Auguste Rodin, 'Saint John the Baptist'

Auguste Rodin, 'Saint John the Baptist', 1879-90. Museum no. 601-1902

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)
'Saint John the Baptist'
1879-80
Bronze
Height 200 cm
Inscribed 'Rodin' on the upper surface of base and 'Thiébaut Frères. Fondeurs/L.Gasne. Succr.' on the base
Museum no. 601-1902
Presented to the Victoria and Albert Museum by Committee of Subscribers, 1902

St John the Baptist was the first work by Rodin to enter an English public collection, and soon became the symbol of his dominant influence on sculpture at the beginning of the 20th century.

The second of Rodin's monumental bronze figures, it was deliberately made slightly over life-size to counter accusations that his first figure, The Age of Bronze, was a cast made directly from the model's body.

The form and modelling demonstrate Rodin's belief in the candid observation of uncontaminated natural man, a belief that derived from his study of the 18th-century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

The work was also inspired by the unexpected appearance in Rodin's studio of an Italian peasant called Cesar Pignatelli. Rodin was taken by Pignatelli's wild, uncouth appearance and physical force , saying, 'I thought immediately of a St John the Baptist, that is to say a man of nature, a visionary, a believer, a precursor come to announce one greater than himself.' In fact, he is describing an outsider, someone with whom he and other avant-garde artists had a strong affinity. He used Pignatelli's wild air and wiry physique to convey John the Baptist's urgent effort to communicate, a struggle that makes powerful demands on his entire body as he strides forward.

Rodin exhibited the head alone as a bronzed plaster in the Paris Salon of 1879; the whole figure in plaster and carrying a cross in the left hand at the Salon of 1880; and the whole figure in bronze without the cross at the Salon the following year. The cross was removed to take away any narrative context for the figure, in much the same way that he had removed the staff from The Age of Bronze. This also allowed the torso of the figure to be viewed without interruption.

Dinner at the Café Royal, held in honour of Auguste Rodin, 1902. © Reading Museums Service, Reading Borough Council. All rights reserved. (click image for larger version)

The V&A acquired the bronze in 1902, thanks partly to the efforts of the British sculptor John Tweed, who led a public subscription to raise the £260 for its purchase. When it was presented to the Museum, Rodin was officially honoured by a dinner at the Café Royal, London, presided over by George Wyndham. After the dinner he was unofficially honoured by students from the Slade and South Kensington Schools (now the Royal College of Art), who harnessed themselves to his carriage and pulled their hero through the London streets. Their cab driver was the American painter John Singer Sargeant.

This warm reception may have led Rodin to see the V&A as a suitable home for the work he later exhibited at the 1914 Grosvenor House exhibition.

 

Auguste Rodin, 'Vase Of The Titans'

Auguste Rodin, 'Vase Of The Titans', about 1875-80. Museum no. C.44-1970

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)
'Vase Of The Titans'
About 1875-80
Lead-glazed earthenware
France (Sèvres)
Museum no. C.44-1970

This group of figures is almost certainly an early work by Rodin, modelled during the period he worked for the sculptor Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, director of the Sèvres porcelain works. The masterly modelling shows the influence of Michelangelo, whose work Rodin had studied in the Louvre and also during a visit to Italy in 1875-6.

Auguste Rodin, 'Despair'

Auguste Rodin, 'Despair', about 1890. Museum no. A.24-1924

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)
'Despair'
About 1890
Plaster
Height 28 cm
Inscribed 'Amité et hommage à M. Phillips/A. Rodin' on the front of the base
Museum no. A.24-1924
Bequeathed by Sir Claude Phillips

About 1890 Rodin made four or five sculptures on the theme of despair in connection with The Gates of Hell, and this version appears on the right-hand door panel. It is possible that Despair and The Young Mother are direct casts from the original clay sketches. This would make them closer to Rodin's own hand than the majority of his works.

Rodin gave this plaster to Claude Phillips, the first curator of the Wallace Collection, in recognition of his support and friendship, and to acknowledge a common understanding of art and its purpose. In much the same way, he gave other sculptures to the writers Robert Louis Stevenson and Arthur Symons.

