Auguste RODIN (1840.1917)

Signed original photograph.

Exceptional vintage photographic print featuring one of the most famous works of the sculptor, made at the dawn of his career: The Bronze Age.

Enriched in the left margin of a dedication of Rodin in black ink:

"Tribute to Mademoiselle Verdun. Aug. Rodin »

Format: 22 x 28 cm.

Modern brown wooden frame, size 42 x 50 cm

Slight defect in lower left corner.

Rodin's first major work, made in Brussels in 1877, this figure already shows the mastery of the sculptor, his attention to living nature in attitude and modeling. A young Belgian soldier, Auguste Neyt, posed for this work stripped of any attribute to identify the subject. She was exhibited at the Artistic Circle of Brussels in 1877, untitled, and then at the Salon, in Paris, under the name of L'Age d'Airain, where she caused scandal.

Accused, at this Parisian exhibition, of having molded directly on the model, Rodin had to prove that the quality of the modeling of his sculpture came from a thorough study of profiles and not from a molding on nature. His detractors finally acknowledged the good faith of the sculptor. This resounding scandal, however, drew attention to Rodin and earned him the command of The Door of Hell in 1880

The statue, also called The waking man or the vanquished, evokes the man of the first ages. It originally held a spear in the left hand, as shown by a photograph of Gaudenzio Marconi, but Rodin chooses to remove it to free the arm of any attribute and give the gesture a new scale.