A small marble sculpture thought to be a copy of Auguste Rodin, then verified as an “extremely rare” and authentic piece, recently sold for €860,000 ($1 million) at auction.
The 11-inch figure of a sitting woman, Despair (Le Désespoir) (1892), had gone missing after being sold at auction in 1906. After the current owners contacted auctioneers Aymeric and Philippe Rouillac about another matter, a months-long investigation into the sculpture’s origins resulted in confirmation of its authenticity by Comite Rodin, the leading authority on the artist.
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“So we have rediscovered it,” Aymeric Rouillac told AFP.
On June 8, Rouillac opened bidding for Lot 76 at €500,000, before it sold for €860,000 as part of the 37th Garden Party Auction at the grand country house Château de Villandry in west central France.
According to the Musée Rodin, the artist modeled Le Désespoir as “part of his vast repertory of figures for The Gates of Hell“, and positive critical reception to the sculpture encouraged Rodin to work on other versions. A small marble one is on display at the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia, while a 37-inch-tall limestone version is also on display at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University.
“Although most depictions of sorrow featured a figure hiding its face in its hands or lying prostrate, Rodin’s sculpture represents a woman seated on a rock with one knee bent as she strains to stretch the other leg, her hands clasped around her foot,” the Musée Rodin said on its description of Le Désespoir.
In 2015, Sotheby’s sold a 13-inch bronze and marble version of the sculpture for £785,000, on a high estimate of £600,000.