Auguste Rodin

Armand Boucher, Nantes (acquired circa 1930) 
Sale: Millon & Associés, Paris, September 26, 2008, lot 72
Private Collection (acquired at the above sale)
Private Collection, Connecticut (acquired from the above in 2010 and sold: Sotheby's, New York, November 7, 2013, lot 419)
Acquired at the above sale

Georges Grappe, Catalogue du Musée Rodin, Paris, 1926, no. 233, illustration of the marble p. 93
Rodin Sculpture and Drawings (exhibition catalogue), Hayward Gallery, London, 1970, no. 22, illustration of another cast p. 38
Albert E. Elsen, Rodin, London, 1974, illustration of another cast p. 61
John L. Tancock, The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin, Philadelphia, 1976, no. 20-24, illustration of another cast p. 203
Jacques de Caso & Patricia B. Sanders, Rodin's Sculpture, A Critical Study of the Spreckles Collection, San Francisco, 1977, no. 25, illustration of another cast p. 164
Albert E. Elsen, In Rodin's Studio, Paris, 1980, no. 33, illustration of the plaster n.p.
Albert E. Elsen, ed., Rodin Rediscovered (exhibition catalogue), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1981, no. 274, illustration of another cast p. 336
Rainer Crone & Seigfried Salzmann, ed., Rodin, Eros and Creativity, Munich, 1992, fig. 13, illustration of another cast p. 199
Rodin, The B. Gerald Cantor Collection (exhibition catalogue), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1986, no. 8, illustration of another cast p. 25
Rodin Sculpture and Drawings (exhibiton catalogue), Hayward Gallery, London, 1986, no. 128, illustration of another cast p. 72
Rodin en 1900, L'Exposition de l'Alma (exhibition catalogue), Musée du Luxembourg, Paris, 2001, no. 71, illustrations of the marble p. 197
Antoinette Le Normand-Romain, The Bronzes of Rodin, Catalogue of Works in the Musée Rodin, vol. I, Paris, 2007, no. S6734, illustration of another cast p. 379

Reddish-brown patina. Apart from a light build-up of studio dirt and dust in the deeper crevices, notably in the small markings on the figures' posteriors and some minor wear to the patina on the most protruding areas, this work is in very good 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.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Fugit amor, petit modèle was originally conceived for the Porte de l’Enfer, a portal commissioned by the Musée des arts décoratifs and based on a scene from “The Inferno,” the first section of Dante’s Divine Comedy. While the museum was never built and the project never fully realized, casts and studies for the monumental work have become an important part of Rodin’s oeuvre – The Thinker, for example, was originally meant to sit atop its doorway. For this work, Rodin also drew from Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs de mal and “responded to [his] evocation of sexual decadence and images of seduction, fatal women and rejected, remorseful men” (Joan Vita Miller & Gary Marotta, Rodin: The B. Gerald Cantor Collection, New York, 1986, pp. 11-12).

Here, two figures desperately strive but fail to embrace, embodying the eternal damnation of those characters Dante and Virgo encounter on their journey through the circles of hell. “Propelled by the presumably harsh winds of Hell’s second circles, these two figures, however much they strain toward one another, never connect, for they are not meant to…That they are eternally arrested in this extraordinary alignment makes their struggle all the more poignant and illustrative of the banal axiom that, the more one attempts to grasp something, the more it surreptitiously slips away” (Ginger Danto, Rainer Crone & Sigfried Salzmann, ed., Rodin: Eros and Creativity, Munich, 1992, pp. 198-99). Rodin’s style is uniquely poised to capture the helplessness of these figures, and Fugit amor, petit modèle is a poignant example of Rodin’s attention to human pain and suffering.