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Catalogue of sculptures
1963-1996
This catalogue contains all works of sculpture purchased for or loaned to the Van Gogh Museum in the years 1963 to 1996. Each work has an inventory number made up as follows: the first letter stands for the technique (v=sculpture); this is followed by a reference number and then by a capital letter (B=loan, M=Van Gogh Museum, MM=Museum Mesdag, N=State of the Netherlands, S=Van Gogh Museum [after 1 July 1994], SM=Van Gogh Museum [for the Museum Mesdag], V=Vincent van Gogh Foundation) and the year of acquisition or loan.
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Anonymous
William Shakespeare
Bronze, 35.5 × 14 × 12 cm
v 74 M/1992
This jaunty little figure of Shakespeare is a good example of a genre of sculpture that became extremely popular with the middle classes in the second half of the 19th century. These etagère statues of historical, oriental or mythological figures were cast in large unnumbered series, and are mostly French, Belgian or Italian in origin. One celebrated and productive sculptor of this Salon art was the Frenchman Jean Jules Salmson (1823-1902), who in addition to several monumental works in Paris made his name with small full-figure portraits of historical personages like Mary Stuart, Charles I, Shakespeare, Milton, Van Dyck, Rubens, Walter Scott, George Washington and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Salmson's well-known Shakespeare, casts of which still regularly turn up at auction, shows the famous playwright at a younger age than in this particular figure, and is more expressive and dashingly dressed. That being said, there are features that link this sculpture with Salmson, or more probably, with his circle, notably its emphatically portrait-like character, the free positioning of the legs and the size. Unfortunately, at some stage the figure was separated from its base, which was probably round, so it lacks the artist's signature and the foundry mark.
Provenance Mr B.J. Beijer, Amsterdam; bequeathed to the Van Gogh Museum (1992).
Literature Pierre Kjellberg, Les bronzes du XIXe siècle: Dictionnaire des sculpteurs, Paris 1987, pp. 609-10.
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Barye, Antoine-Louis
French, 1795-1875
Tiger devouring a gavial 1831/1874
Bronze, 41 × 101 cm
Signed at the left: BARYE; foundry mark on the base at the back: Syndicat des FABRts de bronze/UNIS FRAN
v 101 S/1996 (colour pl. p. 211)
‘The lion is dead. Hurry!’, Delacroix wrote to Barye, sending his friend on ahead to the Jardin des Plantes, where the two artists were to attend the autopsy. These two founders of the Romantic school were united by a scientific interest in the animal kingdom and a fascination with the primal instincts that animals evoke. Barye was the father of the animaliers, those - mostly French - sculptors who produced extremely popular figures of animals in the second half of the 19th century. His works often consist of groups of exotic beasts locked in a fierce struggle of life and death.
Un tigre ayant surpris un jeune crocodile le dévore is the official title of the plaster model that signalled Barye's breakthrough at the Salon of 1831. The first two bronzes were cast in 1832 and 1834 by the famous founder Honoré Gonon. The first is now in the Louvre, the second in the Musée des Beaux Arts at Dunkirk, while the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen has one cast by Barye himself.
Provenance Galerie Beaux Arts Matignon [Albert Bénamou], Paris; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1996).
Literature Martin Sonnabend, Antoine-Louis Barye (1795-1875): Studien zum plastischen Werk, Munich 1988, pp. 56-113; Van Gogh Bulletin 11 (1996), no. 3, p. 9; Andreas Blühm, et al., exhib. cat The colour of sculpture, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) & Leeds (Henry Moore Institute) 1996, no. 61.
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Carpeaux, Jean-Baptiste
French, 1827-1875
Neapolitan fisher boy 1857/c. 1874
Bronze, 90 × 48 × 55 cm
Signed on the base at the back: JBte Carpeaux; foundry mark: propriété Carpeaux
v 92 M/1994
The plaster model exhibited at the Salon of 1857 was the starting point for this and all subsequent bronze casts. With the Fisher boy, Carpeaux proved himself a gifted student of his teacher François Rude, whose Young Neapolitan fisher boy of 1831 provided the essential inspiration. The open mouth and visible teeth were still quite daring features. The sculpture successfully combines a careful study of the famous Roman Spinario for the boy's body with a painstaking attention to realistic detail. The cap, the shell, the net and the various sea-creatures on the ground - an hexagonal piece of beach - are represented with equal conscientiousness. As many other, similar sculptural motifs, Carpeaux's Fisher boy was at the height of fashion. This genre figure also represents the sculptor's first triumph with the public and was to remain one of his most popular inventions. The many variations and editions show that Carpeaux also knew how to exploit this success commercially.
The attribute of the net was first added after 1873. The Van Gogh Museum's cast also has an interesting patina: the boy's body is brownish, while the ground is green.
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Provenance Private collection; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1994).
Literature Anne Middleton Wagner, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux: sculptor of the Second Empire, New Haven & London 1986, pp. 144-50; Edwin Becker, ‘Carpeaux - Gemito - Rodin - Minne - Stuck: sculptuur-aanwinsten in het Van Gogh Museum,’ Antiek 29 (October 1994), no. 3, pp. 58-61.
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Carrier-Belleuse, Albert-Ernest
French, 1824-1887
Petite Marie 1861
Terracotta, 55 × 30 × 23 cm
Signed on the right: A. Carrier
v 102 S/1996 (colour pl. p. 214)
Carrier-Belleuse was one of the most prominent sculptors of the Second Empire and head of a large studio. With this intimate portrait of his daughter Marie-Gabrielle, however, he demonstrates that he was also a highly sensitive artist. The little girl, one of eight siblings, was nine years old at the time. Carrier-Belleuse here rejects all the neo-rococo pathos that generally characterises his public work, as well as any hint of sugariness. Here, as elsewhere, the influence of the great sculptors of the Ancien Régime, Clodion and Houdon, can be felt in the fine modelling and in the overall style. An earlier portrait of Marie-Gabrielle is preserved in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. The Van Gogh Museum bust is an original, formed by Carrier-Belleuse himself.
Provenance Atelier Carrier-Belleuse; Jules Chéret; Galerie Elstir, Paris; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1996).
Literature Nienke Blom, ‘Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse: Petite Marie,’ Van Gogh Bulletin 11 (1996), no. 3, p. 14
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Clésinger, Jean-Baptiste
French, 1814-1883
Triumphant bull c. 1868
Bronze, 30 × 31.5 × 12.2 cm
Signed on the pedestal:
Taureau Vainqueur J. Clésinger
v 72 M/1992
In 1859, Clésinger scored a resounding success at the Paris Salon with a statue of a Roman bull. The poet Armand Barthet, a childhood friend of the artist's, lauded it in an article that closes with the words: ‘This bull is a miracle. If Clésinger had never done another thing, on the basis of this bull alone, he would be in the first ranks of modern sculptors.’ The writer and critic Charles Baudelaire was also pleasantly surprised by the work, and wrote that Clésinger's ‘Roman bull has received well-deserved praise from everybody; it is really a very fine work.’
The popularity of the subject is also apparent from the many replicas and variants that Clésinger made, one of which is the Taureau vainqueur in the Van Gogh Museum. It is an extremely realistic sculpture in which great care has been lavished on the details, and it was this hyper-realism that made Clésinger so famous. The attention devoted to the eyes and gaze of the bull prompted 19th-century viewers to invest the animal with human traits. They were probably thinking of such classical myths as Europa and the bull, or Theseus and the Minotaur. In any event, this sculpture gained Clésinger a place alongside Antoine-Louis Barye, the leader of the animal sculptors of the French Romantic era.
Provenance Mr B.J. Beijer, Amsterdam; bequeathed to the Van Gogh Museum (1992).
