Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)

This sculpture will be included in the forthcoming Auguste Rodin catalogue critique de l'oeuvre sculpté currently being prepared by the Comité Rodin at Galerie Brame et Lorenceau under the direction of Jérôme Le Blay under the archive number 2008-2563B.

The sitter for the present lot, Eugène Guillaume, was a prominent 19th century academic sculptor, who for most of Rodin's career was one of his most severe critics. It was not until shortly before Guillaume's death in 1905, during a time when the two artists had adjacent studios at the Dépot des Marbres, that they became friends and Guillaume radically changed his opinion of the younger Rodin. The friendship and admiration shared by the two sculptors culminated in the Buste d'Eugène Guillaume, which by 1917 would become one of Rodin's most frequently exhibited works, presented on twenty-two occasions. Only nine bronze casts of this bust exist, five of which are in museum collections.