. 38). C. Judrin, M. Laurent & D. Viéville, Auguste Rodin Le monument des Bourgeois de Calais (1884 - 1895) dans les collections du musée Rodin et du musée des Beaux-Arts de Calais, exh. cat., Paris, 1977 (another cast illustrated p. 191 & clay version illustrated p. 249). A. E. Elsen, In Rodin's Studio, A Photographic Record of Sculpture in the Making, Oxford, 1980 (clay version illustrated pls. 55 - 56). G. Bresc-Bautier & A. Pingeot, Sculptures des jardins du Louvre, du Carrousel et des Tuileries (II), Paris, 1986 (another cast illustrated p. 397). L. Ambrosini & M. Facos, Rodin, The Cantor Gift to The Brooklyn Museum, New York, 1987 (another cast illustrated p. 113). I. Ross & A. Snow in association with the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Foundation, Rodin, A Magnificent Obsession, London & New York, 2001 (clay version illustrated p. 56). A. Le Normand-Romain, Rodin e l'Italia, exh. cat., Rome, 2001 (clay version illustrated p. 73). A. E. Elsen, Rodin's Art, The Rodin Collection of the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, New York, 2003 (clay version illustrated p. 75 and another cast illustrated p. 66). A. Le Normand-Romain, The Bronzes of Rodin, Catalogue of Works in the Musée Rodin, Vol. I, Paris, 2007, no. S. 626 (plaster version illustrated p. 50, clay version illustrated p. 210 & another cast illustrated p. 235). With nooses slung around their necks and draped in coarse sackcloth tunics, six men hesitantly step outside the city gates. The first man to step forward towards the enemy encampment is also the oldest, his doleful eyes and thick beard interrupted by jutting cheekbones which betray the eleven months of starvation endured by him and every other citizen of this besieged, desperate city. Just behind him, his face set with grim resolve, a second man embarks upon the agonising march. His trudge is laboured, slowed by privation and the enormous key of the castle and city gates which visibly strains his sinuous forearms. Two brothers follow in this man's wake, one physically recoiling from the enormity of the task – head turned from the direction of his fate, his hand shielding the anguished expression. He appears to be at the point of retreat. Immense sorrow and inner conflict contort his very being. The final figure to join this sombre grouping is a young man. At the point of departure,