Literature Armand Barthet, ‘Le sculpteur Clésinger,’ L'Artiste 6 (1859), pp. 24-26; Peter Fusco and H.W. Janson, exhib. cat. The Romantics to Rodin: French nineteenth-century sculpture from North American collections, Los Angeles (County Museum of Art) 1980, p. 177; Edwin Becker, ‘Carpeaux - Gemito - Rodin - Minne - Stuck. Sculptuur-aanwinsten in het Van Gogh Museum,’ Antiek 29 (October 1994), no. 3, pp. 58-59; Van Gogh Bulletin 11 (1996), no. 3, p. 9
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Cordier, Charles-Henri-Joseph
French, 1827-1905
Jewess from Algiers c. 1862
Onyx, bronze, silvered bronze, gilt, enamel, semi-precious stones, 92.8 × 63 × 31.2 cm
v 105 S/1996 (colour pl. p. 213)
Cordier's busts of Mediterranean and African peoples originated in a commission from the Muséum de l'histoire naturelle. Here, ethnographic study could be combined with a skilful exploitation of picturesque materials. Cordier's ‘types’ were particularly popular in the wealthy circles of the Second Empire. The sculptor was glad to meet the demand for replicas in various formats and more or less luxurious editions. One of his most successful works in this genre was the Juive d'Alger, although not all contemporary critics were able to appreciate the mix of materials. Particularly the union of metal and enamel - a technical innovation for which the sculptor could justly claim the copyright - was seen as irrational, a combination of substances that had no relation to one another. Paul Mantz, critic for the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, claimed Cordier had sunk even lower than the waxworks. Such attacks were not surprising: the debate about polychromy in contemporary sculpture had begun just one year earlier with the exhibition of John Gibson's Tinted Venus in London.
The different materials are employed in a highly decorative manner in the Jewess from Algiers. Even the bronze of the skin and the hair are differentiated. The inlaid eyes add to an overall lifelike effect. Other versions can be found in Troyes, Musée des Beaux-Arts and in a private collection in Switzerland.
Provenance Galerie Aveline, Paris; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1996).
Literature Jeannine Durand-Revillon, ‘Un promoteur de la sculpture polychrome sous le Second Empire: Charles-Henri-Joseph Cordier (1827-1905),’ Bulletin de la Société d'Histoire de l'Art Français (1982), pp. 187, 195; Michael Forrest, Art bronzes, West Chester, Pennsylvania 1988, p. 429; Andreas Blühm, et al., exhib. cat. The colour of sculpture, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) & Leeds (Henry Moore Institute) 1996, no. 49.
Arab sheik c. 1862
Onyx, bronze, gilt, 94.2 × 58.5 × 41 cm
Signed on the right shoulder: CORDIER
v 106 S/1996 (colour pl p. 212)
The Cheik arabe was probably conceived as a pendant to the Jewess from Algiers. The positivist, anthropological approach of the original commission here gives way to a more decorative conception, confirmed by the similarity of the Arab's features to the famous Head of Brutus in the Pallazzo dei Conservatori in Rome. The painterly combination of dark skin and light-coloured clothing is a trademark of Cordier's so-called sculpture ethnographique. The rediscovery of the onyx quarries in French-occupied Algeria allowed for a revival of the Roman tradition of ‘natural’ polychromy, which unifies different kinds of stone to create a realistic and colourful whole. Cordier was the most famous artist who worked in this manner.
Provenance Galerie Aveline, Paris; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1996).
Literature see above; Andreas Blühm, et al., exhib. cat. The colour of sculpture, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) & Leeds (Henry Moore Institute) 1996, no. 48.
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Dalou, Aimé-Jules
French, 1838-1902
Large peasant c. 1899/after 1902
Bronze, 197 × 70 × 68 cm
Signed on the right of the plinth (behind the left foot). DALOU 6/8; inscribed on the vertical on the back of the plinth: SUSSE FONDEUR PARIS, followed by the firm's foundry mark
v 100 V/1995 (colour pl. p. 216)
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Dalou was the child of Parisian working-class parents, and always remained true to his radical convictions. Ironically, he made his breakthrough in London high society, after fleeing to England in the wake of the Commune in 1871. When he returned to Paris in 1880 after the general amnesty his fame had preceded him, and he received numerous commissions for monuments. His supreme achievement was undoubtedly the Triomphe de la Republique, which was unveiled on the Place de la Nation in 1899.
Dalou spent the final years of his life working on the Monument of labour. The Large peasant is the only part that he executed full-scale in plaster. After his death a limited series was cast in that size by the founders Susse Frères. The Grand paysan in the Van Gogh Museum is the sixth in a series of eight.
Under the influence of his discoverer and teacher Carpeaux, Dalou evolved a freer style of interpretation without every repeating the gracefulness of his maître. His social commitment and direct observation made Dalou the Zola of sculpture. Like his contemporary Meunier, Dalou set out to portray the deprivations and dignity of working people in the dozens of sketches he made of peasants and workers.
Provenance London (Sotheby's), 21 November 1995, lot 67; purchased by the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1995).
Literature John M. Hunisak, ‘Images of workers: from genre treatment and heroic nudity to the Monument of Labor,’ in Peter Fusco and H.W. Janson, exhib. cat. The Romantics to Rodin: French nineteenth-century sculpture from North American collections, Los Angeles (County Museum of Art) 1980, pp. 52-60, 185-99; Van Gogh Bulletin 11 (1996), no. 3, p. 17.
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Degas, Edgar
French, 1834-01917
The tub c. 1886/1889
Bronze, 20 × 41 × 43 cm
Signed: Degas
v 148 B/1996
The original model, a figure in red-brown wax, lying in a lead tub filled with plaster water, the whole fastened to a plank and draped with a cloth soaked
in plaster, is now in Washington, D.C. (National Gallery of Art). After the artist's death, probably around 1919-20, a bronze cast was made by A.-A. Hébrard (Pasadena, Norton Simon Museum), from which a number of others were then derived. The exact relationship of the work illustrated here to this series remains unclear.
John Rewald has related The tub to the many pastels of bathers Degas executed in 1886, while Charles Millard has proposed a later date, based on a letter the artist wrote on 13 June 1889 in which he spoke of ‘a small wax model’ with a ‘messy socle made of cloth dipped in plaster’ on which he was hard at work.
The tub is one of the first sculptures designed to be viewed from above, as a kind of table-top relief. Although Degas seems to have been striving for an extreme naturalism in his original choice of colours and materials, looked at in this way the piece is transformed into a rigorously geometric abstract composition.
Provenance Galerie Max Kaganovitch, Paris; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1955); on loan to the Van Gogh Museum (1996).
Literature Lettres de Degas, ed. Marcel Guérin, Paris 1931, p. 127; Charles W. Millard, The sculpture of Edgar Degas, Princeton 1976, pp. 9-10, 107-08; John Rewald, Degas' complete sculpture, San Francisco 1990, no. 17; 111 exhib. cat. Het beeld van de eeuw. A century in sculpture, Amsterdam (Stedelijk Museum) 1992, pp. 16, 17.
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D'Epinay, Prosper
French, 1836-1914
Head of Medusa c. 1865-70
Terracotta, 42 × 32.2 × 20 cm
Signed on the back: d'Epinay
v 96 S/1995 (colour pl. p. 209)
This head was probably created by Epinay at the beginning of his stay in Rome. For this bozzetto in clay, he employed a more or less baroque vocabulary, proving himself a skilled eclectic. The sculptor probably learned to distinguish face and hair in the manner seen here by studying the work of Bernini, and it is possible he even saw the master's own Medusa (Rome, Palazzo dei Conservatori). Epinay additionally emphasised the painterly quality of the bust by giving the hair a blueish tone. It appears almost as if he had kneaded the colour into the clay while modelling the wild curls, which do not yet have the appearance of snakes.
It is thought that the Medusa is a portrait of a certain Assunta, the wife of Dambrosio della Ruella, a bandit whom the French had sentenced to death in Rome in 1866. Among the many 19th-century variations of this mythological creature, Epinay's head takes a middle position between Neo-classicism and the Neo-baroque. (See also the article by Andreas Blühm in this volume of the Van Gogh Museum Journal).
