AUGUSTE RODIN

(1840-1917)

Frère et soeur

Footnotes

This work will be included in the forthcoming Auguste Rodin catalogue critique de l'oeuvre sculpté currently being prepared by the Comité Auguste Rodin at Galerie Brame & Lorenceau under the direction of Monsieur Jérôme Le Blay.

Provenance
Musée Rodin, Paris.
Eugène Rudier Collection, le Vésinet (acquired from the above in June 1943).
Private collection, France.
Harry Krampf Collection (Galerie Artina), Paris.
Private collection, London (acquired from the above).
Private collection, London (a gift from the above circa 1997 - 1998).

Literature
L. Maillard, Études sur Quelques Artistes originaux, Auguste Rodin, statuaire, Paris, 1899 (another cast illustrated p. 46).
R. M. Rilke, Auguste Rodin, Leipzig, 1922 (another version illustrated no. 35).
L. Bénédite, Rodin, London, 1926 (another version illustrated pl. 28).
G. Grappe, Le Musée Rodin, Paris, 1944 (another cast illustrated p. 97).
M. Aubert, Rodin Sculptures, Paris, 1952 (another cast illustrated p. 49).
B. Champigneulle, Rodin, London, 1967 (another cast illustrated p. 214).
J. L. Tancock, The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin, The Collection of the Rodin Museum Philadelphia, Philadelphia, 1976 (another version & another cast illustrated p. 223).
J. de Caso & P. B. Sanders, Rodin's Sculpture, A Critical Study of the Spreckels Collection, Calfornia Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 1977 (plaster version illustrated p. 102).
C. Vincent, 'Rodin at The Metropolitan Museum of Art', in The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, Vol. 38, no. 4, New York, Spring 1981 (another cast illustrated p. 28).
W. Seipel (ed.), Auguste Rodin, Eros und Leidenschaft, exh. cat., Vienna & Milan, 1996 (another cast illustrated p. 151).
J. L. Tancock, Rodin en México, Colección de escultura europea de los siglos XIX y XX, exh. cat., Mexico City, 1997 (another cast illustrated p. 44).
C. Judrin & H. Pinet, Rodin en 1900, L'exposition de l'Alma, exh. cat., Paris, 2001 (another cast illustrated p. 97).
A. Le Normand-Romain, The Bronzes of Rodin, Catalogue of Works in the Musée Rodin, Vol. I, Paris, 2007, no. S.975 (another cast illustrated pp. 376-377).

Conceived circa 1890 - 1891, Frère et soeur shows a combination of a seated female figure and a small child. The former is a clear re-articulation of Camille Claudel's Jeune fille à la gerbe, whereas the boy can be related to numerous figures of children modelled by Rodin in the 1870s and 1880s. Interestingly, this is the only known sculpture in Rodin's oeuvre inspired by the work of the two lovers, middle-aged Rodin and youthful Claudel. The girl's angular forms are characteristic of adolescence, breaking the tradition of the mother and child, whilst the child seems to be wriggling away from her excessive tenderness. Rodin was extremely close to his own sister, who died in 1862. Her physical decline coincided with her broken engagement to a friend of Rodin's. Rodin introduced the two, although he proved to be an unfaithful and unworthy suitor. Frère et soeur was highly popular at the time for its charming and youthful qualities, and indeed works from this period reflect a side of Rodin's work that serve as an indispensable counterpoint to the tragic universe of La Porte de l'Enfer.