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A nude man kneeling before a nude woman in white marble

Rising from a roughly cut base of marble resembling a large rock, two nude figures are delicately carved and polished smooth. A young man on his knees holds his arms behind his back, leaning forward and tilting his head to his right to kiss the stomach of the young woman. She leans back, her shoulder length hair hanging loose, with one hand on the rock behind her. She looks down at him with a tender expression, caressing his elbow with her left hand.

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
View this object's location on our interactive map

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

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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