Provenance Epinay sale, Paris (Hôtel Drouôt), 20-21 April 1885, lot 38; Anthony Roth, London; Joey and Toby Tanenbaum Collection; New York (Sotheby's), 26 May 1994, lot 1; W.M. Brady & Co., Inc., New York; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1995).
Literature Andreas Blühm, et al., exhib. cat. The colour of sculpture, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) & Leeds (Henry Moore Institute) 1996, no. 8; Patricia Foujols, Prosper d'Epinay: sculpteur au XIXe siècle, Mauritius 1996 (forthcoming).
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Feuchère, Jean-Jacques
French, 1807-1852
Satan c. 1835
Bronze with dark green patina, 37 × 15.5 × 18.5 cm
Signed at the left: J. Feuchère
v 103 S/1996
Feuchère made his Salon debut in 1831, and won a medal there three years later. It was at that same Salon of 1834 that he also exhibited the plaster model for Satan. The following year he unveiled a bronze version, probably the one that is now in the museum at Douai.
The Van Gogh Museum's sculpture may be a preliminary version of the bronze. The oval base and smaller dimensions differ from the one in Douai, and the absence of a foundry mark may indicate that this Satan was cast by Feuchère himself, who had learned bronze founding in his youth while working for various foundries and goldsmiths. Satan was one of the Romantics' favourite figures, and depictions of him were inspired by numerous literary works. The immediate source for Feuchère's bronze, however, was an impression he owned of Dürer's engraving Melancolia. The seated pose, with the hand cupped under the chin and the all-enveloping bat-like wings, is quite clearly derived from the print. The figure's hunched pose, which inspires both fear and awe at the same time
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as arousing compassion, would later influence famous sculptors like Carpeaux (Ugolino) and Rodin (The thinker).
Provenance Galerie Elstir, Paris; gift of the Friends of the Van Gogh Museum (1996).
Literature J. Janin, Notice sur Feuchère, Paris 1853; Stanislas Lami, Dictionnaire des sculpteurs de l'école française au dix-neuvième siècle, vol. 4, Paris 1921, p. 365; Peter Fusco and H.W. Janson, exhib. cat. The Romantics to Rodin: French nineteenth-century sculpture from North American collections, Los Angeles (County Museum of Art) 1980, pp. 266-67; Van Gogh Bulletin 11 (1996), no. 3, p. 8.
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Gauguin, Paul
French, 1848-1903
Vase c. 1886-87
Clay, partly glazed, 14 × 12.9 cm
Signed on the front at lower left: P. Go
v 37 V/1978
In the spring or summer of 1886, after his friend Félix Braquemond had introduced him to the ceramic artist Ernest Chaplet, Gauguin enthusiastically took up the medium. In the six months prior to his departure for Martinique in April 1887 he produced some 55 works which were clearly inspired by the art of Peru, where he had once lived. They sold badly, despite all the efforts of his art dealer, Theo van Gogh, who received this vase as a gesture of thanks. In one of his notebooks Gauguin wrote the words ‘van Gog pot donné’ alongside a pencil sketch of the vase.
The scene was directly inspired by Puvis de Chavannes's Hope of 1872 (Paris, Musée d'Orsay). Gauguin, however, took a satanic pleasure in paraphrasing his revered colleague in his own peculiar way: instead of the awakening virgin of the painting he modelled a sensual apparition who flirts with the beholder. Gauguin named his vase after Cleopatra, who had been regarded as the incarnation of the femme fatale since the dawn of Romanticism. The pigs rooting around under the tree are yet another allusion to the darker side of this legendary nymphomaniac.
Provenance Theo van Gogh, Paris (1888-91); Johanna
G. van Gogh-Bonger (1891-1925); V.W. van Gogh (1925-78); transferred to the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1978).
Literature M.E. Tralbaut, ‘Rond een pot van Gauguin,’ Vrienden van de Nederlandse Ceramiek. Mededelingenblad 18 (April 1960), pp. 15-19; Christopher Gray, Sculpture and ceramics of Paul Gauguin, Baltimore 1963, pp. 15-16, 147; Merete Bodelsen, Gauguin's ceramics: a study in the development of his art, London 1964, pp. 158-59; ‘Verslag van de hoofddirecteur over het jaar 1978. Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh te Amsterdam,’ Nederlandse Rijksmusea/deel C, The Hague 1980, p. 114; Evert van Uitert and Michael Hoyle (eds.), The Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam 1987, pp. 104, 501; Aimée Brown Price et al., exhib. cat. Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) 1994, no. 146.
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Gauquié, Henri-Désiré
French, 1858-1927
The sower
Bronze, 61 × 42 × 25.5 cm
Signed at the bottom: H. Gauquié; and centre rear: Vrai Bronze Baranti Paris
v 71 M/1992
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Beginning in 1880, Gauquié exhibited numerous portraits of artists and politicians at the annual Paris Salons. Beyond these, however, his oeuvre consists of an enormous diversity of subjects, executed in various sizes, from monumental sculptures such as Perseus or Bacchante and satyr to a Madonna in the cathedral of Rouen. His highly-detailed homage to Watteau stands in the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris and is a work which brings the age of the Rococo to life again. His smaller statuettes, too, bear witness to a revival of the influence of this 18th century style, particularly in the details.
The sower belongs to a group of allegorical sculptures which brought Gauquié much praise and which were particularly popular around the turn of the century. His bronze Vae victis - a muscular young man with a raised sword - won him a gold medal at the Salon of 1900. A variation on The sower was auctioned in 1986 (Lokeren [De Vuyst], 31 May 1986, lot no. 242). Although the pose is identical, the heroic nude of the auctioned piece, which bears the inscription Fac et spera, has been transformed in the Van Gogh Museum's sculpture into a contemporary clothed peasant. Symbolism has here been replaced by anecdote. The special attention paid to anatomical detail is, however, the same in both works and gives the flexed muscles a similar tension.
Provenance Mr B.J. Beijer, Amsterdam; bequeathed to the Van Gogh Museum (1992).
Literature James MacKay, The dictionary of sculptors in bronze, Woodbridge 1988, p. 153.
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Gemito, Vincenzo
Italian, 1852-1929
The water vendor, a figural fountain c. 1886
Bronze, 55.5 × 20 × 28.5 cm
Signed on the jug: GEMITO; inscribed on the back: DALL ORIGINALE/PROPTA DEL RE DI NAPOLI/SM FRANCESCO II/NAPOLI GEMITO
v 54 M/1991
The Water vendor is a fine example of verismo, the style of unadulterated naturalism in late 19th-century Italian sculpture. Gemito was one of the chief representatives of this movement. Born in a poverty-stricken part of Naples, he combined a gift for observation with traditional craftsmanship in his bronzes of the street life in southern Italy. King Francesco II had gone into exile in Paris, and when he commissioned Gemito in 1881 to make a sculpture that would remind him of his beloved people and city, the sculptor struck on the subject of the scugnizzi, the cheeky water-sellers of Naples. This resulted in a sculpture that combines and confronts classical antiquity and contemporary reality. The street urchin is depicted as a modern-day faun.
The wax model for the Water vendor is in the Galleria Communale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome. There are numerous casts, several of which are in public collections. The earliest, which are recognisable from the inscription PROPRIETA ARTISTICA, were made by Gemito himself. The majority, though, including this one with a gold patina, were produced as series by the founders Laganá after Gemito's own foundry went bankrupt in 1886.
Provenance New York (Sotheby's), 17 October 1991, lot 227; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1991).
