Lot 27: Eugène Druet (1868-1917) , Balzac's Rodin, 1898

Silver print, ascribed to Druet in the lower margin

measurements note 27.2 x 21.2 cm (10¾ x 8¼)

This image was at one time in the possession of Judith Cladel, Rodin's partner and biographer.

The original plaster version of Rodin's great Balzac here seen photographed during its first public showing, in the Salle des Machines of the Salon de la Societé Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris, in 1898. A version of this image was exhibited at the one-man show devoted to Rodin at the Exposition Universelle, also in Paris, in 1900. For full details, including an assessment of the importance of Druet as the exclusive photographer of Rodin's work at that date, see the exhibtion catalogue from the Musée du Luxembourg Rodin en 1900. L'exposition de l'Alma, published by the Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris, 2001.
Athena Tacha Spear (in Rodin Scuplture in the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, 1967) quotes Rodin as saying that his view of Balzac was itself most closely influenced by a photograph, the daguerreotype of the great writer by Louis-Auguste Bisson from 1842, later distributed by Nadar.