AUGUSTE RODIN | La Jeunesse triomphante dite aussi "Baiser de l'Aïeule"

Magasins Fumière, Paris
Achile Segard, Paris
Eugène Rudier, Le Vésinet
Raymond Subes, Paris (acquired before 1956)
Private Collection, Paris (by descent from the above and sold: Drouot-Montaigne, Paris, May 24, 2002, lot 167)
Private Collection, Switzerland
Galerie Fabien Boulakia, Paris
Acquired from the above on May 26, 2009

Léon Maillard & August Rodin, Statuaire: Études sur quelques artistes originaux, Paris, 1899, illustration of the plaster p. 141
Georges Grappe, Catalogue du Musée Rodin, Paris, 1927, no. 270, illustration of the plaster n.p.
John L. Tancock, The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin, Philadelphia, 1976, no. 26, illustration of another cast p. 227
Jacques de Caso & Patricia Sanders, Rodin's Sculpture: A Critical Study of the Spreckels Collection, San Francisco, 1977, no. 3, illustration of another cast p. 54
Albert E. Elsen, In Rodin's Studio, Oxford, 1980, no. 50, illustration of the plaster n.p.
Antoinette Le Normand-Romain, The Bronzes of Rodin, Catalogue of Works in the Musée Rodin, vol. II, Paris, 2007, no. S.2474, illustration of another cast p. 472

The work features a reddish brown Patina. There are some scattered surface scratches and some dirt in the deeper crevices. There is some evidence of very minor rubbing to the extreme edges of the bronze. There is some possible verdigris on the rock above the artist's inscription. 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.

The present pair of female nudes was initially titled Old Age and Adolescence, a time-worn theme across the arts, yet Rodin’s juxtaposition of the brittle and hunched form of the older woman with the supple, fleshy limbs of the younger carries a shock factor even today. On first glance the reclining figure appears to be the more vulnerable and passive of the two, but the retitling suggests something more aggressive on her part, “as though she were drawing life from the old woman's mouth in a kind of death-and-resurrection” (Parker Tyler, "Rodin and Freud: Masters of Ambivalence," in ARTNews, vol. LIV, no. 1, March 1955, p. 64).

The pair of scissors at the back of the base suggests that the older woman represents Atropos, the eldest of the three Fates, who determined the death of mortals by cutting their thread of life. Here, overcome by Youth, she has dropped her scissors. Her sister Clotho, who was charged with spinning the mortal thread, was the subject of an acclaimed plaster by Camille Claudel exhibited at the Salon of 1893 and the allusion may well be intentional since the tumultuous relationship between the two sculptors was still not entirely over at that point (see fig. 1).

La Jeunesse triomphante was the only work by Rodin to have been issued and distributed during his lifetime exclusively under contract with Thiébaut Frères and their successors, Fumière & Gavignot. 

This work will be included in the forthcoming Catalogue Critique de l'oeuvre sculpté d'Auguste Rodin currently being prepared by the Comité Rodin in collaboration with Galerie Brame & Lorenceau under the direction of Jérôme Le Blay under the archive number 2002-76B.