Literature Robert Rosenblum and H.W. Janson, Art of the nineteenth century: painting and sculpture, New York 1984, pp. 485-86; Elisabeth Kasey, et al., exhib. cat. Nineteenth century French and western European sculpture in bronze and other media, New York (Shepherd Gallery) 1985, pp. 164-66; Van Gogh Museum. Jaarverslag 1991, p. 19; Ian Wardropper and Fred Light, exhib. cat. Chiseled with a brush: Italian sculpture, 1860-1925, from the Gilgore collections, Chicago (The Art Institute) 1994, p. 88; Alfonso Panzetta, Dizionario degli sculturi Italiani dell' ottocento e de primo novecento, vol. 1, Turin 1994, pp. 141-42; Edwin Becker, ‘Carpeaux - Gemito - Rodin - Minne - Stuck. Sculptuur-aanwinsten in het Van Gogh Museum,’ Antiek 29 (October 1994), no. 3, pp. 61-63; exhib. cat. Andreas Blühm, et al., The colour of sculpture, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) & Leeds (Henry Moore Institute) 1996, no. 65.
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Klinger, Max
German, 1857-1920
Head of New Salome 1893/1903
Bronze, 71 cm
v 107 S/1996
Next to his Beethoven, the New Salome is Klinger's best-known figure. The inspiration for the sculpture can be found in contemporary French literature. Klinger was greatly interested in these writings and often examined the theme of the femme fatale. The sculptor was busy with the preparations for this work - his first ‘polylithic’ sculpture - between 1886 and 1891. The plaster model for the half-figure is preserved in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden; the finished version, in which Klinger employed not only different kinds of marble but various other materials as well, was completed in 1892-93 and can now be seen in Museum der bildenden Künste in Leipzig. Bronzes of the head with a pointed torso were cast by the Berlin foundry Gladenbeck beginning in 1903; they were sold through Carl Lorck in Leipzig. The Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne has a painted plaster version that was probably the model for the bronze busts.
Provenance Galerie Elstir, Paris; gift to the Van Gogh Museum (1996).
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Literature Rainer Budde and Evelyn Weiss, Katalog der Bildwerke und Objekte, Neuzugänge seit 1965 im Wallraf-Richartz-Museum mit Teilen der Sammlung Ludwig, Cologne 1973, p. 67; Heiner Protzmann, ‘Salome: Zur Polychromie in der Skulptur. Aus der Korrespondenz Max Klingers mit Georg Treu,’ Jahrbuch der Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden 14 (1984), pp. 61-72; exhib. cat. Max Klinger, 1857-1920, Frankfurt am Main (Städtische Galerie im Städelschen Kunstinstitut) 1992, pp. 282-83; Herwig Guratzsch (ed.), Max Klinger: Bestandskatalog der Bildwerke, Gemälde und Zeichnungen im Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig, Leipzig 1995, p. 51; Ursula Kral and Heiner Protzmann, ‘Das restaurierte Modell der Neuen Salome von Max Klinger,’ Dresdener Kunstblätter 40 (1996), no. 1, pp. 2-7.
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Mendes da Costa, Joseph
Dutch, 1863-1939
Vincent van Gogh (figure) c. 1914-20
Bronze, 39 × 13.5 cm
Monogrammed on the top of the base, behind the left foot: JM; inscribed on the vertical of the base: MIJN GOD MAG HET/VINCENT VAN GOGH; foundry mark: Fonderie Nationale des Bronzes J. Petermann, St. Gilles-Bruxelles.
v 49 V/1981
Although Mendes da Costa's small bronze of Van Gogh is persistently dated 1908 in the literature, it was actually made some time between 1914 and 1920. On 19 September 1914 the sculptor wrote to H.P. Bremmer, the famous art educationist and champion of Van Gogh: ‘And now that I am writing to you I would like to tell you that immediately after reading Van Gogh's letters I felt the desire to make something out of them. [...] I will endeavour to produce the final impression that I got after reading this life, namely the moment of utmost effort during work, the sob and prayer “Oh God, let it be”. [...] I hope that I may succeed, in these dreadful times, to invest this moment in a manikin’ (The Hague, Gemeentearchief, Bremmer archive).
A few years before, Bremmer had suggested that Mendes design a series of figure portraits of people from the worlds of the arts and sciences. Mendes proceeded to model statuettes of Jan Steen, Francis of Assisi, Spinoza and, as the last in the series, Vincent van Gogh. The design of this full-length portrait is very closely related to Mendes's Christiaan de Wet, the monumental statue of the ‘peasant general’ from the Hoge Veluwe region, which he created at around the same time. There are casts of this figure in the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, the Haags Gemeentemuseum, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and the Hannema-De Stuers Fundatie in Heino.
Provenance W.C.A. Huinck; dowager W.C.A. Huinck; purchased by the Theo van Gogh Foundation (1971); transferred to the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1981).
Literature Beeldende Kunst 10 (1923), no. 77; M.W. van der Valk and H.C. Verkruijsen, ‘Mendes da Costa,’ Wendingen 5 (1923), nos. 5-6, p. 7 (with ill.); T.B. Roorda, Dr. J. Mendes da Costa, Amsterdam 1928, p. 16, fig. 14; A.M. Hammacher, Mendes da Costa: De geestelijke boodschap der beeldhouwkunst, Rotterdam
1941, pp. 43-45, 74 (with ill.); A.M. Hammacher, Beeldhouwkunst van deze eeuw en een schets van haar ontwikkeling in de negentiende eeuw, Amsterdam 1955, pp. 18-22, figs. 29-30; F. de Miranda, Mendes da Costa, Jessurun de Mesquita: Nederlandse kunstenaars - joden in de verstrooiing, Wassenaar 1978, pp. 43-44, 66, 92, fig. 45; Evert van Uitert and Michael Hoyle (eds.), The Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam 1987, p. 503; Hildelies Balk, ‘De freule, de professor, de koopman en zijn vrouw. Het publiek van H.P. Bremmer,’ Jong Holland 9 (1993) no. 2, pp. 18, 20, fig. 21, p. 23, fig. 27; Edwin Becker, ‘Carpeaux - Gemito - Rodin - Minne - Stuck. Sculptuur-aanwinsten in het Van Gogh Museum,’ Antiek 29 (October 1994), no. 3, p. 58.
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Meunier, Constantin-Emile
Belgian, 1831-1905
Motherhood c. 1902
Bronze with black patina, 64.8 × 45.8 × 45.8 cm
Signed on the back at centre: C. Meunier; along the lower edge: JB JB LU 9; on the label: Dresden Haupt (Zoll) Amt
v 99 S/1995 (colour pl. p. 215)
In 1890, Meunier exhibited a relief at the Brussels Salon L'industrie that was designed for his Monument to labour, on which he worked for the rest of his life. The final design was only unveiled in Berlin in 1907, two years after his death, and consisted of four bronze panels in relief, arranged in a semicircle and interspersed with larger than life-size figures and groups in stone. A bronze Sower, which was also a favourite subject of Van Gogh's, was to be placed in the middle. In 1930, 25 years after the artist's death, the Monument to labour was finally installed on Jules de Trooz-plain in Laken, although not entirely in accordance with Meunier's original plans.
Motherhood was part of the monument, and was placed in front of the right half of the semicircle. The bronze in the Van Gogh Museum was cast in sand. Meunier based his depiction of motherhood on a photograph of his wife and children, and the inspiration for the enclosed, almost block-like composition was the pose of Michelangelo's Madonna and Child in the Basilica of Our Lady in Bruges.
Provenance Patrick Derom gallery, Brussels; Shepherd Gallery, New York; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1995).
Literature August Vermeylen, ‘Constantin Meunier,’ Onze Kunst 2 (1903), pp. 8-9 (with ill.); Walther Gensel, Constantin Meunier, Bielefeld & Leipzig 1905, p. 57; Die Kunst 22 (1907), p. 465 (with ill.); exhib. cat. Beeldhouwwerken en assemblages: 19de en 20ste eeuw, Antwerp (Museum voor Schone Kunsten) 1986, p. 124, no. 1983; exhib. cat. De 19de-eeuwse Belgische beeldhouwkunst, Brussels (Generale Bank) 1990, vol. 1, p. 233-35; exhib. cat. Nineteenth-century European paintings, drawings and sculpture, New York (Shepherd Gallery) 1994-95, no. 45; Van Gogh Bulletin 11 (1996), no. 3, p. 16.
