Auguste Rodin

Musée Rodin, Paris

Galerie Claude Bernard, Paris (acquired from the above in June 1964)

Feingarten Galleries, Los Angeles

Private Collection, United States (acquired from the above in the 1960s and sold: Sotheby’s, New York, November 5, 2003, lot 12)

Acquired at the above sale

Georges Grappe, Catalogue du Musée Rodin, Paris, 1927, no. 171, illustration of another cast p. 68

Albert Sigogneau, "Le tourment de Rodin," L'Amour de l'art, Paris, December 1935, illustration of another cast p. 379

Georges Grappe, Catalogue du Musée Rodin, Paris, 1944, no. 248, illustration of another cast p. 85

Marcel Aubert, Rodin Sculptures, Paris, 1952, illustration of another cast p. 50

Albert E. Elsen, Rodin, New York, 1963, illustration of another cast p. 185

Ionel Jianou and Cécile Goldscheider, Auguste Rodin, Paris, 1967, illustration of another cast pl. 77

Robert Descharnes and Jean-François Chabrun, Auguste Rodin, Paris, 1967, illustration of the terracotta p. 249

Homage to Rodin: Collection of B. Gerald Cantor (exhibition catalogue), Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1967, no. 38, illustration of another cast p. 66

Rodin (exhibition catalogue), The Hayward Gallery, London, 1970, no. 72, illustrations of another cast pp. 68 and 74

John L. Tancock, The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin, Philadelphia, 1976, illustrations of another cast pp. 290-92

Albert E. Elsen, In Rodin's Studio, A Photographic Record of Sculpture in the Making, Ithaca, 1980, illustration of the plaster pl. 95

Albert E. Elsen (ed.), Rodin Rediscovered, Washington, D.C., 1981, illustration of another cast p. 111

Albert E. Elsen, Auguste Rodin from the B.G. Cantor Sculpture Garden, New York, 1981, illustration of another cast p. 35

Hélène Pinet, Rodin Sculpteur et Les Photographes de son temps, Paris, 1985, no. 57, illustration of another cast p. 69

Catherine Lampert, Rodin Sculpture and Drawings, London, 1986, no. 141, illustration of the smaller version p. 221; no. 144, illustrations of another cast pls. 206-07

Jane Mayo Roos, "Rodin's Monument to Victor Hugo: Art and Politics in the Third Republic," in The Art Bulletin, New York, December 1986, fig. 24 illustration of another cast p. 655

Joan Vita Miller and Gary Marotta, Rodin, The B. Gerald Cantor Collection (exhibition catalogue), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1986, no. 60, illustrations of another cast pp. 132 and 138

Bernard Champigneulle, Rodin, Paris, 1989, illustration of another cast p. 105

Mary L. Levkoff, Rodin in His Time, Los Angeles and New York, 1994, no. 43, illustration of another cast p. 137

Ruth Butler, La solitude du génie, Paris, 1998, no. 138, illustration of another cast p. 187

Suspended in mid-air, Iris, messagère des dieux is one of Rodin’s most daring sculptures, both in its defiance of gravity and in the frankness of its sexuality. In Greek mythology, Iris is the messenger of the gods and the personification of the rainbow; she acted as a link between the gods and humankind. This female figure was originally conceived in connection with Rodin’s second project for the Victor Hugo Monument. The figure would have hovered above the seated figure of Hugo, suggesting that Glory crowned his great achievements as a poet. When enlarged and exhibited independently, the head and left arm were eliminated from the composition. Celebrated for its expressiveness, Iris prompted many admiring reviews, including that of the poet Arthur Symons: “All the force of the muscle palpitates in this strenuous flesh, the whole splendour of her sex, unveiled, palpitates in the air, the messenger of the gods, bringing some divine message, pauses in flight, an embodied inspiration” (A. Symons, quoted in Rodin (exhibition catalogue), Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2007, p. 257).

After a discussion of the associated figures from the monument to Victor Hugo, Méditation and La Muse tragique, Catherine Lampert explains: "The third muse, eventually not incorporated, is the work known independently and infamously as Iris, Messenger of the Gods (or the Eternal Tunnel). Conceived from a model who lay obligingly on her back, one leg caught by her hand and the other providing support, even horizontally she is pivoted by her sexual centre. Raised vertically, with the vagina rotated, the orgasmic metaphor becomes more obvious. It has been written that acrobats acted as models for this work and the other Iris figures. Certainly, their sinewy physiques and exhibitionist poses seem to have imaginatively permeated the forms. Rodin was at this time infatuated with the can-can dancers and saved an article in the September 1891 Gil Blas on the Chahut dancer Grille d'Egout. He was also fascinated by the 'apache' or hoodlum girls on the rue de Lappe" (Catherine Lampert, Rodin Sculpture and Drawings, London, 1986, pp. 121, 113).