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Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 8,000
AUGUSTE RODIN Petite tête de l'homme au nez cassé.
Bronze, before 1889 (cast later). 125 mm; 5 inches (height, excluding marble base). With the artist's signature on the neck, lower left. Cast by Alexis Rudier, Paris, stamped "A. Rudier / Paris" on the neck verso.
Provenance: Private collection, California.
Published: Tancock 79-4; Le Normand-Romain (2007) S. 4018 (variant), (another cast illustrated).
Two decades after creating the bronze L'Homme au nez cassé, Rodin (1840-1917) revisited the subject for placement in his celebrated Gates of Hell monumental bronze sculptural group (1880-1917). Modelled from clay, Rodin was able to capture the deeply rooted suffering of the distorted subject. The head was ultimately placed in the lintel above The Thinker and in the tympanum to the right. Several versions of Petite tête de l'homme au nez cassé exist, including 12 posthumous casts. Rodin collaborated almost exclusively with Alexis Rudier from 1902 until his death in 1917 (the foundry continued to use Rudier's mark until the 1950s). According to Le Normand-Romain, this variant, with the long neck and the Alexis Rudier mark, was cast likely after Rodin's death and before 1937.