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Minne, George
Belgian, 1866-1941
Solidarity (‘La barque humaine’) 1898
Bronze with black patina, 66.5 × 66.5 × 27 cm
v 90 V/1993 (colour pl. p. 215)
In 1898 the Belgian Labour Party commissioned Minne to produce a plaster monument three metres high. It was intended as a memorial to the Socialist leader Jean Volders. Minne was convinced that an allegory of brotherhood would do more justice to Volders's fiery and noble character than a conventional statue.
Two almost identical nude youths stand facing each other in a boat, anxiously trying to keep their balance as they brave the storm. Their thin, almost emaciated bodies, which are so typical of Minne's figures, were inspired by Gothic sculpture. Minne was often taken to task for his ‘primitivism,’ but according to the Belgian writer Emile Verhaeren, that was his main strength. The German critic Julius Meier-Graefe was also full of praise for Minne's Solidarity. The Labour Party, though, disliked the design and refused to pay for it to be executed. Minne's friend, the artist Henry van de Velde, described how the furious sculptor hacked the plaster monument to pieces in his studio. Fortunately, the plaster model survived from which this small version was made in both marble and bronze.
Provenance Private collection, Brussels; Patrick Derom gallery, Brussels; purchased by the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1993).
Literature Julius Meier-Graefe, ‘Die fünfte Ausstellung der Libre Esthétique,’ Die Nation, 26 March 1898, p. 384; Die Kunst 4 (1901), pp. 182-83 (with ill. on p. 191); Julius Meier-Graefe, ‘George Minne,’ Ver Sacrum (1901), no. 2, pp. 31-41; Karel van de Woestijne,
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‘George Minne,’ Kunst en geest in Vlaanderen, Bussum 1911, p. 111; Leo van Puyvelde, George Minne, Brussels 1930, fig. 30; André de Ridder, George Minne, Antwerp 1947, fig. 12; Henry van de Velde, Geschichte meines Lebens, Munich 1959, pp. 120-21; Paul Haesaerts, Sint-Martens-Latem, Brussels 1969, p. 113, fig. 303; exhib. cat. Constantin Meunier/George Minne: tekeningen en beeldhouwwerken, Brussels (Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten) 1969, no. 87; Dirk Hannema, Supplement van de catalogus van de Stichting Hannema-De Stuers, Rotterdam 1971, p. 31, no. 741, fig. 54; exhib. cat. George Minne en de kunst rond 1900, Ghent (Museum voor Schone Kunsten) 1982, no. 68; H.W. Janson, Nineteenth-century sculpture, London 1985, p. 233; Lynne Pudles, ‘The symbolist work of George Minne,’ Art Journal 45 (1985), no. 2, p. 125; Jacques van Lennep, Catalogus van de beeldhouwkunst: kunstenaars geboren tussen 1750 en 1882, Brussels 1992, fig. 4790; exhib. cat. A selection of Belgian works of art, 1870-1970, Brussels (Galerie Patrick Derom) 1993, no. 7; Ronald de Leeuw, The Van Gogh Museum: paintings and pastels, Zwolle 1994, p. 256; exhib. cat. Les XX et La Libre Esthétique: honderd jaar later, Brussels (Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten) 1994, p. 530-31, no. 192; Van Gogh Bulletin 9 (1994), no. 1, pp. 14-15; Edwin Becker, ‘Carpeaux - Gemito - Rodin - Minne - Stuck. Sculptuur-aanwinsten in het Van Gogh Museum,’ Antiek 29 (October 1994), no. 3, pp. 66-68.
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Pradier, James
Swiss, 1790-1852
The birth of Cupid c. 1840
Bronze, partially gilt and patinated in three colours, 14 × 21.5 × 9 cm
v 104 S/1996 (colour pl. p. 210)
During the July Monarchy, Pradier was the most popular sculptor in France. He modified the strict classicism of the preceding generation and preferred subjects of a more poetic inspiration, as works like Sappho and La poésie légère demonstrate. Having no antique precedents, Pradier's interpretation of the theme of the birth of Cupid is by necessity highly original. Cupid is a winged putto and, like his mother, represented half asleep. The open shell is not only a kind of cave or womb but also a reference to the mythical birth of the goddess herself. The exhibition catalogue Statues de chair lists variations of this work in bronze, plaster and marble. The version in the Van Gogh Museum, unpublished until this year,
is a particularly elaborate one. A comparison with Benvenuto Cellini's famous saltcellar is certainly not farfetched, as Pradier represents the goddess in a glittering gold that stands out against the bronze. The non-gilt parts are also given different patinas: the shell is dark brown, while the waves are green.
Provenance Mennessier-Nadier collection: Galerie Elstir, Paris; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1996)
Literature Exhib. cat. Statues de chair: sculptures de James Pradier, Geneva (Musée d'art et d'histoire) & Paris (Musée du Luxembourg) 1985-86, no. 86 (another cast); Andreas Blühm, et al., exhib. cat. The colour of sculpture, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) & Leeds (Henry Moore Institute) 1996, no. 6.
Standing Sappho c. 1848/1851
Silvered bronze on gilt base, 49 cm
Signed and dated on the column: J. PRADIER/1848; foundry mark: VP
v 108 S/1996
In the 1840s, the Swiss Neo-classicist James Pradier specialised in heroines and mythological female figures from Antiquity, or from contemporary literature inspired by it: Phryne, Chloris, Nyssia, and, after Sappho, Pandora, Medea and Atalanta. Sappho, the Lesbian poetess, is represented in deep thought, standing on the stump of a column. The pair of doves and the sheet of paper (with, on the original, a Greek quotation from her ode to Aphrodite), indicate that she is here meant to symbolise unhappy love and that she is mourning the loss of Leucates. Richly decorated with jewellery and attributes, this elegant figure is one of the artist's most successful inventions. Although Pradier's original version, an 89 cm-high bronze exhibited at the Salon of 1848, remained unsold at first, the Susse foundry took the model as a starting point for a much admired silver statuette only a short time later. At the Great Exhibition in London (1851), Victor Paillard presented a smaller variant in a limited edition from which the Van Gogh Museum's work probably originates. Paillard was known for his silver and gold plating of bronze. As he himself was one of the pioneers of polychrome sculpture, these colourful versions certainly met Pradier's approval.
A second, seated Sappho of 1852, the original marble of which is in the Musée d'Orsay, was the sculptor's last work and has remained an even more famous treatment of the subject.
Provenance Joanna Barnes Fine Art, London; purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1996).
Literature Exhib. cat. Statues de chair: sculptures de James Pradier (1790-1852), Geneva (Musée d'art et d'histoire) & Paris (Musée du Luxembourg) 1986, no. 16 (other cast).
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Renoir, Auguste
French 1841-1919
The Judgment of Paris 1914
Bronze, 75 × 93 × 15 cm
Signed at bottom right: VII Renoir 1914
v 149 B/1996
In 1913, Ambroise Vollard had the idea to ask a student of Maillol's, Richard Guino, to create sculptures after designs by - and under the supervision of - Renoir. This allowed him to circumvent the exclusive contract the painter had with Paul Durand-Ruel. After some hesitation, Renoir, whose hands were already severely crippled by rheumatism, agreed to the arrangement. His cooperation with Guino lasted until 1917 and resulted in 14 sculptures and reliefs, all of which were sold by Vollard.
This relief was inspired by a photograph of a Renoir drawing executed in circa 1908 (Washington, D.C., Phillips Memorial Gallery). The artist also based a number of paintings on this drawing. Before he began working on this large scale, Guino also made a small plaque of the design (Haesaerts, no. 5).
Provenance Galerie Rosengart, Luzern; purchased by the City of Amsterdam (1955); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; on loan to the Van Gogh Museum (1996).
