The London dealer Daniel Katz is organising a rare exhibition of sculptures and drawings all created in Auguste Rodin’s lifetime. The part-selling show features nine works loaned by private collections as well as four objects from the gallery’s own holdings.
The latter works are for sale, including a gouache previously owned by Eugène Rehns, Lotus ou L’orage (around 1900), priced at £250,000, and a marble head of John the Baptist (1888-92), priced at £485,000.
Tom Davies, Katz’s gallery director, says it is likely there have been other exhibitions dedicated only to works made before Rodin died in 1917, “but we don’t specifically know of any others”. Rodin: From Private Collections opens on 16 June (until 2 July).
Among the objects loaned by private collections—and not for sale—is the marble group, Bacchantes Entwined (carved between 1900 and 1910), a unique work that was dedicated to Rodin’s friend and patron Paul Escudier. Last June, the gallery sold Rodin’s large-scale marble of Mary Magdalene supporting Christ (1908) to the J. Paul Getty Museum for an undisclosed sum.
Although works dated pre-1917 have a certain cachet, the London dealer Robert Bowman notes that the technical creation of a piece is just as important as the date of manufacture in Rodin’s work. “Many of the bronze casts authorised by the Rodin Museum and cast by Alexis Rudier in the 1920s and 1930s are superior to casts made while Rodin was still alive,” he says. “The clever collector is the one who buys on quality not date. This requires an educated eye, and Katz’s eye for quality is legendary.”
According to Davies, the gallery’s decision to focus exclusively on works made before 1917 “places the focus on the quality of the sculptures, rather than any discussion about posthumous or lifetime works”, which has in the past complicated Rodin’s market. “The emphasis of our exhibition is to promote the quality and range of Rodin's output and the availability of it through galleries like our own,” he says.