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1840-1917
FAUNESSE À GENOUX

measurements
height: 58.8cm.

alternate measurements
23 1/8 in.

Carved between September 1905 and June 1906.

inscribed A. Rodin

marble

To be included in the forthcoming Catalogue critique de l'~uvre sculpté d'Auguste Rodin being prepared by the Comité Rodin under archive number 2005V781B.

PROVENANCE

Henry S. Howe, Boston (commissioned from the artist in September 1905)
Estate of Parkman Dexter Howe (sale: Sotheby's, New York, 22nd October 1980, lot 43)
Purchased at the above sale by the previous owner

LITERATURE

John L. Tancock, The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin, Philadelphia, 1976, no. 11, illustrations of other versions pp. 169-70

NOTE

Faunesse à genoux is a magnificent example of Rodin's mastery in marble carving, reflecting his fascination with the human body. The first owner of this work, the Boston based collector Henry S. Howe, visited Rodin's studio during his stay in Paris in September 1905. Fascinated by another example of Faunesse à genoux that he saw there, he commissioned from Rodin this marble version. Rodin worked on it with his regular studio assistant Victor Peter (1840-1918), and the work was delivered to Howe's home in Boston in June 1906.

Like many of Rodin's sculptures of individual figures, this image was designed as part of his The Gates of Hell, the monumental architectural commission that dominated the artist's thoughts throughout the 1880s. Originally conceived for the tympanum of The Gates of Hell, in this marble Rodin detached the Faunesse from her architectural setting, transforming her into an autonomous three-dimensional figure. Infused with a sense of life, the kneeling body rises elegantly from the stone, in an image of a sensual, dream-like abandon. The arresting appeal of Faunesse à genoux lies in the contrast between the smooth rendering of the slender, gentle curves of her body and the rough treatment of her long hair and the stone on which she is kneeling.

Discussing the use of marble in Rodin's ~uvre, Daniel Rosenfeld observed that it was 'a substance well-suited to his original artistic concerns. The bright crystalline quality of marble, its translucence, its softness to the touch and to the eye, its ability to carry transitions between tones in soft gradations without harsh shadows suited perfectly Rodin's concern with the vital simulation of human flesh. Furthermore, as an artist who was intensely sensitive to his place in the history of sculpture, and who envisioned himself, in opposition to the Ecole, as the true link with sculpture's past, Rodin found in marble a material that placed him squarely within the tradition of the Greeks and Michelangelo' (D. Rosenfeld, 'Rodin's Carved Sculpture', in Rodin Rediscovered (exhibition catalogue), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1981-82, p. 84).