Literature Paul Haesaerts, Renoir sculpteur, Brussels 1947, pp. 32-33, no. 7; exhib. cat. Beginn und Reife: 10. Ruhrfestspiele, Recklinghausen (Städtische Kunsthalle) 1956, no. 205; W. Sandberg and H.L.C. Jaffé, Kunst van heden in het Stedelijk, Amsterdam 1961, no. 237; exhib. cat. Europäische Gemeinsamkeit: Fundamente. Inspirationen. Wechselwirkungen Recklinghausen (Städtische Kunsthalle) 1979, no. 53; exhib. cat. Sculpture du XXe siècle. 1900-1945, Saint-Paul (Fondation Maeght) 1981, no. 165.
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Rodin, Auguste
French, 1840-1917
St John the Baptist preaching (bust) 1878/1985
Bronze, 54 × 37 × 26 cm
Signed on the right of the bronze base: A. Rodin No. II/IV; inscribed on the left: c by MUSEE RODIN 1985; inscribed on the back: E. Godard Fondeur.
v 116 B/1993
Rodin's St John the Baptist preaching of 1877 reflects the artist's fascination with one of his models, a 40-year-old peasant from the Abruzzi called Pignatelli, who had called on him unannounced. Rodin later said: ‘Seeing him, I was seized with admiration: that rough, hairy man, expressing in his bearing and physical strength all the violence, but also all the mystical character of his race. I thought immediately of a St John the Baptist; that is, a man of nature, a visionary, a believer, a forerunner come to announce one greater than himself.’ Rodin deliberately made the statue larger than life, for he had been criticised the previous year for making a cast from the live model for his Age of bronze. While working on the figure of the Baptist he also made a bust, which was exhibited in patinated plaster at the Salon of 1879 and was cast in bronze the following year. Prior to 1900 the series of the bust was limited to six, but in 1967 a second series was cast under the supervision of the Musée Rodin, and it is to this set that the one in the Van Gogh Museum belongs.
Provenance Gerald B. Cantor Collection, Beverly Hills; on loan to the Van Gogh Museum (1993).
Literature John L. Tancock, The sculpture of Auguste Rodin: the collection of the Rodin Museum Philadelphia, Philadelphia 1976, pp. 357-69; Cécile Goldscheider, Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre sculpté I: 1840-1886, Lausanne & Paris 1989, p. 124, no. 102a; Van Gogh Museum. Jaarverslag 1993 & eerste helft 1994, p. 37; Edwin Becker, ‘Carpeaux - Gemito - Rodin - Minne - Stuck. Sculptuuraanwinsten in het Van Gogh Museum,’ Antiek 29 (October 1994), no. 3, pp. 64-65; John Sillevis, Antoinette Le Normand-Romain, et al., exhib. cat. Rodin, The Hague (Museum Het Paleis) & Laren (Singer Museum) 1995, pp. 21, 44-46; Antoinette Le Normand-Romain, ‘Auguste Rodin: le buste de Saint Jean-Baptiste (1880) acquis par le musée Rodin,’ Revue du Louvre (1996), no. 2, p. 15.
Jean d'Aire c. 1884-95
Bronze, 205 × 65 × 57 cm
Signed on the base at right: A. Rodin; stamped at the back of the base: ALEXIS RUDIER/FONDEUR PARIS
v 150 B/1996
The figure of Jean d'Aire is drawn from the famous group of The burghers of Calais. In 1884, Rodin, then unknown, received a commission from the
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city of Calais to create a monument to this dramatic episode from the Hundred Years' War. The chronicler Jean Froissart described how six leading citizens, dressed in rags and bound by ropes, turned themselves over to the King of England in exchange for his relieving the siege on their town. Rodin saw this commission as his chance ‘to create a masterpiece.’ The highly original composition of the group, conceived for a low (and thus non-heroic) base, and the extreme expressivity of the figures with their oversized limbs met with considerable opposition from Rodin's patrons, who felt that ‘their defeated postures offend our religion.’ For the sculptor, it was essential that the work have no socle, as this allowed the ‘passersby to elbow [the men], and through this contact come to feel the emotion of the living past in their midst.’ In addition to various casts of the whole group, there are also numerous versions of the individual figures and parts. It is not known when exactly Alexis Rudier created this cast. In 1920, for example, he made a cast of the entire work (Paris, Musée Rodin). In 1930 this Jean d'Aire was first shown in an exhibition devoted to Rodin at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam; it was then bought by the City of Amsterdam for that institution through the art gallery Buffa.
Provenance Buffa gallery, Amsterdam; purchased by the City of Amsterdam (1930); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; on loan to the Van Gogh Musem (1996).
Literature Catalogue du Musée Rodin, Paris 1929, vol. 1, no. 137; exhib. cat. Rodin, Amsterdam (Stedelijk Museum) & The Hague (Gemeentemuseum) 1930, no. 35; exhib. cat. Rondom Rodin, Amsterdam (Stedelijk Museum) 1939, no. 297; exhib. cat. Sonsbeek '49: Europese beeldhouwkunst in de open lucht, Arnhem (Gemeentemuseum) 1949, no. 36; exhib. cat. Franse Beeldhouwkunst, The Hague (Gemeentemuseum) 1950, no. 24; W. Sandberg and H.L.C. Jaffé, Kunst van heden in het Stedelijk, Amsterdam 1961, no. 318; Albert Elsen, Rodin, New York 1967, pp. 70-87; Een keuze uit de verzameling, Amsterdam (Stedelijk Museum) 1970, no. 547; John L. Tancock, The sculpture of Auguste Rodin: the collection of the Rodin Museum Philadelphia, Philadelphia 1976, pp. 376-402; exhib. cat. Het Beeld van de Eeuw, Amsterdam (Nieuwe Kerk) 1992, pp. 22-23; Ruth Butler, Rodin: the shape of genius, New Haven & London 1993, pp. 199-213; exhib. cat. Rodin, The Hague (Museum Het Paleis) & Laren (Singer Museum) 1995, no. 53.
Bust of Madame Fenaille c. 1898
Plaster, 74 × 52 × 36 cm
v 151 B/1996
The woman represented here was the wife of Maurice Fenaille, a wealthy industrialist, art lover and art historian. Fenaille was one of Rodin's close associates and gave him various commissions, among others for the decoration of his swimming pool. Madame Fenaille was one of the grandes dames who began to frequent Rodin's studio after he had become a famous public figure. Her portrait was the first in a series of these society ladies. There are numerous versions of this work. In the Musée Rodin alone there are two in marble and one in plaster, the latter more finished than the one illustrated here. Rodin worked on Madame Fenaille's bust beginning in 1898, and in 1900 he exhibited a completed plaster version at the Exposition Universelle. The plaster cast in the Van Gogh Museum appears to record an earlier stage in the development of the portrait. Madame Fenaille's asymmetrically represented dress softens the
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transition between bust and pedestal and creates a kind of counterbalance to her remarkably closed look and modest pose; the impression is of a captured moment in the life of a discrete and withdrawn personality. Unhampered by naturalistic details, the unfinished quality of this version accents the way in which the figure is turned in upon itself.
Provenance Maurice Fenaille; Baron Chassériau; Général Nouvion; Mr and Mrs William Henry Singer Jr.; donated to the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1940); on loan to the Van Gogh Museum (1996).
Literature Catalogue du Musée Rodin Paris 1938, vol. 1, nos. 265, 266 (other versions); exhib. cat. Rondom Rodin, Amsterdam (Stedelijk Museum) 1939, no. 326; exhib. cat. Franse Beeldhouwkunst. Rodin. Bourdelle. Maillol. Despiau, The Hague (Gemeentemuseum) 1950, no. 39a; exhib. cat. 3 Leeftijden Ages Alter, Amsterdam (Stedelijk Museum) 1960, no. 93; W. Sandberg, ‘Dix artistes, trois étappes,’ L'oeuil 69 (September 1960), p. 43; Correspondance de Rodin, ed. Alain Beausire et al., 4 vols., Paris 1992, vol. 4, p. 215; Ruth Butler, Rodin: the shape of genius, New Haven & London 1993, p. 486; exhib. cat. Rodin, The Hague (Museum Het Paleis) & Laren (Singer Museum) 1995, nos. 16, 17.
