‘Main No.39’, bronze with dark brown patina, Study for Left Hand, inscribed "A. Rodin No. 11 E. GODARD FOND. ©BY MUSÉE RODIN 1977". With label from Dominion Gallery, Montreal, Canada. Size: 5 ⅛” high, 7 ½” including base.
G21226
August Rodin is widely considered to be one of the greatest and most prolific sculptors of the 19th and 20th centuries - the last great classical sculptor and the founder of modern sculpture. Rodin turned away from the Neo-Classicism favoured by his contemporaries and instead emphasized fragmentation, rejected idealism, and chose to reflect his subjects as they truly appeared. He was inspired by Michelangelo who used the body to convey emotion as in his intentionally unfinished sculpture series Slaves, as well as ancient Greek and Roman sculptures. Rodin meticulously modeled hands and other elements of the body such as heads, limbs, hands, torsos and feet, using them to convey an infinite variety of emotions including fury, anguish and fatigue. He amassed hundreds of these studies in the 1880’s and 1890’s, which he would later reassemble and enlarge to create works such as The Burghers of Calais and The Gates of Hell. It was this use of assemblage, using small studies that he could alter or adapt, that allowed him to experiment with his compositions. Originally created and cast in plaster, terracotta and wax, these details were rarely cast in bronze during the artist’s lifetime. It was in 1926 that the chairman of the museum’s board of directors, Baron Chassériau, suggested that the museum make editions of the hands. The Musée Rodin began to cast a series of hands beginning after 1945 until 1977. The bronzes were each cast in small editions under the supervision of the Musée Rodin.
This rare example, MAIN NO. 39, Study for Left Hand, was conceived circa 1885-1889 and cast between 1974 and 1977 by the Émile Godard Foundry, Paris in a numbered edition of 12. Finished in dark brown patina and numbered 11 from the edition of 12, this bronze was purchased directly from the well-known Dominion Gallery in Montreal and comes complete with an inscribed revolving black base.
Provenance:
Musée Rodin, with Certificate D'Origine September 26, 1979
Dominion Gallery, with invoice August 29, 1980
Private Collection, Vancouver, purchased from Dominion Gallery
Literature
Exposition Rodin au Japon, Seibu Museum of Art, (exhibition catalogue),Tokyo, 1976-77, no. 86, illustration of another cast in the catalogue n.p.
Rodin, Les Mains, les chirurgiens (exhibition catalogue), Paris, 1983, no. 7, illustration of another cast p. 33
Antoinette Le Normand-Romain, The Bronzes of Rodin, Catalogue of Works in the Musée Rodin, Paris, 2007, vol. II, no. S.500, illustrations of another cast p. 498