Auguste RODIN (1840-1917) - Lot 44

Auguste RODIN (1840-1917) Small Head of a Man with a Broken Nose Patinated bronze proof signed, Alexis Rudier fondeur, Paris. On a green marble base. (Small hole). Height without base: 12.5 cm This third version, conceived before 1889, was cast after the artist's death and before 1940. Provenance : - André Marie Dormeuil (1896-1940) - By descent to the present owners Bibliography: - Léonce Bénédite, Catalogue sommaire des œuvres d'Auguste Rodin et autres œuvres d'art de la donation Rodin : exposés à l'Hôtel Biron, 1919, Musée Rodin - 1919, the larger copy is described on page 24 under no. 84 - Georges Grappe, Catalogue du Musée Rodin, essai de classement chronologique des œuvres d'Auguste Rodin, Paris, 1927, the plaster cast is described and reproduced under no. 45. -Antoinette Le Normand-Romain, Rodin et le bronze, catalog des œuvres conservées au Musée Rodin, volume I, Éditions de la Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris, 2007, chapter devoted to L'Homme au nez cassé, pages 416 to 419, a similar example reproduced on page 416, fig. 1 The 1919 and 1927 catalogs mention the following about Man with a Broken Nose: It's the portrait of a poor devil nicknamed "Bibi", who did all kinds of jobs in the Saint-Marcel district, where Rodin lived at the time. The bust was executed in 1864. It is the master's third known work of sculpture. - In its reduced format, this figure is inserted at the top of the "Porte de l'Enfer", among the decorative rosary that lines up its beads below the "Trois Ombres". Slightly different in character from the final work, it has, in its brutality and sincerity, a realistic accent that is not to be forgotten, and it is safe to assume that this hunchbacked face is very close to that of the model used for Rodin's famous bust. Expert : Agnès SEVESTRE-BARBE