Hand with a female torso (‘La main de Dieu’) 1917
Bronze, 23 × 11 × 15 cm
Foundry mark: Alexis Rudier Fondeur Paris
v 65 B/1991
Rodin's earliest experiments in enlarging modelled hands into sculptures in their own right date from around 1900. He had recorded the hands in dozens of sketches in preparation for monumental commissions
like The burghers of Calais of 1884-85. In fact, there is a direct relationship between The hand of God and the hands of two of the men in that group. The hand of God exists in three sizes. The original model was probably the same size as the sculpture in the Van Gogh Museum, and formed the basis for a reduced and an enlarged version. There are specimens in plaster, bronze and marble.
With his Hand of God Rodin harked back to the image of God in medieval and Renaissance iconography. It is significant that he chose this subject when he was at the height of his powers. He was undoubtedly fascinated by the three-dimensional problem of enlarging a modelled preliminary study, but beyond this there may have also been some element megalomania on the part of this deeply religious artist, who felt that he, like his Creator, was giving form to the unformed.
Provenance Rijksdienst Beeldende Kunst, The Hague; on loan to the Van Gogh Museum (1991).
Literature John L. Tancock, The sculpture of Auguste Rodin: the collection of the Rodin Museum Philadelphia, Philadelphia 1976, pp. 622-23; Edwin Becker, ‘Carpeaux - Gemito - Rodin - Minne - Stuck. Sculptuur-aanwinsten in het Van Gogh Museum,’ Antiek 29 (October 1994), no. 3, pp. 65-66.
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De Rudder, Isidore
Belgian, 1855-1943
The potato digger 1913
Bronze, 47.5 × 34.8 × 22 cm
Inscribed on the base: FAC ET SPERA; 7 Août 1913
v 73 M/1992
In addition to painting, De Rudder also studied sculpture at the Académie royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, under the Belgian Romantic sculptor Eugène Simons. Among De Rudder's more well-known pieces is The nest, a typical work of genre on the subject of motherhood, the plaster model of which was exhibited in Paris at the Salon of 1883 and then carried out in marble (Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten). De Rudder worked in a broad range of idioms, from monumental allegorical figures and fountain sculptures to busts and medallions. He was also active in the decorative arts from c. 1892 onwards, designing, among other things, carpets and porcelain. His style may be described as eclectic, inspired on the one hand by
the Italian Renaissance and, on the other, by contemporary Art Nouveau.
Stylistically speaking, The potato digger is quite different from De Rudder's more lyrical works (such as The nest), which are generally smoother and more decorative, without the emphasis on physical strength we see here. The rough treatment of the surface and the unfinished character of The potato digger give the impression that the Van Gogh Museum's piece is in fact a bozzetto. Whatever the case, the strong modelling and sketch-like appearance of this allegory of work are reminiscent of the sculptures of De Rudder's compatriot Constantin Meunier.
Provenance Mr B.J. Beijer, Amsterdam; bequeathed to the Van Gogh Museum (1992).
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Rueb, Gerharda Johanna Wilhelmina
Dutch, 1885-1972
Bust of a woman
Marble, 49.5 × 55.5 × 28 cm
Signed at lower right: G.R.
v 115 B/1991
Gra Rueb was a student of the Belgian sculptor Toon Dupuis, who, among other things, made a portrait bust of Mesdag (The Hague, Museum Mesdag and The Hague, Panorama Mesdag) and
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Antoine Bourdelle. This Bust of a woman shows traces of the influence of both masters, the former in the more conservative smooth and descriptive treatment of the face, the latter in the conception as a whole. Still half caught in the marble, with bent head and closed eyes, the figure demonstrates the artist's ambition to give her work a universal expressivity in the tradition of Bourdelle.
Provenance Rijksdienst Beeldende Kunst, The Hague; on loan to the Van Gogh Museum (1991).
Literature C. Veth, Gra Rueb, The Hague 1946.
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Stuck, Franz von
German, 1863-1928
Athlete 1891-92
Bronze with dark brown patina, 65 cm
Signed on the base: Franz Stuck; stamped: GUSS LEYRER MÜNCHEN
v 94 S/1994
The Athlete is widely regarded as Stuck's first bronze, and is his best-known and most widely distributed sculpture, along with the Amazon (see below). It shows a muscular young man lifting a heavy shot and holding it at eye level, precisely at its apogee. Unlike his other sculptures, which are heavily indebted to the ideas about line and contour advocated by the sculptor Adolf von Hildebrand, this Athlete is designed so as to present a different three-dimensional aspect from every side. The smooth, polished surface and the rendering of the hair echo Hellenistic bronzes like the seated Fist-fighter in the Museo Nazionale in Rome.
The importance that Stuck attached to the sculpture is demonstrated by a letter of circa 1892-93 to the writer Fritz von Ostini, in which he proudly announced that he had already sold ‘thousands’ of copies of the Athlete, to the Nationalgalerie in Berlin and Hamburger Kunsthalle among other institutions.
Provenance Mr T. Baumgarten, Munich (Galerie Ritthaler, Munich); donated to the Van Gogh Museum (1994).
Literature Otto Julius Bierbaum, Stuck, Bielefeld & Leipzig 1899, p. 83 (with ill.); Franz Hermann Meissner, Franz Stuck, Berlin & Leipzig 1899, pp. 109 (with ill.), 110-11; exhib. cat. Franz Stuck, Munich (Museum Villa Stuck) 1968, no. 6; exhib. cat. Franz von Stuck, Munich (Museum Villa Stuck) 1982, no. 131; Angela Heilmann, Die Plastik Franz von Stucks: Studien zur Monographie und Formentwicklung, Munich 1985, pp. 26-60, 384-86, no. 1; Ursula Heidereich (ed.), Katalog der Skulpturen in der Kunsthalle Bremen, Bremen 1993, pp. 467-68; exhib. cat. Franz von Stuck: Gemälde-Zeichnung-Plastik, Passau (Stiftung Wörlen), Tettenweis (Franz von Stucks Geburtshaus), Vienna (Bawag Fondation), Munich (Villa Stuck) & Aschaffenburg (Schloß Johannisburg) 1993-94, no. 70; Edwin Becker, ‘Carpeaux - Gemito - Rodin - Minne - Stuck. Sculptuur-aanwinsten in het Van Gogh Museum,’ Antiek 29 (October 1994), no. 3, pp. 68-69; Van Gogh Bulletin 10 (1995), no. 3, p. 6; Edwin Becker, exhib. cat. Franz von Stuck (1863-1928): eros & pathos, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) 1995-96, no. 15.
Amazon 1897
Bronze with dark brown patina, 64.8 × 39.4 cm
Inscribed: Franz Stuck;
stamped: GUSS LEYRER MÜNCHEN
v 89 M/1992
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Franz von Stuck was a true polymath and a great advocate of the gesamtkunstwerk. In addition to graphic work, paintings and the design of the entire interior and exterior of his villa, he also made sculptures. Not surprisingly, the subjects are closely related to those of his paintings, as with this Amazon - a motif that he depicted on several occasions.
The design for the bronze, spear-throwing Amazon dates from 1897, and it brought Stuck international fame as a sculptor. The young horsewoman, her body arched backwards, is hurling a spear straight at an imaginary foe. The balanced composition, circular silhouette, smoothly finished, patinated bronze and lack of detail are typical of Stuck's Neoclassicist approach, as too is the decorative interplay of line, which betrays the influence of Jugendstil.
Stuck had a monumental version of the Amazon cast for the garden of his villa, but it was only after his death that it was installed, in front of the portico of the main entrance.
Provenance Max Hess, Allentown, Pennsylvania; New York (Sotheby's), 29 October 1992, lot 52; gift of the Friends of the Van Gogh Museum (1992).
