Eternal Idol | Harvard Art Museums

Gallery Text

Rodin modeled more than two hundred figures inspired by Dante’s Inferno for his massive sculptural project that came to be known as the Gates of Hell (1880–c. 1890). This celebrated figural group, derived from that work, was carved for the painter Eugène Carrière, who reluctantly lent it to the watershed 1900 Rodin retrospective exhibition. There it was so enthusiastically received that Rodin produced a second marble of the figures. The title is puzzling. Women were often described as “idols” in nineteenth-century poetry; the woman here may be only an ideal, in spite of her cool, fleshly presence. The poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote: “a mysterious greatness emanates from this group. . . . One doesn’t dare assign a meaning to it. . . . A heaven is near, but is not yet attained; a hell is near, and not yet forgotten.”

Identification and Creation

Object Number: 1943.1034
People: Auguste Rodin, French (Paris, France 1840 - 1917 Meudon, France)
Carved by Jean Escoula, French
Title: Eternal Idol
Classification: Sculpture
Work Type: sculpture
Date: 1893
Culture: French
Persistent Link: https://hvrd.art/o/230060

Location

Location: Level 2, Room 2120, European and American Art, 17th–19th century, The Lure of the East

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Physical Descriptions

Medium: Marble
Dimensions: 72.4 x 63.5 x 40 cm (28 1/2 x 25 x 15 3/4 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History: Commissioned from the artist by Eugène Carrière, 1900 [through Leopold Blondin], by descent; to Carrière family, sold; to Sir Edmund Davis, 1907 [via Jean Delvolvé, Carrière's son-in-law], sold; to Grenville L. Winthrop, New York, NY, 1939 [via Martin Birnbaum], bequest; to Fogg Art Museum, 1943.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop

Accession Year

1943

Object Number

1943.1034

Division

European and American Art

Contact

am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu

Permissions

THIS WORK MAY NOT BE LENT BY THE TERMS OF ITS ACQUISITION TO THE HARVARD ART MUSEUMS.

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Publication History

Vidor Frisch and Joseph T. Shipley, Auguste Rodin: A Biography, Frederick A. Stokes Company (New York, NY, 1939), p. 298
Georges Grappe, Rodin, Oxford University Press (NY) and Oxford University Press (UK) (New York, NY, 1939), p. 25
John L. Tancock, The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin, David R. Godine and Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia, PA, 1976), mentioned in introduction, p. 30; no. 22, p. 210; repr. p. 47, pl. 9
Jacques de Caso and Patricia B. Sanders, Rodin's Sculpture: A Critical Study of the Spreckels Collection, Charles E. Tuttle Co. (Rutland, VT and Tokyo, Japan, 1977), p. 65, repr. in b/w
Alain Beausire, Quand Rodin Exposait, Editions du Musée Rodin (Paris, France, 1988), p. 189
Daniel Rosenfeld, "Auguste Rodin's Carved Sculpture (Volumes I-III)" (1993), p. 479-483, cat. no. 55a
Olivier Meslay, "Invitation à la Visit: la Collection de Sir Edmund Davis", La Revue du Musée d'Orsay (Spring 1999), no. 8, p. 48
Anna Tahinci, "Camille Claudel: From self-image to self-destruct", Sculpture Review (Fall 2000), vol. 49, no. 3, pp. 8-13, 31, repr. p. 13
Stephan Wolohojian, ed., A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press (U.S.) (New York, 2003), no. 119, pp. 291-293, repr. in color
Stephan Wolohojian, Ingres, Burne-Jones, Whistler, Renoir... La Collection Grenville L. Winthrop, exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and Réunion des Musées Nationaux (Paris, France, 2003), no. 119, pp. 299-301, repr. in color
Anna Tahinci, "Private Patronage: Rodin and his Early British Collectors", Rodin, the Zola of Sculpture, ed. Claudine Mitchell, Ashgate Publishing (Burlington, VT, 2004), pp. 95-117, p. 110, repr. as fig. 5.2
Rodin: La chair, le marbre, exh. cat., Musée Rodin (Paris, 2012), p. 17, repr. p. 17, fig. 4
Antoinette Le Normand-Romain, ed., Rodin in the United States: Confronting the Modern, exh. cat., Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute/Yale University Press (Williamstown, Massachusetts, 2022), pp. 21-23, repr. as fig. 1.6 on p. 23
Laure de Margerie, French Sculpture: An American Passion, Snoeck and Institut National d'Historie de l'arte (Ghent, 2023), pp. 429. 432, repr. p. 429 as fig. 29

Exhibition History

Exposition Rodin, Pavilion Rodin, Paris, 06/01/1900 - 11/30/1900
Sublimations: Art and Sensuality in the 19th Century, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 07/13/1996 - 07/21/2002
A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 10/23/2003 - 01/25/2004
For Students of Art and Lovers of Beauty: Highlights from the Collection of Grenville L. Winthrop, Harvard University Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/16/2004
Ancient to Modern, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 01/31/2012 - 06/01/2013
32Q: 2120 19th Century, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050

Subjects and Contexts

Google Art Project

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu

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1943.1034: Eternal Idol