{"id":291093,"date":"2025-06-13T16:21:18","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T16:21:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/aerospace\/this-stunning-sculpture-was-sitting-on-a-familys-piano-it-turned-out-to-be-an-original-rodin\/"},"modified":"2025-06-13T16:21:18","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T16:21:18","slug":"this-stunning-sculpture-was-sitting-on-a-familys-piano-it-turned-out-to-be-an-original-rodin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=291093","title":{"rendered":"This Stunning Sculpture Was Sitting on a Family’s Piano. It Turned Out to Be an Original Rodin"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Titled \u201cThe Despair,\u201d the rare artwork just sold at auction for $1 million. For many years, its owners had assumed it was merely a copy<\/h2>\n
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Sonja Anderson<\/a><\/p>\n

– Daily Correspondent<\/span><\/p>\n

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Titled The\u00a0<\/em>Despair<\/em>, the sculpture depicts a woman holding her leg.
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For years, a French family kept a small marble sculpture among family photos on top of their piano. The one-foot-tall artwork depicted a seated woman holding her leg in the air, and its owners thought it was a copy of a sculpture by\u00a0Auguste Rodin<\/a>, the 19th-century French sculptor famous for works like\u00a0The Thinker<\/em><\/a> and\u00a0The Kiss<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, the sculpture wasn\u2019t a copy. It was an original. Earlier this month, it\u00a0sold<\/a> for about $1 million at auction.<\/p>\n

Titled The<\/em> Despair<\/em>, the sculpture is one of several versions of the same figure that Rodin sculpted for a larger work titled\u00a0The Gates of Hell<\/em><\/a>. The larger piece features three of these women, each with one knee bent and the other leg extended. Per the\u00a0Brooklyn Museum<\/a>, this figure\u2019s \u201cacrobatic pose reflects Rodin\u2019s interest in dance, as well as his desire to capture expressive postures not typically seen in academic sculpture.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The marble sculpture’s base is marked by Rodin’s signature.<\/p>\n

Rouillac<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Recently, the sculpture\u2019s owners showed it to Aymeric Rouillac of the French auction house\u00a0Rouillac<\/a>. \u201cThey said, \u2018It\u2019s a fake; it\u2019s a copy,\u2019\u201d Rouillac tells\u00a0CNN<\/a>\u2019s Jack Guy.<\/p>\n

However, Rouillac decided to investigate further. He showed the sculpture to experts at the\u00a0Comit\u00e9 Rodin<\/a>, which is known as the authority on the artist. \u201cI realized in a second that it was real,\u201d J\u00e9r\u00f4me Le Blay<\/a>, the committee\u2019s co-founder, explains to CNN. \u201cI had absolutely no doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n

The committee confirmed that the sculpture was an authentic Rodin that had been sold at auction in 1906. After that, it disappeared from public view, as Rouillac tells Agence France-Presse<\/a>. Nearly 120 years later, \u201cwe have rediscovered it,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

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A thinker\u00a0embedded in\u00a0The Gates of Hell<\/em><\/p>\n

Jean-Pierre Dalb\u00e9ra via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY 2.0<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rouillac estimated that the sculpture would fetch \u20ac500,000 to \u20ac700,000 (about $578,000 to $810,000), but it ended up selling for \u20ac860,000 (about $1 million). The buyer was a \u201cyoung banker from the U.S. West Coast,\u201d according to\u00a0Artnet<\/em><\/a>\u2019s Brian Boucher.<\/p>\n

Born in 1940, Rodin became famous for his delicate expressions of \u201cextreme physical states,\u201d per the\u00a0Mus\u00e9e Rodin<\/a>. \u201cHe sculpted a universe of great passion and tragedy, a world of imagination that exceeded the mundane reality of everyday existence.\u201d The bottom of The<\/em> Despair<\/em> is marked by his small signature, A. Rodin.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe back, the muscles, they are perfect,\u201d Rouillac says to CNN. \u201cYou can feel every vertebra in the spinal column.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rodin modeled The Despair<\/em> in 1890 and finished sculpting it from marble in 1893. The figure is one of nearly 200 figures and groups Rodin created for The Gates of Hell<\/em>, which \u201coccupied a unique place in Rodin\u2019s oeuvre,\u201d according to the\u00a0Mus\u00e9e Rodin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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A version of\u00a0The Gates of Hell\u00a0<\/em>at the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo<\/p>\n

Roman Suzuki via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY 3.0<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The sculptor worked on The Gates of Hell <\/em>on and off for years. Finally, in 1917, the first curator of the Mus\u00e9e Rodin received permission from the artist to reconstruct the masterwork and cast it in bronze. Rodin died that year, before seeing The Gates of Hell <\/em>in its final form.<\/p>\n

Many bronze sculptures made after Rodin\u2019s death based on his models have been\u00a0sold<\/a> in recent years. But the majority of marble Rodin pieces are permanent fixtures of prestigious museums.<\/p>\n

\u201cMarbles in private collections are rare,\u201d Le Blay says to CNN. As such, the newly discovered piece has a \u201ckind of magic.\u201d<\/p>\n

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