1943.916: Study for "The Gates of Hell": Shades Speaking to Dante

Identification and Creation

Object Number

1943.916

People

Auguste Rodin, French (Paris, France 1840 - 1917 Meudon, France)

Title

Study for "The Gates of Hell": Shades Speaking to Dante

Other Titles

Original Language Title: La Porte de l'Enfer

Classification

Drawings

Work Type

drawing

Date

c. 1883

Culture

French

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/297720

Physical Descriptions

Medium

Black ink, gray wash, and white gouache over graphite on tan wove paper with ruled lines

Dimensions

irregular: 19.4 x 11.8 cm (7 5/8 x 4 5/8 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History

Scott and Fowles, New York; acquired by Grenville L. Winthrop, January 1926 ($450); his bequest to the Fogg Art Museum, 1943.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line

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

Accession Year

1943

Object Number

1943.916

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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Descriptions

Description

Drawing is irregularly shaped like an upside-down "L" and is laid down to tan paper, itself laid down to blue mount.

Publication History

• Octave Mirebeau, Les dessins d'Auguste Rodin: 129 planches comprenant 142 dessins reproduits en facsimile par la Maison Goupil (2 vols.), Maison Goupil, pl. 42 (as "Ombres parlant à Dante")
• G. Dargenty, "Le Salon national", L'Art (1883), repr. pg. 33
• Roger Marx, "Cartons d'artistes", L'image (September 1897), pp. 294-95
• Philip R. Adams, Auguste Rodin, Hyperion Press (New York, 1945), pl. 1
• Martin Birnbaum, Jacovleff and Other Artists, Paul A. Struck (New York, 1946), pl. 28
• Albert Edward Elsen, Rodin's Gates of Hell, University of Minnesota Press (Minneapolis, 1960), pg. 16, pl. 15
• Albert Edward Elsen and J. Kirk T. Varnedoe, The Drawings of Rodin, Praeger Publishers (New York, 1971), pp. 61-62, fig. 42
• Claudie Judrin, Inventaire des dessins, Editions du Musée Rodin (Paris, France, 1984 - 1992), p. 375
• Catherine Lampert, Rodin: Sculpture and Drawings, exh. cat., Arts Council of Great Britain/Yale University Press (London, England and New Haven, CT, 1986), under no. 52
• Ruth Butler, Rodin: The Shape of Genius, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT and London, England, 1993), fig. 61a
• Chikashi Kitazaki and Mina Oya, ed., Between Reality and Dreams: Nineteenth Century British and French Art from the Winthrop Collection of the Fogg Art Museum, exh. cat., National Museum of Western Art (Ueno, 2002), p. 59, fig. 14
• 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), cat. no. 115, repr. (color)
• Drawing on Fresh Interpretations, Index Magazine, Harvard Art Museums (March 17, 2017), [e-journal], http://magazine.harvardartmuseums.org/article/2017/03/17/drawing-fresh-interpretations, accessed 3/20/2017
• Ewa Lajer-Burcharth and Elizabeth M. Rudy, ed., Drawing: The Invention of a Modern Medium, exh. cat., Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, 2017), pp. 101, 282, repr. p. 101 as 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. 49-52, 54, repr. as fig. 3.6 on p. 50

Exhibition History

• 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
• Drawing: The Invention of a Modern Medium, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 01/21/2017 - 05/07/2017

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