Auguste Rodin

Musée Rodin, Paris

Herman d'Oelsnitz (Galerie Nichifutsu Geijijutsu-sha), Tokyo (acquired from the above by 1925)

(possibly) The Prince Takamatsu, Japan (brother of Emperor Shōwa)

Private Collection, Japan (a gift from the above after 1945; thence by descent)

Galerie Tamenaga, Tokyo (acquired from the above in 2003)

Private Collection, Japan (acquired from the above in January 2005)

Acquired from the above by the present owner

Tokyo, Nishiyama Museum, 2005-2014 (on loan)

Georges Grappe, Catalogue du Musée Rodin, Paris, 1929, nos. 167-69, another cast illustrated pp. 73-74

Henri Martinie, Auguste Rodin, Paris, 1949, no. 19, another cast illustrated

Albert E. Elsen, Rodin, New York, 1963, another cast illustrated pp. 25, 52 & 53

Ionel Jianou & Cécile Goldscheider, Rodin, Paris, 1967, another cast illustrated pl. 11

John L. Tancock, The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin, Philadelphia, 1976, another cast illustrated pp. 111-20

Albert E. Elsen, (ed.), Rodin Rediscovered, Washington, D. C., 1981, the plaster model illustrated p. 67

Albert E. Elsen, The Gates of Hell by Auguste Rodin, Stanford, 1985, figs. 50 & 60, illustrations of the clay model pp. 56 & 71

Antoinette le Normand-Romain (ed.), The Bronzes of Rodin, Catalogue of works in the Musée Rodin, Paris, 2007, vol. II, another cast illustrated pp. 584-85

Rich dark brown patina, which is well-preserved and consistent with age and handling. This work is in excellent condition.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Rodin’s Le Penseur has become one of the most recognisable sculptures in the history of art. The work’s pertinence to Rodin's contemporaries was immediate and its continued relevance in today's visual culture has solidified the sculpture's legacy. Though he firmly grounded Le Penseur in intellectual history, Rodin transcended preceding imagery to create a true masterpiece that continues to transfix contemporary society. The Alexis Rudier foundry, known for having created some of the most desirable casts of Rodin's oeuvre, executed approximately 30 casts of Le Penseur in this scale beginning in 1902. Other casts from this edition hold positions in prominent museums including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washintgon, D.C.; The Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University; the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia; The Montreal Museum of Art and the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo.

Rodin first conceived of this image to crown the tympanum of his monumental Gates of Hell (fig. 3). The figure was intended to represent Dante, surrounded by the characters of his Divine Comedy, but soon took on an independent life. ‘Thin and ascetic in his straight gown,’ Rodin wrote later, ‘my Dante would have been meaningless once divorced from the overall work. Guided by my initial inspiration, I conceived another "thinker", a nude, crouching on a rock, his feet tense. Fists tucked under his chin, he muses. Fertile thoughts grow slowly in his mind. He is no longer a dreamer. He is a creator’ (quoted in R. Masson & V. Mattiussi, Rodin, Paris, 2004, p. 38). Transcending Dante's narrative, Le Penseur became a universal symbol of reflection and creative genius, captivating other artists and critics alike (fig. 1).

Rodin envisaged Le Penseur to be the apex, both structurally and philosophically, of his Gates of Hell. As Camille Mauclair noted in 1898, ‘All the sculptural radiance ends in this ideal centre. This prophetic statue can carry in itself the attributes of the author of the Divine Comedy, but it is still more completely the representation of Penseur. Freed of clothing that would have made it a slave to a fixed time, it is nothing more than the image of the reflection of man on things human. It is the perpetual dreamer who perceives the future in the facts of the past, without abstracting himself from the noisy life around him and in which he participates’ (C. Mauclair, ‘L'Art de M. Rodin’, in La Revue des Revues, 18th June 1898).

From at least 1888, when the larger version of the sculpture was first exhibited in Copenhagen, Rodin considered Le Penseur to be an autonomous composition. The following year it was shown in Paris, with the original title Dante revised to read Le penseur: le poète. The work's effect on viewers and critics was immediate and potent, allowing it to transcend the larger scheme of La porte de l'enfer. Artists such as Edward Steichen and Edvard Munch worked through a hypnotic attachment to the model. Writer and critic Gabriel Mourey wrote of the work in 1906: ‘he is no longer the poet suspended over the pit of sin and expiation; he is our brother in suffering, curiosity, contemplation, joy, the bitter joy of searching and knowing. He is no longer a superhuman, a predestined human being; he is simply a man for all ages, for all latitudes’ (G. Mourey, ‘Le Penseur de Rodin offert par souscription publique au peuple de Paris’, in Les Arts de la vie, vol. 1, no. 5, May 1904, p. 268). 

The figure was discussed by the artist shortly before his death, when he described his desire to personify the act of thinking: ‘Nature gives me my model, life and thought; the nostrils breathe, the heart beats, the lungs inhale, the being thinks and feels, has pains and joys, ambitions, passions, emotions... What makes my Thinker think is that he thinks not only with his brain, with his knitted brow, his distended nostrils and compressed lips, but with every muscle of his arms, back and legs, with his clenched fist and gripping toes’ (Rodin, quoted in Saturday Night, Toronto, 1st December 1917). 

The form of Le Penseur relies upon a historical lineage traceable to Albrecht Dürer’s influential etching Melancolia (fig. 2). Contained within this figural gesture – tilted head resting upon raised hand – were implications of introspection, philosophical crisis and intellectual profundity. Michelangelo, whose art deeply affected Rodin when he first visited Italy in 1875, relied upon a similar form for his personification of Lorenzo de Medici (fig. 3). The allegorical force of this gesture was undeniable by the time Rodin conceived Le Penseur in 1880-81. He strips away the narrative and specificity that permeated these earlier examples, rendering his sculpture with a timeless humanist vision. 

In discussing the provenance of the present cast Jerôme Le Blay has suggested that the extraordinary appetite for Rodin’s work in Japan, especially amongst aristocratic collectors, helps to ascertain that the first owner of the present cast was likely to have been The Prince Takamatsu (Takamatsu-no-miya Nobuhito Shinnō), the younger brother of Emporer Shōwa - better known as Hirohito. The Prince Takamatsu was born into the Imperial Family in 1905 and attended the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy before embarking on a distinguished career in the Navy. After the Second World War he became best known as the head of many charitable and cultural foundations, which performed services in a variety of fields including: the Japanese Fine Art Society, the France-Japan Society and the Japanese Red Cross. According to the records of the Musée Rodin at least three cast of the Le Penseur were sold by the museum through its representatives Herman d’Oelsnitz, Odilon Roche and Jacques Danthon to Japanese collectors between 1919 and 1923.