Literature Ver Sacrum 1 (1898), no. 5/6, ill. on p. 12; Otto Julius Bierbaum, Stuck, Bielefeld & Leipzig 1899, pp. 138-39; Franz Hermann Meissner, Franz Stuck, Berlin & Leipzig 1899, p. 113, (with ill.); Ludwig Hevesi, Acht Jahre Secession, Vienna 1906, p. 147; exhib. cat. Franz Stuck, Munich (Museum Villa Stuck) 1968, no. 1; Maurice Rheims, 19th-century sculpture, London 1977, fig. 20; exhib cat Franz von Stuck, Munich (Museum Villa Stuck) 1982, no. 135; Angela Heilmann, Die Plastik Franz von Stucks: Studien zur Monographie und Formentwicklung, Munich 1985, pp. 152-62, 179-91, 390-93, no. 4; exhib. cat. Franz von Stuck und seine Schüler, Munich (Museum Villa Stuck) 1989, no. 32; Maria M. Makela, The Munich Secession: art and artists in turn-of-the-century Munich, Princeton 1990, p. 113, fig. 87; exhib. cat. Franz von Stuck: Gemälde-Zeichnung-Plastik, Passau (Stiftung Wörlen), Tettenweis (Franz von Stucks Geburtshaus), Vienna (Bawag Fondation), Munich (Villa Stuck) & Aschaffenburg (Schloß Johannisburg) 1993-94, no. 71; Eva Mendgen, Franz von Stuck 1863-1928: Ein Fürst im Reiche der Kunst, Cologne 1994, p. 66; Edwin Becker, ‘Carpeaux - Gemito - Rodin - Minne - Stuck. Sculptuur-aanwinsten in het Van Gogh Museum,’ Antiek 29 (October 1994), no. 3, pp. 69-70; exhib. cat. Der Kampf der Geschlechter: Der neue Mythos in der Kunst 1850-1930, Munich (Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus) 1995, no. 34; Van Gogh Bulletin 10 (1995), no. 3, p. 6;
Edwin Becker, exhib. cat. Franz von Stuck (1863-1928): eros & pathos, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) 1995-96, no. 21.
Fighting fauns 1903-04
Plaster, painted, 62 × 100 cm
Signed at bottom centre: Franz Stuck
v 98 M/1994
Stuck made several versions of this relief in different materials: plaster, bronze and stone. In style and subject it is related to his 1889 painting of Fighting fauns. Here, too, everything centres around the liveliness, energy and youthful vitality of the two young fauns, who are butting their heads together.
The plaster plaque shows the more erotic and humorous side of this ‘Kampf ums Weib’ (battle over a woman), as do several of Stuck's paintings. The two fauns in the relief also symbolise the Dionysian vital urge, and radiate a feeling of licentiousness. The background is neutral and gives no indication of the setting, thus placing the action in an intangible, supranatural world ‘beyond good and evil.’ Stuck's treatment of the theme of fighting fauns is a highly original combination of classical motifs: distinctly high-spirited Bacchanalian figures with goat's legs; pugnacious wrestlers as depicted on Greek amphorae from the 5th century B.C.; and bronze figures of Etruscans fighting.
Provenance Collection of Joey and Toby Tanenbaum; New York (Sotheby's), 26 May 1994, lot 140 (unsold); purchased by the Van Gogh Museum (1994).
Literature Die Kunst 11 (1904-05), p. 521, with ill. on p. 536; Fritz von Ostini, Franz von Stuck: Das Gesamtwerk, Munich 1909, p. 144; Otto Julius Bierbaum, Stuck, 4th ed., Bielefeld & Leipzig 1924, p. 138, with ill. on p. 156; Eugen Diem, Franz von Stuck, Munich 1927, p. 4; Angela Heilmann, Die Plastik Franz von Stucks: Studien zur Monographie und Formentwicklung, Munich 1985, pp. 216-24, 410, no. 18; Edwin Becker, exhib. cat. Franz von Stuck (1863-1928): eros & pathos, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) 1995-96, no. 39; Andreas Blühm, et al., exhib. cat. The colour of sculpture, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) & Leeds (Henry Moore Institute) 1996, no. 21
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Wezelaar, Henri Matthieu
Dutch, 1901-1984
Dr V.W. van Gogh 1971-72
Bronze, 27 × 18 × 21 cm
Signed on the right of the neck: W Cast by the Binder foundry, Haarlem
v 15 B/1978
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Engineer Vincent Willem van Gogh and the sculptor Han Wezelaar got to know each other in the town of Laren, where the latter had moved into Mendes da Costa's house after his colleague's death. For Wezelaar this was a brief intermezzo in a life spent largely in Amsterdam and Paris, where he had lived for ten years.
On his return to the Netherlands, where the prevailing expressionist sculpture of the Amsterdamers Krop, Rädecker and Polet held sway, Wezelaar caused a stir with his sensitive realism focused on the human figure, which is classical in concept but contemporary in character. Together with others of his generation, like Sondaar and Andriessen, he came to be regarded as one of the artists who freed sculpture from the clutches of architecture, thus opening the door to the first abstract style in Dutch sculpture.
In Wezelaar's postwar work, pure classicism made way for a more naturalistic and monumental approach, which reached its apogee in his portraiture. That is undeniably true of this ‘feather-light’ bust of Engineer Van Gogh. It is a harmonious and sensitively characterised portrait in which the sculptor used the means at his disposal to strike a balance between psychological characterisation and plastic conception.
Provenance Purchased from the artist by the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, Recreation and Social Work; Rijksdienst Beeldende Kunst, The Hague; on extended loan to the Van Gogh Museum (1978).
Literature V.P.S. Esser and K.G. Boon, Wezelaar: Een overzicht van zijn beelden, portretten en tekeningen, Venlo 1980, pp. 22, 84-85; D.A. van Karnebeek-van Royen, Catalogus Museum Henriëtte Polak, n.p. 1981, pp. 104-05.
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Zadkine, Ossip
French, 1890-1967
The Van Gogh brothers seated (Les frères Van Gogh assis) 1956-63/1965
Bronze, 46 × 34 × 35 cm
Signed on the right at the back: O. Zadkine 2/3
v 8 V/1977
See following entry.
Provenance Purchased from the artist by the Theo van Gogh Foundation (1965); transferred to the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1977).
Literature Evert van Uitert and Michael Hoyle (eds.), The Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam 1987, p. 505; Sylvain Lecombre and Helena Staub, Ossip Zadkine: l'oeuvre sculpté, Paris 1994, p. 534, no. 479.
Design for the monument to the Van Gogh brothers (Projet de Monument aux frères Van Gogh) 1963
Bronze, 79 × 28 × 23 cm
Signed and dated on the plinth: O.Z. 63
v 9 V/1982
In the course of the 20th century, Vincent van Gogh not only became a public hero but also served as an inspirational example to his later colleagues. It is not surprising that such an emotional talent as Ossip Zadkine venerated Van Gogh as a god. In the 1950s and 60s this French artist of Russian descent became the sculptor of Van Gogh monuments. He made no fewer than four: at Wasmes in the Borinage (1958), Auvers-sur-Oise (1961), Zundert (1964), and Saint-Rémy-de-Provence (1966). In the period 1956-66, Zadkine worked ceaselessly on sketches for these monuments. He described the journey of discovery to the heart of his beloved subject as ‘enthralling labour’, and eventually considered the combination of the two brothers to be the most successful design, for ‘one cannot separate them, either in life, in death, or in art’. In both these versions he allowed the symbolic aspect of their fraternal entwinement to predominate over the pure portrait. The design of both studies rekindles the cubist-expressionistic idiom that Zadkine had evolved in the 1920s and 30s.
Provenance M.E. Tralbaut; M. Tralbaut-Dewachter; purchased by the Theo van Gogh Foundation (1977); transferred to the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (1982).
Literature Evert van Uitert and Michael Hoyle (eds.), The Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam 1987, p. 505; Sylvain Lecombre and Helena Staub, Ossip Zadkine: l'oeuvre sculpté, Paris 1994, p. 597, no. 534.
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