The background to this gift was that many of Rodin's investigations of highly charged emotional states encompassed the erotic, but this could not be widely written about in the prevailing moral climate. Phillips, however, defended artists' special right to engage with such matters. As well as an art critic, he was a trained lawyer and so well-placed to understand the legislation then being considered to protect public decency. In 1888 he wrote an important article for The Art Magazine in which he said artists should not be accused of 'want of decency' but defended on account of their seriousness and exceptional gifts.

Auguste Rodin, 'The Young Mother'

Auguste Rodin, 'The Young Mother', 1885. Museum no. A.25-1924

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)
'The Young Mother'
1885
Plaster
Height 36.5 cm
Inscribed 'À mon ami C. Phillips. A. Rodin' on the lower left front of the surround
Bequeathed by Sir Claude Phillips
Museum no. A.25-1924

Rodin drew and modelled clay studies of mother and child groups in the 1860s, some of which survive in the Musée Rodin. Many of them were based on Rose Beuret, his mistress, and their son Auguste, born on 23 January 1866. He then continued to explore the possibilities of these groups in his work for the Sèvres porcelain works and, in the 1880s, for The Gates of Hell. One version of this composition can be seen on the lower left corner of The Gates.

This plaster has also been known as The Young Mother at the Grotto, referring to the cave-like surround. Other versions, some without the grotto, are called Sister and Brother, or Mother and Daughter. These various titles are typical of Rodin and his associates' practice of renaming his work.

The composition was also the inspiration for a work by the British sculptor John Tweed, who was a great admirer and supporter of Rodin.

Auguste Rodin, 'Study Of A Clenched Hand'

Auguste Rodin, 'Study Of A Clenched Hand', about 1884-5. Museum no. A.22-1971

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)
'Study Of A Clenched Hand'
From a model of about 1884-5
Cast in bronze about 1952
Height 12.15 cm
Inscribed 'A. Rodin' on the wrist and near the base on the other side by the founder 'G. Rudier. Fondeur. Paris'
Museum no. A.22-1971
Given by Dr Neville Goodman CB

This may date from the time when Rodin was working on the monument to The Burghers of Calais, though it is not directly related to any hand in the group. It is very small and probably corresponds to Rodin's original study.

The cast was made by Georges Rudier, the nephew of the founder Alexis Rudier, who set up his own foundry in 1952 and cast posthumous versions of Rodin's models on the authority of the Musée Rodin. The editions were to be limited to twelve where no previous casts had been made in Rodin's lifetime. The V&A's cast, ordered by the Musée Rodin in 1952 or early 1953, is unnumbered as others were already in existence.

Auguste Rodin, 'The Metamorphosis of Ovid'

Auguste Rodin, 'The Metamorphosis of Ovid', about 1886. Museum no. A.117-1937

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)
'The Metamorphosis of Ovid'
About 1886
Plaster
Height 34 cm
Inscribed 'Au poète W. E. Henley/son vieil ami/A. Rodin' on the base
Museum no. A.117-1937
Bequeathed by Charles Hazlewood Shannon RA

The group is connected with The Gates of Hell, where it appears vertically at the top right corner. Although generally known by its present title, other versions have been known by a number of names.

Rather than illustrating a specific story, the two female embracing figures evoke the spirit of Ovid, who was a favourite author of Rodin. Art critics of the late 19th century had difficulty in writing about these overtly erotic groups. They often described them as 'fantasies', and in so doing, ascribed less importance to them than to other sculptures by Rodin. But this aspect of Rodin's work held great appeal for young sculptors and writers of the 1890s who wished to confront Victorian culture. The present cast was later owned by the artist Charles Hazlewood Shannon (1863-1937), who painted groups of female nudes and may have created similar poses by studying this group.

The inscription on the group refers to the poet William Ernest Henley (1851-1903), whom Rodin met in 1881 through the exiled French artist Alphonse Legros. Henley became a close friend and champion of Rodin's work in Britain, through his editorship of the Magazine of Art and by introducing him to wealthy collectors, such as Constantine Ionides, and prominent writers like Robert Louis Stevenson. In the early 1880s Rodin made a bust of Henley, which was installed in St Paul's cathedral in 1907 as a monument to the poet.