Éternelle Idole (Eternal Idol), Petit Modèle

Auguste Rodin

(French, 1840-1917)

Signed A. Rodin and with repeat interior raised signature A. Rodin. Numbered 6/12
Inscribed Alexis Rudier Fondeur. Paris
Bronze with a rich brown patination
Height: 6 7/8" (17.4 cm)

Conceived in 1889. The Comité Rodin states that at least two bronzes cast during Rodin's lifetime. This cast is part one of less than 15 bronzes produced between 1927 and 1944. This specific bronze was cast in 1944.

Conceived in 1889, this example cast in 1944. The Comité Rodin states that two casts of the model in this size were produced during Rodin’s lifetime. At least thirteen casts were produced by the Alexis Rudier foundry between 1927 and 1945 – the present model is the earliest of these casts. One more cast was produced by Georges Rudier in 1958.

This is the original size of this model, conceived by Rodin in 1889. The first cast was delivered to the collector Antoni Roux in 1891.

Rodin originally conceived the sculpture whilst working on The Gates of Hell, incorporating both of the figures independently onto the right-hand doorway. Sometime before 1890 the figures were combined into the group we now know. Rodin made a small 17cm high bronze (the only lifetime cast of this model), which was delivered to the collector Antoni Roux in 1891. Roux later encouraged Rodin to produce a larger version of the model, which was carved in marble by Jean Escoula.

Eternal Idol is one of Rodin’s most powerful groups and its emotive force elicits a range of symbolic interpretations. The work is often seen as a depiction of tender adoration, the man’s hands clasped behind his back in a symbol of respectful abstinence. Conversely, others have suggested the man’s hands are not clasped in a respectful manner, but rather show that he is enslaved by the woman, unable to escape her power as she looks down pitifully upon him.

It is also impossible to ignore the similarities to Camille Claudel’s L’Abandon, which was conceived in 1888, one year before the present work. Claudel’s masterpiece uses a similar composition, but the two figures are shown in a loving embrace, rather than separated by the apparent gulf of emotional space in Eternal Idol. Perhaps the work echoed Rodin’s own feelings towards his long-term lover and mistress who he was soon to reject forever.

Jules Desbois, one of Rodin’s many assistants offers the following account of the works inception. ‘One day, from up on the scaffold where I was working on the Burghers of Calais, I noticed Rodin, who between some screens, was doing a nude sculpture, for which the model was a young woman, stretched out on a table. As the session was drawing to a close he bent over toward the woman and kissed her tenderly on the belly - a gesture of adoration of nature, which gave him much joy.’

Perhaps, like a number of Rodin’s greatest masterpieces, the true power of the model lies in its ambiguity. The novelist and poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who wrote a monograph on Rodin in 1903, argued that ‘a grandeur steeped in mystery emanates from this group. One dare not attribute a meaning to it. It has thousands… There is something like the atmosphere of Purgatory in this work. Heaven is near, but has not yet been reached; Hell is near, but has not yet been forgotten.’