Learning Guide | Recasting Rodin

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authorial and quality control, there is a legal limit
(twelve in the case of Rodin, as determined by French
law) to the number of bronzes that can be produced
in an “original edition.” In order to differentiate them
from unauthorized “fakes,” each one is numbered
and marked with the foundry name. Yet even beyond
these foundry marks, other distinctions still obtain:
connoisseurs, for example, often prize the subtle
differences in the patination of the bronzes, with
those produced during Rodin’s lifetime evincing an
especially extraordinary range of coloristic effects.
Even beyond the highly technical complexities of
bronze casting, Rodin’s fondness for plaster casts,
notwithstanding the fragility of the medium and its
tendency to accrue a grimy patina of dust and dirt,
signals a recursive relationship to issues of authorship
and media. Take, for example, his portrait of
Madame Fenaille, the wife of one of his most ardent
supporters. Originally executed in marble by Rodin’s
assistant (practicien), the bust was subsequently
transformed into a plaster that could then be used as
a record of the marble for posterity or else produced
for sale. Here we see how the plaster indexes the
marble through the marks of the chisel in the hair
and at the base. These marks reverently evoke
Michelangelo’s famous nonfinito works that so enchanted Rodin on his travels in Italy: sculptures that stage their
various states of unfinish as a deliberate aesthetic—one that points to the Neoplatonic aim of the Renaissance master
to liberate his figures from their marmoreal prisons. Yet what
the dull plaster faithfully records through its form-hugging,
viscous materiality, it loses in terms of the luminous quality of
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marble whose crystalline structure gleams and glitters in the
light. In so doing, Rodin draws attention to the differentiation
of media that constitutes an enduring theme of his work.
The magic of plaster, as Rodin shrewdly recognized, lay in its
material capacity for manipulation—a manipulation not only
of form, but also of space. Nowhere is this more evident than
Rodin’s prodigious output of plaster hands. Many of these—at
least 150 examples—were stored in chests of drawers and
pulled out for visitors as if they were anatomical specimens
or religious ex-votos, with one such visitor remarking that
Rodin would “pick them up tenderly one by one and then
turn them about and lay them back.” Thanks to their lightness,
Rodin could deploy these disembodied hands in space in
inventive ways in order to work out compositional problems
in his larger sculptural ensembles. A photograph by E. Freuler
(Suspended Hand in Plaster) shows a plaster study of the
left hand of Eustache de Saint-Pierre, one of the figures in
his monumental work, The Burghers of Calais. Strung up on
a rig so that it hangs pendulously, at once defying gravity
7. Auguste Rodin, France, 1840–1917. Madame Fenaille c. 1900. Plaster. 25-3/4 x 24-3/4 x 21 in. 65.4
x 62.9 x 53.3 cm. Credit line: Gift of the B. Gerald Cantor Collection. Accession no.: 1983.205
8. E. Freuler, France, late 19th century- early 20th century. Suspended Hand in Plaster 20th century.
Salt print. 11.3 x 8.4 cm. (sheet/image). Credit line: Gift of Albert E. and Patricia Elsen. Accession no.:
1986.434
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